This is what happens when a political camp
Posted By: becomes so immersend in its own bankrupt.sm on 2008-10-25
In Reply to: I want change. Chump change. I'm voting for Obama as far as the pollsters go. - Bradley
ignorance as they support candidates that do not even have the sense to equip their supporters with enough ammunition to be able to defend their own party's own platform positions. Their white matter is so atrophied from lack of exercise that they are not able to come up with anything except vacuous statements such as these.
They travel in packs and set out on their hunts, in search of the slur, slander, dirt and lies, on a mission to convince themselves and each other of their social superiority and to bolster their delusions of grandeur, couched in their unfounded beliefs that they are the Ones...the pure, true, real Americans and that the opposing candidate and the "theys" that support him are the "Others," the cursed Moslem terrorists, subversive socialists, Anti-American militant camp of racial mongrels, the great unwashed underbelly of the nation, composed of factions of militant tribal warriors whose shared vision is to bring their country down.
Their eyes are glazed over after weeks and weeks of speaking with forked tongues as they get themselves all caught up in the rapture of self-righteous indigation and self assurance. The fervor of their mob mentality is reaching ever such higher proportions, whipped up into frenzies of verbal volleys, the rhetorical equivalent of suicide bombs, which they hurl without abandon across vast stretchs of cyberspace, confident their strikes are surgical and secretly hoping to take down as much collateral damage as possible. They start to mistake their bully pulpit sermons for strength in numbers, all forceful and mighty, these champions of truth and might.
This process is a natural by-product of weeks upon weeks of chanting hate-speech mantra, reinforced by spinmeisters and hammering hatred that issues forth from their fearless leaders at campaign rallies. This causes them to eventually adopt this kind of arrogance that ultimately morphs into some sort suspended, animated, twisted logic that actually allows them to believe that they are calling the faithful to arms, energizing their base, and calling forth armies of fellow true, pure Americans, marching to the polls down the road to nowhere.
Face it, Bradley, your guy is all washed up and your party's going down.
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Her camp just came out and said she
xx
Looks like the McC camp is providing
Nice to see that tonge in cheeck is alive and well in the heartland. It is a welcome relief from all that cleaving gloom and doom negativity. A little humor never hurt anybody, but before long, we will be hearing how O's camp is using it to subvert the population into communist submission.
Who else got an email from the O camp?
I got one yesterday. They want help with their health "discussions" on health care.
"Over the coming weeks, thousands of Americans will be leading Health Care Community Discussions -- small local gatherings in which Americans are sharing thoughts and ideas about reforming health care. President-elect Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle are counting on Americans from every walk of life to help identify what's broken and provide ideas for how to fix it.
You can help shape that reform by leading your own Health Care Community Discussion anytime between now and December 31st. "
Do ya think I should do it? Do ya think I can get them to stop outsourcing? I'm not an O lover as you all know and I get a real kick out of this. How many of you O lovers got this email?
Camp Casey Connections
Still looking for live computer connections to Camp Casey. So far this is what I have found
If you want to hear a live broadcast of what is going on in Crawford, you can go to this link and listen live:
http://www.bradblog.com/
If you so desire, you can also use this post as a way to post any updates you hear on what is going on in Crawford.
I just sent an E-mail to the Obama camp - SM
I wonder what he will do. Or will he say one thing while doing another or completely ignore the situation.
This is a repost, as it belongs on the Politics board.
Moderator 
I did NOT imply that his camp started it....
in fact, I said the dailykos started it, and unless his camp blogs there and I don't know it, that is exactly what I meant. What I said is that when he asks his supporters not to continue and they persist, it reflects negatively on his candidacy in some people's minds...and that is all I said. I also said that I believe him and that he was sincere...and that his supporters are ignoring him. However, I have heard others suggest that he is saying that publically but behind the scenes his camp is fanning it. I did not say it, and I do not personally think it, and would not unless it was proven. All I am saying is that some perceive it that way.
Michelle's Boot Camp
http://www.publicallies.org/site/c.liKUL3PNLvF/b.2634379/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Allies
Now McCain camp wants to postpone VP
debate to a later time. They want to move this one on Friday to that time next week, and do the VP one "at a later date". Something smells fishy!
Where did I say McC camp provided this information?
the word "fodder." With Webster at your fingertips, you might try looking it up next time before you leap to unfounded conclusions.
Goes to show that McC camp will not hestitate to lie
for political gain.
The same vote that McC/W camp are trying/tried to suppress?
x
McC camp is so desperate they will even pose
Wouldn't be the first pub plant we've encountered. Role playing for the sake of argument will not win any elections. You have zero credibility.
Obama camp outraged...
by the tough questions a conservative reporter asked Joe Biden. Boycotting the station. And said, are you ready, that that same reporter gave McCain softball questions. Well hellooo....welcome to the real world, guys!! Can you believe it? Whine, whine. You asked Joe hard questions about Marxism and Obama facing a crisis during his first 6 months (Joe's own quote) and that is NOT FAIR because you did not ask McCain hard questions. And what has been the life of McCain and Sarah Palin with all mainstream media? Hard questions. Obama and Biden? Major softball questions. They got the tables turned on them and squealed like pigs stuck under a gate. They need to do what they told Sarah Palin to do...GET TOUGH. Ha! When given the choice to run with the big dogs or stay on the porch....they are whining on the porch. UNbelievable!!
O camp donations not unlawful.
Current campaign finance laws do not require records to be kept on donations less than $200. If records are not required and hence, not kept, then they cannot be produced.
Both campaigns have solicited on-line contributions, some of which have questionable sources in the sense that they are not properly identified or identifiable, including McC contributions documentation that does not reflect geographic origins.
As a matter of fact, O camp donations ARE in compliance with FEC (as are McC's), so no investigation is "warranted." Furthermore, O camp has returned contributions they deem coming from "suspicious" sources.
In terms of the Nigerian donations, no one can stop ATTEMPTS by foreign nationals to contribute to candidates they support. It is not an issue unless they are actually ACCEPTED.
Didn't say that. Just would like to see McCain camp
x
I would like to see the Obama camp stand up for Joe's...
civil rights too.
That's the norm with the Obama camp
False ads and sexist ads.
Oh yeah, "class A campaign" - NOT.
That actually does look like an Obama camp leak....(sm)
but for good reason. Obama wants transparency. It would work to his favor for it to be known that he urged Bush for quick action. He's putting pressure on Bush. I think the point of the exercise is that when these things don't get done in a timely fashion or legislation cannot get passed, it puts the spotlight on the ones who would obstruct it.
If I'm not mistaken, they actually do record oval office meetings. I think it was originally started to prevent misquotes. They just don't let them out until years later.
OMG I forgot about boot camp
Your right - torture. I went through 2 months of sleep deprevation, exercising til I thought my body would fall apart, standing in lines for hours and hours while the drill sergeant stood yelling in my face with his bad breath I was a skumbag private, lower than dirt, get down and give me 20, etc, etc., Never mind if I didn't answer a question correctly. Then there was the obstacle course, repelling from an 80 foot tower, having to go into the gas chamber while they had gas going off, take off my gas mask and breath it in, then run outside to throw up. Marching 17 and 25 mile marches in the 112 degree heat, escape and evasion tactics, crawling under a barb wire fence on my stomach in mud pits while fires were being shot over our heads and keeping my weapon above the water (and lets not even mention what happened when people called it their gun and not weapon). Talk about humiliated. Or if we were caught sleeping during classes, etc, etc, etc.
Two months of that - yeah I'd sure call that torture. Am I glad I went through it? yes I am. Would I ever do it again? Heck no.
joan baez at camp casey
Video of Joan Baez at Camp Casey singing Where Have All The Flowers Gone.
Musician Joan Baez
Where Have All the Flowers Gone
08.21.05
QuickTime
DSL | 56K
Windows Media
DSL | 56K
RealMedia
DSL | 56K
Michelle's Boot Camp for Radicals
Michelle's Boot Camps For Radicals
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, September 04, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election ང: Democrats' reintroduction of militant Michelle Obama in Denver was supposed to show her softer side. But it only highlighted a radical part of her resume: Public Allies.
IBD Series: The Audacity Of Socialism
Barack Obama was a founding member of the board of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife became executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies in 1993. Obama plans to use the nonprofit group, which he features on his campaign Web site, as the model for a national service corps. He calls his Orwellian program, "Universal Voluntary Public Service."
Big Brother had nothing on the Obamas. They plan to herd American youth into government-funded reeducation camps where they'll be brainwashed into thinking America is a racist, oppressive place in need of "social change."
The pitch Public Allies makes on its Web site doesn't seem all that radical. It promises to place young adults (18-30) in paid one-year "community leadership" positions with nonprofit or government agencies. They'll also be required to attend weekly training workshops and three retreats.
In exchange, they'll get a monthly stipend of up to $1,800, plus paid health and child care. They also get a post-service education award of $4,725 that can be used to pay off past student loans or fund future education.
But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about "social change" through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation — the tactics used by the father of community organizing, Saul "The Red" Alinsky.
"Our alumni are more than twice as likely as 18-34 year olds to . . . engage in protest activities," Public Allies boasts in a document found with its tax filings. It has already deployed an army of 2,200 community organizers like Obama to agitate for "justice" and "equality" in his hometown of Chicago and other U.S. cities, including Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Washington. "I get to practice being an activist," and get paid for it, gushed Cincinnati recruit Amy Vincent.
Public Allies promotes "diversity and inclusion," a program paper says. More than 70% of its recruits are "people of color." When they're not protesting, they're staffing AIDS clinics, handing out condoms, bailing criminals out of jail and helping illegal aliens and the homeless obtain food stamps and other welfare.
Public Allies brags that more than 80% of graduates have continued working in nonprofit or government jobs. It's training the "next generation of nonprofit leaders" — future "social entrepreneurs."
The Obamas discourage work in the private sector. "Don't go into corporate America," Michelle has exhorted youth. "Work for the community. Be social workers." Shun the "money culture," Barack added. "Individual salvation depends on collective salvation."
"If you commit to serving your community," he pledged in his Denver acceptance speech, "we will make sure you can afford a college education." So, go through government to go to college, and then go back into government.
Many of today's youth find the pitch attractive. "I may spend the rest of my life trying to create social movement," said Brian Coovert of the Cincinnati chapter. "There is always going to be work to do. Until we have a perfect country, I'll have a job."
Not all the recruits appreciate the PC indoctrination. "It was too touchy-feely," said Nelly Nieblas, 29, of the 2005 Los Angeles class. "It's a lot of talk about race, a lot of talk about sexism, a lot of talk about homophobia, talk about -isms and phobias."
One of those -isms is "heterosexism," which a Public Allies training seminar in Chicago describes as a negative byproduct of "capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege."
The government now funds about half of Public Allies' expenses through Clinton's AmeriCorps. Obama wants to fully fund it and expand it into a national program that some see costing $500 billion. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the military, he said.
The gall of it: The Obamas want to create a boot camp for radicals who hate the military — and stick American taxpayers with the bill.
Incoherence must be contagious in the McCain camp.
Isn't that interesting? Just how rested would you be after 3 weeks staight of 2 or 3 plane trips a day across the country and back again during a heated primary season? Being a nonsmoker is not a qualification for the presidency. Are you seriously trying to get political traction by reminding us how Obama lost his mom to ovarian cancer in her early 50's? Just how desperate are you guys anyway? You've been watching too much Hannity. By the way, how's that economic plan coming along out of the McCain camp these days? Mum's the word, it seems. The polls tell us just how well that is working for ya.
OK, so the latest message out of the McCain camp
We recognize it by its underlying agenda of twisting a child's story into an Obama smear.
Incoherence is a contagious disease in McC camp
su
Why should he dignify McC camp culture war slurs
He's no different than any other dem....off to greener pastures in search of triple digit IQs.
McC camp speaking in forked tongues and
McCain has been the chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI) since 1993. Rashid Khalidi, the Palestinian activist in question, helped found the Center for Palestinian Research and Study (CPRS). You see, his day job is that of highly respected educator. He served on the board of trustees there until 1999. The IRI funded the CPRS in 1998 and 1999 to the tune of $838,873. Oh my!
To make matters worse, McCain is now raising a ruckus with the LA Times, who is refusing to violate confidentiality of a source and "hand over" a video of Obama and the suspicious Palestinian activist/educator/trustee of the CPRS which McC's IRI funded. Should we be worried that McC cannot keep his "activists" straight, can't remember funding a suspicious Palestinian educator or the just the double standard 2-ton elephant in the room?
Relax. I was referring to the McCain camp.
x
This is an article from the UK Times about Camp Cropper....gives more details ...
From the The UK TimesSeptember 15, 2007
They have planted bombs and shot soldiers – now it is time for school
Martin Fletcher in Camp Cropper
Ammar winds up a ten-minute harangue against Saddam Hussein with questions to his students. “How many of you had relatives executed?” asks the 33-year-old history teacher. Eight put up their hands. How many lost relatives in the Iran-Iraq war? Twelve hands rise. How many think Saddam was a bad man? All 24 students assent.
Their sincerity, though, is hard to gauge. This is no normal class, despite the Harry Potter books in Arabic on the shelves.
Ammar’s pupils wear bright yellow jumpsuits with plastic sandals and white identity bracelets around their wrists. They are among the rapidly multiplying number of child fighters held in the Camp Cropper detention centre near Baghdad airport.
The children, who are aged between 11 and 17, stand accused of offences ranging from acting as lookouts for kidnappers to planting bombs and shooting soldiers. The US military is sending them to school to reeducate them, to rid them of jihadist cant, to clear their brainwashed heads of, for example, the notion that Saddam was a glorious leader who defied an evil and aggressive superpower .
Related Links
Gates: US troops in Iraq could be cut to 100,000
Iraqis vow to avenge America's murdered ally
Army interpreters told to leave Basra
“We want them to be able to think for themselves so they’ll pick up a book instead of an AK47,” says Brigadier General Mike Nevin, the centre’s commander.
Iraq’s children are among the worst victims of the war, a generation brutalised and traumatised by the constant violence.
The detention centre is a daunting place for a teenager. Dubbed Remembrance II or R2, is a maze of formidable five-metre-high (17ft) mesh fences topped by coiled razor wire, floodlights and watchtowers. From metal catwalks armed guards look down on concrete-floored pens where surly detainees in yellow jumpsuits linger outside their huts in the baking heat. Nobody has escaped yet.
There are 4,000 male detainees in R2 and, with President Bush’s troop “surge” in full swing, 60 more arrive each day. There are separate zones for Sunnis, Shias, foreign fighters, moderates, extremists, adults and juveniles. Roughly 85 per cent are Sunni. A quarter are diehard jihadists determined to continue their war against the infidel Americans even while in custody.
The hardliners hold Sharia courts, beat fellow detainees for smoking, listening to music or participating in US programmes. They start fires. They foment riots. They hurl water bottles filled with urine at the guards, and “chai rocks” made of tea and dust moulded into hard round balls. They fashion knives from fragments of razor wire or the ground-down ends of toothbrush handles. They make slingshots from soccer ball linings and whips from strips of towel. Occasionally detainees are murdered by their peers – earlier this year a 17-year-old was strangled.
The US has realised belatedly that the detainee population is a rich recruiting ground for the fanatics. It now strives to isolate the real hardliners – during riots guards fire paintballs at the ringleaders so they can be identified later – while wooing the rest with offers of paid work, “antiextremist enlightenment programmes” that include lessons from moderate imams and enhanced prospects of release.
But total segregation is impossible. The extremists do not advertise themselves. Some will shave their beards to blend in with the rest. And “rock mail” – messages wrapped round stones – permits the passing of orders and threats from one compound to another. “They are very determined. They never give up,” says General Nevin.
With the 828 juvenile inmates, however, the military is making an extra effort. It does not want them released after a year to become next year’s suicide bombers.
It judges a hundred or so to be beyond redemption, but the rest are now bussed daily to a new school outside R2 called Dar al-Hikmah, or Wisdom House.
The school is a row of prefabricated sheds ringed by blast walls. Here the inmates receive eight hours of lessons a day. They are taught to read and write, they play soccer and basketball, they have Iraqi civilian teachers and security is markedly more relaxed. “We’re trying to take them away from the environment they have at R2,” says Captain Ali Dipour, the principal.
The school has only been open a month, but General Nevin and the teachers say that it is working already. They say that the children’s hatred and anger is dissipating; that Sunnis and Shia teenagers are beginning to mix, that they no longer chant the names of Osama bin Laden or Moqtada al-Sadr at prayer or hurl abuse at their teachers. Leyla, the only woman teacher, says that the boys see her as something of a mother figure.
The claims are hard to test, but the classes certainly look orderly and the students attentive. As in a million other schools around the world, the walls are decorated with childish crayon drawings of animals, trees, houses and stick-figure humans. “They are just kids wanting to be kids,” says Captain Dipour.
Time will tell; but it is just conceivable that in this grim detention centre, some of these child fighters are enjoying a taste of normality for the first time in their lives.
— The number of American troops in Iraq could be reduced to about 100,000 by the time the next president takes over in 2009, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, indicated yesterday.
Casualties of war
2m Iraqi children displaced by fighting
800,000 children receive no schooling
28% of children are malnourished
6 children, aged 10 to 15, are treated each month by US medics after planting roadside bombs
828 juvenile detainees are in Camp Cropper, up from fewer than 100 last year
Sources: Unicef, Save the Children, Oxfam, US military
Have your say
I didn't imagine that something like what you report could be happening today. I'm horrified. The fact that children are being brainwashed in the madrassas as well,, in the course of their "quran" learning, so they may immediately be "ordered" to become sucide bombers, whenever a mullah deems so, during the rest of their lives, should also be something widely published. ´Where are the "progressist" human rights activists? The UN activists? How come nothing is said in the media about this terrible reality? I am willing to dedicate my life to help organizing an initiative towards the ending of this situation.
Simon Salosny, Santiago, Chile
I want to say that you did an excellent job on this article. I'm nearing the end of my deployment here at Camp Cropper and I spent around seven months working with these kids. It is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life, and now that I am leaving my only hope is that I have done some good here. I think I have with these kids. As a guard on the compound I've talked with a lot of them about their views, and told them mine, and told them that I am only here to help them. They use to ask me why I was here, most of them thought it was for money, but really it was for the prospect that I might be able to make a difference, and that was what I would tell them; that Maybe I could make a difference in their lives so they could live a normal life. I think it is sad that there are so many kids detained here, but while they are here maybe we can give them a chance. Thank you for showing some of the good that comes out of this war and our detention program.
SGT Bryan Scroggins
Bryan Scroggins, TROY, illinois
Really. Did the McCain camp call you and give you that news? sm
Maybe she just wanted to show she was a good sport, since they obviously lampooon her every single week.
We knew it wouldn't take long for McC camp racism
Why do you think this line of rhetoric will attract a single person to your views? Time to move on and bring yourelf up into the 21st century.
So, pub camp does not declare war on the media, put Palin on a leash,
strays off topic or reveals her ignorance?
7 days out. What part of Marxist slurs are a waste of valuable air time do you not get...especially for the candidates who do not choose to be sucked into cultural warfare? They are perfectly free to pick and choose where, when and to whom they do or do not speak to.
I could have sworn a few months back McCain camp
Was I just hallucinating or what?
Bush III: McCain camp is so desperate they have to resort to swiftboating? nm
nm
Progressives harping about camp finance reform for years.
We've heard virtually nothing out of the republican party on this issue (except resistance) until how. Why is that? Could it be because they never expected democrats to beat them at their own game?
Spare us the phoney outrage. As the law stands now, those small potatoes contributions up to $200 have not been an issue until Obama received such a landslide of them and raised more money than any other candidate in history.
You want somebody to do something about this? You will have to start at the beginning...swallow the bitter pill and enact campaign finance reform. Until then, you can raise all the questions you want to raise.
PS: Ghadafi's claims that foreign national fundraising is "legitimate" is pertinent to this argument how? Have you seen the global electoral map lately? The entire world has their eyes on this election (hoping against hope we will not elect another saber-rattler) and are entitled to have an opinion.
http://www.economist.com/Vote2008/ Take a look.
Video: Kids at Jesus Camp Worship to Bush Photo
This is some pretty creepy stuff.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/09/18/video-kids-at-jesus-camp_n_29703.html
McCain Camp Buses In School Kids To Fill Crowd
Surely this information is incorrect.
The most cringe-worthy political moment of the day, so far, came when Sen. John McCain called out for his new buddy Joe the Plumber to stand up at a rally in Ohio, only to be greeted with confused silence. Joe the Plumber wasn't there.
But that rally featured another embarrassing moment, one that illustrates a far more troubling dynamic for the Republican ticket. The McCain campaign actually had to bus in school kids from the surrounding area in order to fill the event. As reported by MSNBC:
A local school district official confirmed after the event that of the 6,000 people estimated by the fire marshal to be in attendance this morning, more than 4,000 were bused in from schools in the area. The entire 2,500-student Defiance School District was in attendance, the official said, in addition to at least three other schools from neighboring districts, one of which sent 14 buses.
This happened -- as if a reminder were needed -- less than a week out from the election, when the heat of the campaign should be drawing record crowds.
political ads
First of all, I have to say I am so sick of the ads; I think they should limit TV so they can't start months and months before the election and then can't take up every single commercial break. But my question is, has anyone else noticed the ads change according to what the public is saying. The public sentiment runs one way, the ad reinforces that sentiment. The public says something else and the ad changes to what the public wants to hear. I want to tell them "get a platform and stick to it. Let us know what you really think and what your real plans are so we can make an informed decision." All this back and forth is making me dizzy and just more proof that you just can't trust them.
I never said what political persuasian I was. sm
You presume an awful lot and have attacked here more than once without provocation. As far as Chelsea, I don't see her mentioned here. However, making no presumptions, a Christian person does not post as you do. So am I to assume you post as more than one? It isn't nice to have presumptions made about oneself, is it?
The Christian right isn't political at all. sm
There are many Democrats who belong to the Christian right. I am not sure why you feel politicizing religion is so important, but I realize how important labels are to you. It's unfortunate. Jimmy Carter just recently came out and spoke against the Democratic party for abandoning God. If Christians feel they have to place to turn but the *right*, whose fault is that? Pat Robertson doesn't speak for me. However, he is a good man and a Christian man. As far as calling for an assassination that's bogus and was taken out of context and anyone who cared to do their research would know that. But it's just way more convenient and fits into the left's philosophy to damn him to hell. THERE' s the left for you.
Political civil war that really does sum it up....sm
And it really is a sad state of affairs.
You raise a good point about bin Laden, I never thought of that. He could have died of natural causes and be buried somewhere. It's not like he was the most vigorous being (healthwise). Who knows?
Catching him two years ago would have meant more politically and *antiterror* wise than it would mean today.
Next we will be checking the political....
affiliation of serial killers. Sigh. What do you think Osama bin Laden would register as if he could register to vote....ummmm....don't think it would be with the Christian right.....? Are we going to try to list the perverts and see whose list is the longest? Why even post this, when you have cigar-wielding Bill Clinton on your list? Do you honestly think this man in the bathroom did what he did because he is a Republican? If so, that means Billy must have wielded the cigar because he is a Democrat....?
I repeat...why even post this?
political comedy
You are right. It is so ABSURD that it is funny. 
BS from a political watchdog?
Do you even know what that means?
But it would be political hay if it were an Obama
@
Making political hay.
These dadgone Republicans will make hay out of anything even if it makes them look like idgits.
Political nuttiness.
Who cares? I'll vote for the person I feel is the right one for the job and all of this political nattering isn't improving your line counts, is it?
Okay. use your kid to get your political opinion
nm
That is if political boards like this are
allowed to remain in existence when Obama's regime takes over.
Thank goodness, no more political ads! nm
))
Political humor
Subject: Will Obama get Osama, or will Osama get Obama?
After numerous rounds of 'We don't even know if Osama is still
alive', Barrack Hussein Obama has now been telling everyone he will
capture Osama Bin Laden when elected.
So, Osama himself decided to send Barrack Hussein Obama a letter in
his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game.
Obama opened the letter and it contained a single line of coded
message:
370H-SSV-0773H
Obama was baffled, so he e-mailed it to Howard Dean.
Dean and the DNC and his aides had no clue either, so they sent it
to Joe Biden.
Joe Biden could not solve so it was sent to the FBI and the CIA.
Eventually they asked John McCain and his Staff to look at it.
And within minutes McCain's Staff e-mailed Obama with this reply:
'Tell Obama he's holding the message upside down'.
Top 10 political newcomers
OMG! Get ready for a big shock by one certain individual who made the list!
Top 10 political newcomers of 2008
By: Alexander Burns
January 3, 2009 07:09 PM EST
Even in a year dominated by oversized political personalities — Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain chief among them — a few lesser-known newcomers helped define the electoral landscape.
These new arrivals on the national stage — relative unknowns who burst onto the scene, behind-the-scenes players who suddenly took on high-profile roles, politicians who took their act beyond their state’s borders — made 2008 a livelier, more engaging political year and seem likely to continue shaping the political environment for better or for worse.
Gov. Sarah Palin: The Alaska governor was a significant political figure in her own right before 2008, but in the span of just a few months the former Wasilla mayor exploded onto the national scene to become the first woman nominated for national office by the Republican Party and one of the most controversial political figures in the country.
Her introduction to the public wasn’t as smooth as it could have been: After a dazzling performance at the Republican National Convention, a series of campaign-trail missteps diminished Palin’s electoral appeal. But the GOP base never stopped loving Palin, and despite her ticket’s defeat, Palin remains an enormously popular conservative who’s poised to help determine the future of the party.
Caroline Kennedy: The last living child of President John F. Kennedy, the 51-year-old Manhattanite emerged from her famously private lifestyle in late January, writing a New York Times op-ed endorsing Obama for president.
A joint endorsement rally with her uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), followed a day later, vaulting Caroline into the front lines of the presidential campaign. After the end of the Democratic primaries, she headed up Obama’s vice presidential selection process with Eric Holder and spoke at the Democratic National Convention.
Now she’s reportedly a leading contender for the Senate seat Clinton will vacate when she takes up her new post at the State Department. Quite a debut, even for a Kennedy.
David Plouffe: An unlikely celebrity, the Obama campaign manager usually attracts distinctly un-glitzy adjectives like “soft-spoken” and “camera-shy.” But as the operations guy behind the Obama phenomenon, Plouffe cultivated a reputation as a no-nonsense political chess master.
Plouffe won’t take a position within the administration, though he may continue to play a role shaping Obama’s movement outside the White House. He is, however, cashing in: he’s already signed on with the Washington Speakers Bureau and is penning a future best-seller, tentatively titled “The Audacity to Win.”
Sen.-elect Kay Hagan (D-N.C.): Few expected this obscure state legislator to have much of a shot against a political titan like Sen. Elizabeth Dole. Sure, Hagan was the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s anointed candidate, but most political prognosticators expected her campaign would fall short in the end.
But after winning her party’s nomination in May, Hagan proved an adept fundraiser and relentlessly attacked Dole as an out-of-touch Washington insider. By the fall, Hagan was surging, and when Dole blasted back with ads linking Hagan to an atheist group it backfired. Hagan won by 9 points.
In a non-presidential year, Hagan would likely have attracted more attention as a political giant-killer. Hagan will have to settle for a humbler title: United States senator.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.): Like Palin, Corker held high office before 2008. But it wasn’t until the Senate’s showdown over a proposed auto industry bailout that the former Chattanooga mayor distinguished himself as a serious player on the Hill.
Drawing praise from the GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, as well as from Democrats like Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Corker took the lead in shaping the Republican counterproposal to Democrats’ aid plan for Detroit.
His performance over the past month — which even a partisan like Durbin conceded was “magnificent” — makes him one of the few Republicans who looks better after Nov. 4 than he did before, standing out as a possible future leader in a party that’s been largely decapitated.
Meg Whitman: The former ebay CEO left her corporate post only about nine months ago. But thanks to her work on behalf of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s primary campaign, and the McCain-Palin ticket in the general election, Whitman is on her way to becoming a significant national political figure.
Though Palin ultimately took the prize, Whitman was buzzed about for the vice presidency after McCain listed her among the three wisest people he knew (the other two were Gen. David Petraeus and John Lewis, the Democratic congressman and civil rights hero). Whitman also delivered a solid, if unmemorable, speech at the Republican National Convention.
She’s now eyeing the 2010 California governor’s race, and with her business background and deep pockets Whitman has a real shot. If she were elected governor of the most-populous state in the nation, Whitman would immediately be find herself on the short list of Republican presidential contenders.
Beau Biden: During the Democratic convention, few speakers inspired as much on-air swooning as son of the now vice president-elect, Joe Biden. CNN’s David Gergen called Beau Biden’s address a “remarkably good speech” and “a home run.”
The 39-year-old Delaware attorney general's National Guard unit was deployed to Iraq in October. When he comes back, he’ll have the chance to put his famous name to use when his father’s Senate seat comes up for a special election in 2010. He hasn’t said that he’ll seek the job, but Joe Biden made his own preferences clear by engineering the appointment of a placeholder for the seat.
“It is no secret that I believe my son, Attorney General Beau Biden, would make a great United States senator, just as I believe he has been a great attorney general,” Biden said in a statement after his longtime aide, Ted Kaufman, was tapped for the seat in November.
Gov. David Paterson: When Paterson was elected lieutenant governor in 2006, New York’s political class viewed him to be a senator-in-waiting, ready to step up in the event Hillary Rodham Clinton won the presidency. An affable political operator with a wry sense of humor, Paterson was expected to spend a term or two in former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s shadow until the crusading former prosecutor decided to go national.
That plan didn’t quite work out. Spitzer resigned in disgrace after a personal scandal, leaving Paterson in charge. Paterson, it seems, had a few skeletons of his own in the closet. Fresh off revelations of his own personal indiscretions, Paterson was then confronted by the Wall Street crisis, which has left New York’s budget in a shambles. Now he finds himself at the center of the succession spectacle over Clinton’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck: This slot might actually be an ensemble prize given to the entire cast of ABC's “The View,” the women’s chat show which emerged this year as morning television’s most entertaining and unlikely forum for political debate.
But if there’s one member of the show’s cast who stood out, it was former “Survivor” contestant-turned-conservative pundit Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Cut from a different mold than your typical right-of-center talking head, Hasselbeck frequently clashed with her considerably more liberal co-hosts, including the venerable Barbara Walters, by defending the McCain-Palin campaign. In October, Hasselbeck went so far as to campaign with the GOP vice presidential candidate in Florida.
If there were any doubts about her stature as a rising GOP pundit, they were dispelled last week. After complaining on the air that she didn’t receive an invitation this year’s White House Christmas party, Hasselbeck promptly received a apology from the White House. It turned out she had been invited but her invitation did not arrive on time.
Rachel Maddow: Since taking over the 9 p.m. slot on MSNBC, Maddow has posted strong ratings by finally giving liberal cable-watchers the show they’ve always wanted. Less combative than Chris Matthews and less self-righteous than Keith Olbermann, the former Rhodes Scholar has defined herself as a thoughtful, sharp — and sharp-tongued — host who presents her perspective on the news without being cranky, gimmicky and repetitive.
For Maddow, as for all liberal commentators, the question is how she’ll keep her audience engaged without the Bush administration serving as a foil. Judging from her quick start, it’s a good bet she’ll figure out a way.
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