When Women Vote, Women Win

Lesley Gore rocks!



NEWER UPDATE: Disregard that stuff below; as of August 2015, it's back!

UPDATE: While Lesley Gore obviously rocks, the corporate wet blankets known as Canal Plus, Warner Chappell, and UMG totally DON'T rock! When they're being busy-bodies and wrecking everyone's fun in the name of copyright protection, those short-sighted assholes don't comprehend that this video would have likely produced a spike in iTunes sales of this otherwise somewhat moldy relic from four decades ago! But why would they want profits, when they can have pretend litigious benefits? Dummies!

The latest poll

via those wacky geniuses at BoingBoing.

McMahon parks the bus on Romney

Apparently Linda McMahon has a severe case of "Romnesia", because she just released a TV ad that basically threw her party's presidential candidate under her campaign bus. Watch this:



McMahon is basically saying that she knows her candidate can't win, so she's willing to drop him like a hot potato and court Obama voters.

I am fairly sure that not only will she fail to gather very many Democratic voters, but she's likely to piss off a significant number of Republican and conservative-leaning Independent voters.

She's toast.

Senator George S. McGovern

Sad but not unexpected news about the passing of George McGovern today. Among many other notable accomplishments (McGovern was a longtime activist on the issue of world hunger, and in 2001 the United Nations made him its first global ambassador to ease hunger) he was the Democratic nominee for President in 1972.

We all know how that went down, but McGovern was a class act to the end. I think Hunter S. Thompson's words best described what an opportunity this country missed by not electing him president, written in advance of the election in September of 1972:

If the current polls are reliable... Nixon will be re-elected by a huge majority of Americans who feel he is not only more honest and more trustworthy than George McGovern, but also more likely to end the war in Vietnam. The polls also indicate that Nixon will get a comfortable majority of the Youth Vote. And that he might carry all fifty states...

This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his mistakes... understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon. McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose... Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?

- From "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72"

NY Times endorses Chris Murphy

The New York Times today released their endorsement for senate in Connecticut, and it's Chris Murphy.

Despite Republican candidate and wrestling billionaire Linda McMahon carpet bombing the state with an endless stream of negative TV and radio ads, the Times points out that as CT-05 congressman, Murphy is a fine representative of the people.

From the NY Times:

Mr. Murphy, a thoughtful and productive public servant, spent nearly six solid years in Congress, with an almost perfect voting record. He was a strong voice for ending the war in Iraq and worked diligently on the committee that helped draft the health care reforms. He also helps run a bipartisan group in the House, the Center Aisle Caucus, that tries to find common ground between the two parties.

Meanwhile, Linda's record of public service is summed up in the 21-second clip:



Need I say more?

CT Post editorial for Jim Himes

Here's an email I received today from the Jim Himes campaign, which gives voters in Connecticut's 4th District some very good reasons to reelect Himes:

In case you missed it, in an editorial in today’s Connecticut Post, columnist Hugh Bailey explains that Jim Himes will win on November 6 because he has “proven to be a good congressman” and his opponent Steve Obsitnik has been “reduced to running on platitudes.” Bailey also says that while “Himes, to his credit, has taken some tough votes over the years,” Obsitnik has been unwilling to take a position on the federal budget proposals offered by Mitt Romney, President Obama, and, most importantly, House GOP Budget Chair Paul Ryan, whose plan would decimate Medicare and force seniors to pay an extra $6,400 per year for their health care.

“You can’t get elected to Congress on a platform of ‘I’m not that guy,’ particularly when you’re running against someone like Jim Himes, a Congressman the voters respect and whose positions and actions—especially on job creation and deficit reduction—really mirror the positions of the people he represents,” said Himes for Congress Campaign Manager Justin Myers. “Bailey hits the nail on the head when he points out that Obsitnik won’t reject Paul Ryan’s plan to decimate Medicare and that he is ‘running on platitudes.’ With the debates starting this week, it will be interesting to see if Obsitnik manages to form any positions.”

From the article:

There's also the fact that he [Himes] has proven to be a good congressman, who takes his job seriously and boasts a highly entertaining Twitter feed, too. And he has an opponent in Steve Obsitnik who, like other Republicans in Connecticut, has no interest in tying himself to his national party's extremism and is instead reduced to running on platitudes.

In a recent rundown of the candidates' stands on various issues, the Obsitnik campaign didn't want to say whether he favored Mitt Romney's budget proposal, or the Paul Ryan Medicare overhaul plan, or even the 2013 Obama budget. The answer for each came back as "Question too general." Try that one as a freshman congressman: "I can't offer a yes or no vote because the question is too general. Instead, I have my own special plan." It doesn't work that way.

Himes, to his credit, has taken some tough votes over the years. His focus on the deficit is not in line with the majority in his party (or certain Connecticut Post columnists). But he earns points for taking a stand.

The Fourth District, then, looks to be tough for Republicans.

Click here to read the entire article.

In the four debates scheduled between Jim and his opponent voters will get to know more about Jim, and probably learn nothing more about his opponent who refuses to take positions or answer questions.

McMahon "unprepared" and "ignorant" in debate

Colin McEnroe really nailed it in his Courant blog post about this morning's debate. Republican candidate Linda McMahon showed up, but didn't impress by a long shot:

McMahon was surprisingly bad. There are two ways to prepared for a debate. (1) You can really immerse yourself in the issues that and make sure you know how you want to talk about them. (2) You can memorize answers.

McMahon had pretty clearly done the latter for at least some of her preparation. She had also been coached on a particular kind of “shame on you” scolding session she needed to do, intended for future use in commercials. (She went out of her way to do two takes, just in case.) But that still left a lot subjects she just wasn’t ready for.

The debate slipped away from her exactly as she answered (or didn’t answer) a Diaz question about payroll taxes. Diaz pressed her a little more. Still no real answer. Then Murphy pounced: “That was a minute and 30 seconds of ‘I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do if you elect me.’ ”

Chris Murphy stuck to the issues, and clearly he is the one who has an understanding of them.

As opposed to Ms. "Sunset" McMahon. Some of the people who commented on the debate referred to McMahon as "ignorant", "unprepared", and "Palin-esque".

As the issue-based battles started slipping away from her, McMahon upped the ante on the personal attacks. If you’re a little tired of the way this campaign has been almost exclusively about attacks on character and very little about the issues, let the word go forth that McMahon was far more reliant on this strategy than was Murphy on Sunday. Paradoxically, late in the debate she unsheathed a new kind of negative rhetoric, claiming that Murphy had expected a coronation and instead found himself in a tough campaign with a serious woman. The paradox: never before in this campaign had she seemed less like a serious woman. She seemed like a silly woman who had attempted to substitute recent study sessions for the years of immersion one might expect an aspiring senator to have had. Even in her summation, when most candidates return to their biggest themes, she used the time to peck at Murphy about a supposed sweetheart mortgage.

Seems like McMahon has only one tool in her shed, and that's personal attack. She's a political dilettante, and everyone is starting to see it.

Meanwhile, Chris Murphy is a seasoned legislator who's been fighting for Connecticut citizens for many years. And a heck of a nice guy, too.

"Sunset" McMahon wants to end Social Security

Blah blah blah blather babble babble.

Look, it doesn't matter what I say here, just listen to Linda "Sunset" McMahon's own words:



Ah well, there goes Medicare, too.