Johnny Coli

He's not far enough to the left on a lot of things for me, but overall I like his record.

Not "spending" at all. Like most Americans we're getting by. It's laughable to hear people blurt out nonsense like "suck it up and put away money." You don't think people would if they could? You think everyone that's just living within their means can just sock money away? The problem is that you just assume everyone is lazy or throwing money around in some spending frenzy. You're wrong. Don't get me wrong, my family is not poor. We both work our tails off, have a car, a condo. We saved our asses off so we could both get an education. We saved our asses off to get a car. Then we saved our asses off to get the condo. Now we're saving our asses off to start a family. Then I'll probably have to work two jobs so my wife can quit hers because daycare costs so much. Then it's saving for the kids college. It's ludicrus to think people are choosing to not save money for retirement. It's just not that simple.

People settle in an area, then lose a job. People go back to school later in life, need loans to do it, stay in an area they're familiar with. You make it sound like people shouldn't go back to school, get an education, or try and get by in the area they've settled in. The solution to you is "Fug 'em. Let them move to the sticks." That's a load of crap.

If she was qualified we wouldn't be having this discourse. It's painfully obvious to even many on the right that she's not. And it becomes an even bigger issue with McCain's possible health issues.

Student loans, living in an area with a high cost of living, and a mortgage. Like I said, you'd be surprised how many of us white collar people live paycheck-to-paycheck. This city is loaded with them. They want to boost the economy, they should get people some student loan relief. But that's not what this thread is about. It's about Palin bullshitting us that she's just like us. She's not.

It's not like there's a VP debate in a little over 24 hours from now.

I'm 42 and have about a tenth of that. It's not as uncommon as you think.

Actually, the more I read about him personally and his legislative record, the more I like and respect the guy. Overall I think he's an excellent choice for Obama's VP pick.

$230k is not a huge amount for a 401k? There's a lot of JoeSixPacks that would be stoked to have $20k in a retirement fund. She's just not an average American. Not even close.

Except Obama is running pretty strong in several of those "flyover" states. The old Dem modus operandi of getting the coast, the north, and Ohio is no longer part of the gameplan. I don't see any such change in GOP election gameplan...they're busting out the same old Rove playbook.

Agreed on all points (except I feel the NYT, WaPo, Boton Globe have always been looked at as excellent with respect to investigative reporting). In addition to poisoning the perception of all things "media," the GOP has successfully managed to turn what many in society previously thought of as qualities to aspire to, ie intelligence, an advanced education degree, analytical thought, into things to be snidely ridiculed with a smirk and a wink. The GOP wouldn't have selected Palin for McCain if they didn't think they could mold her and/or the public's perception of her into a version that people would actually vote for. There are people voting for that ticket because of her inclusion, reason and sanity be damned. Frightening.

It's a perpetuating narrative that the GOP has become very skillfull at. They've driven it home into the consciousness of the American viewer or reader that the media has a strong and overwhelming anti-GOP bias. This has done two things very successfully for them over the past dozen years. One, it immediately inoculates them against any damaging article or investigative journalism, however factual, from such longtime above-the-board news sources as the Washington Post, the New York Times, 60 Minutes, CBS, NBC, etc. This allows them to easily swipe away any damage simply by labling it as a "liberal media hit-piece." It is at the point now where many, including even those on this message board, will immediately dismiss the information as biased just because it comes from the NYT, etc, and they won't even read the article's content. Second, it has resulted in an over-compensation effect in the media, where they have gone to extremes to not look biased in their reporting, and in even some cases where information is parsed to not sound as damaging. Very few hard questions have been asked by the press over the past eight years, leading to many of the White House press corps, among others, to look like administration flunkies, rather than actual journalists. When one does ask a penetrating question, as Helen Thomas often did/does, that person is immediately labeled a "liberal-biased reporter" and viewed with contempt. In the case of Palin, they immediately portrayed the media as nothing more than frenzied paparazzi and National Enquirer-like garbage diggers. Right from the start, even a simple question about her record in Alaska was been met with obstruction, and any criticism, however warranted, has been brushed aside as sexism. Palin will get a free ride tomorrow night because the narrative that the media is out to get her has already been established. This isn't a new phenomenon.

Interesting article (NYT via MSNBC) on Palin's debate style. This explains why she looked so bad in the few interviews she's done. In the Couric interviews, specifically, she just seems to blurt out a few non-specific talking points, often having no relevence to the actual question, and fills up the rest of what would be dead air with bizarre referrals to Alaska or whatever else pops into her head. An example from the article: It's very simlar to her bordering-on-ignorant answer to Couric's bailout question last week: I expect more of the same on Thursday. The McCain campaign lobbied for, and got a change to the debate format that allows for two-minute answers and no direct questions between the debaters. I think her answers will be very short on specifics of any kind, will stick to a handfull of pocket talking points, and will generalize in a way that appeals to the base. Her strength is that she appears to be "like everyone else," a style that appeals to many who go to the polls. It's almost a given that the chattering monkeys in the post-debate analysis will give her a tie or win against Biden simply because the bar has been set so low. For anyone who knows even a glancing amount of info regarding some of the issues that will come up in the debate, I'm sure many will be stabbing themselves in the eyes because Palin's answers will amount to nothing more than neocon talking points and gibberish. I've described it before as akin to a high school student answering an essay question on an exam. Repeat the question to fill up space, then spew everything and anything you know about the subject, however general or whether it has anything to do with the question, and hope to get two or three points out of ten. If she sounds like she did in the Gibson and Couric interviews, even after the absurdly low expectations, the massive amount of prep and the very forgiving debate format, then even the most biased fan-boys in her party will be hard-pressed to declare victory. In any event, this debate is going to define her political career. If she does well and McCain goes down in flames in the election, then she'll be gunning for the GOP '12 nomination. If she falls flat, her career in politics and her excruciating and shrill 15 minutes of fame are essentially over.

EDIT: Extra points for using the word "rendition."

You're spending way too much time rationalizing this.

Palin's goofy, "This is my brother Darryl and this is my other brother Darryl" schtick is just what this country needs to take their minds off of how they're going to starve to death when they retire.

I think I see Ho Chi Min's silhouette in that kid's T-shirt!

Political gain? The only reason any of us are aware of this fan-vid is because you linked to it, and the only way you knew about it was via a righty blog. Hollywood news heavyweights.

Seriously, man, we live in 2008. Youtube might as well be like hanging a flyer on a telephone poll, or painting a mural on a wall. It's just not that radical.

Hitler youth? I think the song blows, but other than that who cares? It was written by a nine year old. And you'd be surprised how informed kids are today. They follow politics pretty closely in grade school and up, even having debates and mock elections. Why is it so ridiculous to imagine kids aged nine to fifteen actually having an opinion? Good for them. It might make for a new generation of informed voters. Terrible song, absurd choreography, but kudos to the kids for getting involved.

When the majority party adds in concessions in a bipartisan negotiation specifically asked for by the minority party, delivers two-thirds of it's own caucus for a politically unpopular bill, then yes, absolutely. They got 140 of their members to vote for it. More than twice the number of the GOP menbers that voted for it. Seriously, your (and others) point of debate on this looks stupid.

Actually, in a hotly contested presidential election season the very last thing you'd want to do as a leader would be to inject yourself into the negotiations. Obama didn't make it political, McCain did. Obama's position, rightly so, was to let the negotiations proceed in a bipartisan manner. A bipartisan agreement was essentially met, and Obama said he'd vote for it. No one asked him to help deliver votes. Why would he impose himself on a situation that was for all intents going to be resolved?

It was an unpopular bill and unlike the GOP, the Dems rarely vote en masse. As unpopular as it was, two-thirds of them voted for it. You can't spin that the party didn't whip a majority of them into voting for an unpopular bill. There's no way to do that without looking foolish...like the GOP does right now for blaming it on Pelosi.

Then they think the American people are idiots, because that was the reason they gave. Repeatedly, and on the record.