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JimLosAltos

Published Letters: 47
Editor's Choice: 3

Sunday, February 17, 2008 03:15 PM

The Real Obama Campaign Machine

Nothing Obama says is accidental IMHO. His main skills are verbal.

Many of these posters criticize Sen. Clinton for negative ads and campaigning critical of Sen. Obama, claiming or implying that Obama does NOT use negative politics. I'm not a huge fan of Clinton, but that is simply not accurate; to correct the record for those who might not have seen these, here are just a few examples I can think of, of the Obama campaign at work (I hope it is not too far off target for this blog). I'm sure others can recall many more:

1) An Obama DM campaign in CA criticizing universal health care and attacking Sen. Clinton that was pure Karl Rove, what wasn't distorted was an outright lie (Salon had it earlier via Politico.com). It literally looked like a Republican mailer attacking health care.

2) The Obama press release labeling Sen. Clinton (D-Punjab), i.e. the Senator from India for relations she has with Indian IT companies. His team (not Obama) later apologized. Sort of.

3) how Obama criticized both Sens. Edwards and Clinton for not controlling their 527 supporters, implying the candidates were engaged in unethical conduct by not doing so, sniffed that 527's were unworthy of Obama's morally-superior campaign, then turned around and claimed he had no responsibility for the racist pro-Obama radio ads in Nevada (Spanish-language "Clinton Abandoned Our People" (which he never condemned until the votes were counted, wink, wink, nod, nod) ;

4) The African-American Campaign Manager for team Obama who bitterly responded on CNN to his candidate's New Hampshire loss with "Clinton didn't cry for Katrina." Gee, I wonder what that means, "Clinton didn't cry for Katrina"? Any code words in there? Anybody think that is negative?

5) The phantom Exelon bill (this one is comical) where Obama, struggling to find anything he has accomplished in his political career said he got a bill passed to regulate the nuclear waste industry. The bill did NOT pass, plus he effectively watered it down so much it would NOT have required reporting. So, Obama LIED. (plus note the 145 Exelon managers that in sum are the number one contributor to his campaign);

6) (One of my personal favorites) Obama's "Hopefund" PAC that has bought, er, contributed to 46 so-called Super Delegates so far (But I thought Obama was adamantly opposed to PACs, and attacked Edwards and Clinton for working with them, and doesn't accept their contributions? Oh, this is different because Obama set up the PAC himself and MAKES contributions to get other politicians' support. That is different, right?) (from today's NYT);

7) "Camp Obama" youth indoctrination and their "Moonie theme" (from both NPR and NYT) where youth are taught to campaign for Obama by ignoring issues and talking about how they "Came to Obama" (truly creepy stuff); and, finally,

8) How Obama is reneging on his "pledge" with Sen. McCain to run on government funding. (Again, in every debate he hit Clinton and later Edwards for how corrupt their campaign funding was -- without any specifics, of course.) But, hey, what's a little campaign promise between politicians, anyway? Obama doesn't have to actually prove he's different than other politicians, and he doesn't have to actually act differently than other politicians, because we just know he is in our hearts. With a mellifluous baritone, a winning smile who needs actual behavior to judge a potential Pres?

Friday, February 15, 2008 11:17 AM

Verbal Skills Declining?

I remember an actor on a talk show long ago (Orson Wells, Perhaps) saying that one reason it was almost impossible to produce Shakespeare today is that actors have to speak much more slowly than in Shakespeare's time, which makes the plays run far too long (5 hrs for Hamlet). He said only part of this was due to the language changes, most was because Shakespeare's audiences, even those in the penny seats, were more aurally skilled, better practiced in verbal nuance, word plays, tone. No idea what he based that on, but it gave me pause. And that comment preceded MTV and its associated Beavis-and-Butthead effect.

Nit Picking: Gore didn't use PowerPoint. He's on Apple's BOD so he used Keynote

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 12:14 PM

Ck Out Obama Healthcare Hit Piece

Check out the DM piece Obama used in California attacking universal health care and Clinton. It came out just after Obama screwed on TV and said he'd have to fine people that were uninsured and made health care claims (to fix that gap in his non-plan), so he attacked Clinton's plan for fining people, which it doesn't. If this isn't Nixonian what is?

http://www.politico.com/pdf/PPM44_080130_nd_obama_hrc_healthcare_plan_forces_health_insurance2.pdf

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 11:43 AM

Your Thin Obsession is Unhealthy

Will all resect, your repeated claims that being "too thin" is unhealthy don't stand up; it's bad science. . Salon columns have claimed (as I recall) that anyone with a BMI of below 18.5 is "unhealthy" and "an example of bad health of young" women. In fact, a large number of professional, women athletes are thus in poor health and poor examples, according to your standards, including tennis star Maria Sharapova, Olympic gold medalist Amanda Beard, professional golfer Michelle Wie --- all of whom have BMIs that are LOWER than supermodel Gisele Bundchen's.

IMHO: http://www.fawcette.net/2007/12/why-tennis-shar.html

Medical researchers actually claim that for people to achieve their maximum potential lifespan approaching 130 years, the key, in fact the only positive factor they can confirm, is to consume 30% fewer calories than is normally recommended and primarily eat salads until you're skin and bones -- sort of like a model .

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1809903&affil=kgo

Sunday, February 10, 2008 09:50 AM
Original article: Hillary's time of troubles

Oh, Please

Can't we get some real reporting and not this transparent cheerleading? This article is embarrassing, something that would better fit with the flamers in the comments/letters. Obama continues to win in small states, particularly those that have caucuses. Clintion, however, has won all the major states the Dems must win in November: California, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan, and she's ahead in polls for Texas and Ohio. Overall, the delegate count per NYTimes shows Clinton with the slimmest of leads in committed delegates. Other estimates are about even.

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