President Obama's new campaign song, "FORWARD" (VIDEO) ~ PASS IT ALONG

John Edwards, two words, "A trip...."

From the forthcoming David Plouffe book:

Sometime after the South Carolina debate Plouffe got a call from a senior Edwards Advisor who said Edwards was willing to announce the end of his campaign and join forces with Obama to defeat Clinton. When Plouffe asked if he could raise this with Obama the Edwards advisor said, “Yes.…Just to be clear we’re going to talk to the Clinton people too. That’s not where John’s heart is, but he is at the point of maximum leverage now.”

“Obama’s answer,” Plouffe writes, “was quick and firm: he would cut no deals.”

Interesting stuff, I definitely have Plouffe's book in my amazon.com queue.

Source

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Obama Movie....inspired by students....(Video)

This is why the Obama Campaign will go down in history as not only the most well run or funded, but the one campaign that people got INVOLVED and they went to VOTE, especially the young folk. Inspired by teacherken's students for a final project, originally posted over @ Daily Kos.



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David Plouffe, Obama Campaign Manager, Gets a Book Deal

A seven-figure book deal. Yes, this is one book that I do want to read, like millions of others.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe has agreed to a seven-figure deal to write a book about last year's presidential election.

"The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory" will be published by Viking next fall.

According to a statement issued Wednesday by Viking, the book will offer a unique, high-level account, including "the deliberations about whether to run against long odds, the epic primary battle with Hillary Clinton, the drama of the general election campaign against John McCain and the strategic roads taken — and not taken ... The book will also detail the business lessons to be learned from the formation and the functioning of an unprecedented $1 billion start-up — use of technology, crisis management, grass roots, and personnel management."

Viking is an imprint of Penguin Group (USA).

Interest was strong for Plouffe's book. The Obama campaign not only raised the most money ever for a presidential election — some $750 million — but is widely credited for being among the most sophisticated and well organized. Plouffe's literary representative, Washington attorney Robert Barnett, told The Associated Press that 17 imprints (some within the same publishing house) competed for the book.

Source

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YouTube's Top 10 Videos, with will.i.am clocking in at #9 for "Yes We Can"

will.i.am was another factor in the Obama Campaign, one of those "outside forces" that drove people to view his video over 14 million times. Paring the music and the incredible speech Obama gave after losing in New Hampshire, hardened Obama Supporters to run all the way to the end. YES WE DID. AND YES, WE WON. for real.



View the top ten list here.

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60 Minutes, CBS: Obama's Inner Circle (Video)

Transcript

Barack and Michelle Obama 60 Minutes Post Election Interview, November 16, 2008

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Don't Let Up (Video)

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Bill Burton, Obama Campaign slams FOX News (Video)

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McCain Campaign is a "Ball of Confusion"

I had a long day of phone banking for Indiana.

Very productive and busy, so I am here cruising Daily Kos, but ran across one of the most pathetic stories, I had to laugh.

Title: Let the Wild Charges Begin: McCain Campaign Insinuates Joe the Plumber's Private Records Were Illegally Breached as "Political Retribution" by the Obama Campaign, Compares it to Watergate

No shit, Joe the Plumber now is on the level of the most famous break in that took down a President?

Wow. I am dumbstruck.

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"Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate. Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department. It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver's license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business."

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery participated in a conference call set up by the McCain campaign to chat about this. (You can listen to the call HERE.)

I wrote about "Joe the Plumber". His story was compelling, full of lies, innuendo and make believe, that the once lovely press parked on his lawn was immediately dismissed when his real life was unwound on the internet and eventually on network and cable television.

The McCain Campaign is now insinuating that it is the Obama Campaign that is breaching "Joe's" privacy? What about John McCain throwing "Joe" into the spotlight? What responsibility does he bear?

I am now going to state this, fully, I thought this was going to be a very hard fought, bite nails, oxygen sucking campaign, but right now every day is a circus and I end up laughing my ass off.

"All Joe the Plumber did is ask a question," Giuliani said, giggling. "That should not open American citizens to having -- if this happened -- their private records probed because of some sort of political retribution. And if this is the way an Obama administration is going to conduct itself, the American people should know this before the fact."

When a reporter asked if there was any evidence that these records were breached by anyone with a political agenda, Giuliani said, "If this were someone on the Republican side you would not be asking the question." He said the inspector general needed to get to the bottom of why the information was sought.

As hard fought and tough Giuliani want to be to defend "Joe's" privacy, what there is of and his dignity, folks have already made their minds up about "Joe". Primarily, that "Joe" is another element of the McCain Campaign bag of gimmicks. Joe was taken out of obscurity and dropped onto the national stage, bad taxes, lies and all, but the end result is that the McCain Campaign needed an image, symbol for all of us "Joe's and Joesetta's" out here.

To now point a finger at the Obama Campaign for nitpicky bullshit, a.k.a. distraction, all I can type is that this is one dog that won't hunt. Whenever the McCain Campaign can figure out that issues in this campaign is front and center and not tricks, diversions, wedge issues, the public is willing to listen. Until then, that "McCain Noise" is going in one ear and out another.

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McCain is pulling out of Michigan.

I wrote a diary a few weeks back, when the "lipstick on the pig" frenzy by the McCain Campaign was going on. Though the diary was about absurdity of vacuum issues and not real issues in the campaign, I talked about money.

Right now we are seeing the power of the Obama Campaign, by not taking federal public financing money the campaign is allowed to spend wherever and do basically whatever. Not so, for the McCain Campaign.

I stated to watch the movement, not Barack's but McCain. Pulling out of Michigan is huge. Yes, Obama pulled out of Alaska, Georgia but those were tepid battleground states. Michigan is ALWAYS a true battleground state. It is also a very large state to cover, organization wise and money wise. If you go to pollster.com or fivethirtyeight.com, to your right, you will see why McCain is pulling out of Michigan. The numbers are not there and the economy and mortgage meltdown of Michigan is real. How dire is Michigan? Read about a woman purchasing a home in Saginaw, Michigan from eBay for $1.75. Yes, you read it correctly.

This is about almost 30 days left for the election. This is about 2 presidential debates left and hopes that McCain can turn it around to the public, policy wise. This is about McCain now having to defend North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Ohio all the states Bush won. This is about money, organization, manpower and having only 84 Million to spend it on.

Is this good? Yes, but we have a little over 30 days left and anything can happen. Right now the McCain Campaign are working feverishly to get Palin off the front page of being a laughing stock and hoping the economy will demise. The McCain Campaign can get Palin off the front pages after tonight by limiting her to only "friendly based conservative media", but the economy is going nowhere. Their challenge is to inject new dynamics in this race to move folks off the economy; this is where their character strategy will come to bear. Expect it; they are bleeding heavy right now.

Lastly, the next state I expect to move from McCain is Pennsylvania. Obama has just about closed the deal in New Mexico and Iowa is in Obama's column. McCain has never had any real infrastructure in Iowa, but he does need to worry about the West, which is slowly moving to Obama.

No doubt the economy is key to many voters. It is tough out here. Many are losing jobs, wages are not going up if you have a job, housing market is a mess and folks are just worried about the future in this country.

I wrote a while back that John McCain may have just ended his campaign by stating, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." I still believe he just may have done that.

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The Road to Change (Video)

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OHIO IT IS EARLY VOTING TIME....ALL THE INFO YOU NEED

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State, federal courts uphold early voting in Ohio

Early voting advocates are targeting college students, the homeless, the poor and minorities — voters who have traditionally had a hard time getting to the polls.

Obama's campaign planned to organize carpools from college campuses around the state to local polling places. And the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless hoped to transport 2,000 homeless individuals from shelters to polling places in the Cleveland area.

"This is a win for Jennifer Brunner's partisan efforts to aide the Democrat turnout strategy," Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett said in a statement. "Naturally we're disappointed in these rulings." He didn't address a possible appeal.

Some charged the Ohio Republican Party was trying to suppress the vote.

"There are some forces in the Republican Party that seem bound and determined to suppress the vote by any means necessary," said Dan Tokaji, an Ohio State University elections law expert.

"The Republicans' cynical 11th-hour ploy to disenfranchise Ohio voters has been soundly rejected in federal court," Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said.

This means early voting in Ohio is from September 30-October 6, 2008.

This means, OHIO VOTING IS ON!!!!

Now, first let's get down to these colleges and universities. Let's focus on where our lovely students can go register and vote.

Type in your name, address and click submit. The address of where you need to go will appear. Students, perform your god sent duty and VOTE by October 6, 2008.

Start right HERE.

In fact, anyone can vote early and if you are not registered, you can register and vote on the same day.

More information at the ohio.barackobama.com

This is the law in Ohio for Students to Vote:

May a college student register and vote from his or her school address in Ohio?

Yes, a student may vote using his or her Ohio school residence address. However, the student may not also vote an absentee ballot where he or she last lived (e.g. with one or more parent or guardian). When a college student votes from his or her school address, the school residence is considered to be the place to which the student's habitation is fixed and to which, whenever the student is absent, the student intends to return, and is considered by the student to be his or her permanent residence at the time of voting.

Ohio

Deadline for registering to vote is Monday, October 6, 2008.

On-Line voter registration form, here. Mail form to your county election board, addresses and phone numbers here.

Request a voter registration form to be sent to you, here.

Absentee ballot form, here. Instructions on requesting an absentee ballot in Ohio, here.

Voter registration information for Ohio, here.

Contact Information:

Ohio Secretary of State
614-466-2585
877-767-6446

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For other state information to vote, it is all here.

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If you are near Ohio and got some time, volunteer and GOTV this week. Let's bank those votes EARLY for Barack.

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I am worried. Please help me to stop worrying. DONATE!!

I am not a poll junkie. People, who know me, STILL got to explain the numbers. Not my thing. Don't like to read the FEC reports, got to get my cyber friends to break it down for me. Not my thing. for real.

But I am a ground game junkie and a MONEY junkie.

I have been writing about Barack for well over a year. In fact, it was the EENR (Edwards Evening News Roundup) that started me with the weekly, "This Week With Barack Obama" on this blog. Post it every Sunday or Monday evening.

I have raised over 10K since last August for my personal Obama Campaign fundraising page, a lot of the money came from folks who tipped my Obama Jar when I post "The Weekly". Now I am just going to be blunt.

Barack Obama wants to spend 39M for Florida alone. He has pulled out of Alaska and North Dakota. Scaled back in Georgia and Montana is a wait and see, as in poll numbers. It is now crunch time.

Crunch time meaning, most states voter registration ends on October 6, 2008. The earliest is October 4, 2006, but at least 1/2 the states end on October 6, 2008. Some states have started voting already, but it is for absentee ballot voting in person or by mail. We have 2 weeks to go for getting as many people registered. After this, it is GOTV time. Getting organized for early voting and Election Day.

All of this requires money.

During the summer, many were hand wringing and me privately, about the attack ads on Obama and the tepid response of the Obama Campaign. Again, the campaign has proven, as in the past that they know what they are doing. Now the campaign is ratcheting things up for the final push. And all this requires MONEY.

David Plouffe, Campaign Manager of Obama for America, explained this to the supporters via youtube. Let us know that Florida will cost at least 39M. Folks that is a lot of benjamins, cheddar, bucks or money for one state.

Florida is winnable. In Florida alone, 900,000 new voters became 18 in 2004, many new African-American voters. The Obama Campaign is registering voters at an alarming clip in Florida. The Florida model is ripe for picking. The Sunshine State has been hit hard with the mortgage meltdown, the insurance rates are through the roof, and the job rate is high in this state. This state with the right economic message, especially Social Security for its seniors can go to the Democrats in November. But it takes money.

Indiana has 500,000 new voters this year. Yes, this year alone. The Obama Campaign has been robust in Indiana all year. This is a state under the radar, but can go to the Democrats. Why? Indiana is a working class state. The Republicans have held onto this state, but the economics in Indiana are poor. There are many independents in this state looking at Obama and like everyone else across the board; Bush is not their favorite person. McCain is now being forced to defend Indiana, forced to spend money. We can win it, but it takes money.

We must understand something here. Obama needs to raise MINIMUM 60M a month going into the stretch. He spent over 50M alone, last month. We also must understand that McCain is running a top down campaign, not bottom up as us, thus he is relegating all the GOTV to the RNC and individual states.

McCain is following a more traditional route. He will use his allotment of public money largely for advertising and delegate to the Republican National Committee the costs of the voter turnout operations.

A look at the August FEC reports released on Saturday illustrates the challenge Obama faces as he tries to meets his own aggressive spending targets.

Overall, Obama spent $57 million in August, compared to McCain’s $48 million. That $9 million spending gap, however, is misleading. In reality it’s likely even larger because in August McCain’s campaign was simply burning through primary money that it could not spend after his official nomination at the September convention.

This is where the Palin pick was crucial for McCain. She has got the fence sitters of the GOP, who were not writing checks to McCain, to now support McCain through the RNC. This is why Palin is criss-crossing the country picking up millions for the GOP.

At the start of the general election in September, Republicans had a roughly two-to-one advantage in cash on hand. The RNC and McCain had a combined $160 million in the bank. Another $17 million was tucked away in state party coffers and McCain’s legal and accounting compliance account. Obama and the DNC combined had about $95 million in the bank.

Obama has an opportunity to widen that gap considerably since McCain is not allowed to raise any more money for his campaign coffers.

But the Arizona senator and running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin can raise cash for the RNC, which they will do aggressively. Likewise, the DNC is stepping up its fundraising efforts to try to blunt the RNC’s gains.

Still, there’s another hurdle for the Democrat: It costs money to raise it.

One Democrat estimates that Obama needs to raise between $100 and $110 million just to match McCain’s $85 million federal windfall.

WE NEED MONEY.

McCain/Palin is free to campaign and fundraise for the RNC to GOTV for individual states.

The good thing is that we are registering folks to vote at an alarming clip.

In Pennsylvania, there are 320,000 newly registered Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans have lost 60,000 registered voters there.

In Nevada, there were 5,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats four years ago. Today, Democratic voting rolls have jumped by more than 50,000.

In Florida, the Obama campaign has 50 field offices, compared to 14 opened by John Kerry in 2004. And the campaign is vigorously working the estimated 500,000 African American voters and 900,000 young voters who were already registered but didn’t bother to vote in 2004.

“We have enough base voters in Florida to win the election if we can just turn them out,” said Plouffe.

To do that, though, the campaign will need to spend millions on direct mail, radio, staff, offices, and television.

The target of $39 million “is a big number. We have robust budgets like that in all of the battlegrounds,” he said. “This just lets you know why every dollar you send us is important.”

Do what you can, donate what you can.

This will be won, vote by vote in each state. It is imperative, since we are not taking federal funding dollars, to continue to support this campaign to the END.

And while at it. Register folks to vote. Print out the voter registration forms in your state and take them with you, to work, in your car, purse, and bag. There is too much at stake, we need to get busy and every single one of us must do our part.

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Voter Registration information.

Donate to the Obama Campaign.

Volunteer

Phone Bank from Home

Runway to Change

Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement

Obama Store

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Obama Afternoon Break....VIDEOS ONLY, Catch up time

Digg It!!!

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how wall street sold out america

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obama speech in elko, nv

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carly will "disappear"

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joe biden and hillary clinton discusses women's issues

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obama keeps focus on the economy

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obama speech in las vegas, nv

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mccain irregular on market regulation

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joe biden in maumee, oh

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obama speech on economics in golden, co

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jesse jackson, jr on morning joe

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joe biden speech in st. clair shores, mi

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chuck todd, what a difference a week makes

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dr. susan rice on barack's foreign policy plans

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folks should not lose faith in wall street

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obama on good morning america

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mccain calls for sec chief fired

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david plouffe, obama campaign manager, strategy update

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battleground states in play

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obama in pueblo, co

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obama blasts mccain on the economy

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Obama: Old Boys Network = McCain Campaign Staff Meeting


palin's yahoo account hacked

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valerie jarrett on obama

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chris matthews destroys rep. cantor of virginia on hardball

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michelle and women economic roundtable

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Obama Evening Wrap Up....ECONOMY and VOTER REGISTRATION

The Motherlode of All Voter Registration Information That You Need

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enjoy!!!!

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Obama Campaign Manager, David Plouffe, Update on Strategy and Swing States (Video)

DONATE TO THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN, WE NEED THE MONEY TO WIN

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Obama Evening Wrap Up...Republican Values: Lose you home, Lose your vote

obama in golden, colorado

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Shameful Republicans, No Address, No Vote for You

The Republicans will attempt to pull out all the tricks in November. They are willing to go so low as to take foreclosed homes/addresses and challenge voters at the polls. Already announced that they would do it in Michigan. This is call suppressing the vote, scaring you away.

This started in the Michigan Messenger with the article, "Lose your house, lose your vote".

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

Well, this story spread like wildfire on the internet and Carabelli was taken to TASK. Now, he is back peddling the story and said, of course, he did not make the statement.

One political blog accuses him of hatching "the most evil plan in modern Republican history."

Other activists say he's trying to steal votes and disenfranchise African-American voters.

But James Carabelli, chairman of the Macomb County Republican Party, said Thursday it was all a fabrication -- that he never told a reporter the GOP plans to use poll challengers to block residents with foreclosed homes from voting in November.

The interview ignited responses from across the country, with some political observers saying the very idea of linking foreclosures with voting rights could have a chilling effect on turnout.

"Sometimes it doesn't take much to keep people away from the polls," said John Klemanski, a Macomb County native who has taught political science at Oakland University for more than 20 years.

Well, the Obama Campaign did not sit on its laurels, lawsuit filed.

On afternoon conference call, Obama and Michigan Democratic officials say they’re seeking an injunction to block alleged “caging” by the state GOP — using home foreclosure lists to seek to block residents from voting.

Obama counsel Bob Bauer: “It is an absolute attack on their right to vote” and a “completely false and completely illegal basis” to challenge votes.

“This is a standard operating procedure within the Republican party that’s been under legal challenge.”

You can listen to the conference call, here.

This is a nasty, shady attempt of the lowest form. This economy is in the tank because of the leadership of the Republican Party. Now there is rumor that the Republican Party will try to do the same thing in Ohio. This is caging. The Ohio Secretary of State is already fighting this.

In 2004, Ohio was in an uproar over a tactic known as "caging," in which a political party calls for voters to be stricken from the rolls because mail sent to them was returned as "undeliverable." In the last presidential election, the state Republican party used returned mail to challenge the registrations of 35,000 new voters, most of whom lived in urban, heavily Democratic areas.

Not many voters were successfully removed, because "there was so much litigation and public backlash," said Teresa James, a lawyer in Ohio for Project Vote, a nonprofit voter-registration group. But she said some voters likely were intimidated by the challenges and stayed home.

On Sept. 5, Ms. Brunner told election boards that Republicans had passed a law concerning caging that she considered unconstitutional, and that a single returned election notice cannot be used as the sole basis to cancel a voter's residency. She also said every challenged voter must be notified and given a chance to attend a hearing before Election Day.

I am GLAD that the Obama Campaign is on this. The GOP will be watched very carefully in EVERY PRECINCT. Folks who lost their homes, homeless, etc., right to vote should not be taken away.

This is the Republican Values and their roses STINK.

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obama's speech on the economy in golden, colorado

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Carly Fiorina, former head of Hewlett-Packard, Spokesperson for McCain, CAN NOT STAY ON MESSAGE



Expect her to either take back this statement or OFF the trail for McCain.

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Texans are ravaged by Ike, and the press has LIMITED access to tell the REAL STORY

The few hundred holdouts on Texas' ravaged Bolivar Peninsula will be required to leave in the next few days, and officials said Tuesday they are ready to use emergency powers to empty the barrier island scraped clean by Hurricane Ike.

The threat came as the death toll in the Houston area rose by six, bringing the number of people killed in Texas to 17. The new deaths, all after Ike made landfall, were tied to carbon monoxide poisoning, a home fire and falling tree limbs. Ike has claimed 47 lives in 10 states as it spread inland.

In the Bolivar incident, Judge Jim Yarbrough, the top elected official in Galveston County, said the roughly 250 people who defied warnings they would be killed if they rode out the storm in the rural coastal community are a "hardy bunch" and there are some "old timers who aren't going to want to leave."

Galveston should be of extreme concern. There is NOTHING coming from there on death toll and an estimate of 25,000 people stayed. If you have seen the pictures out of Galveston, you KNOW that death occurred there. The thing is what is the count and why is the media given limited access? Also, where the hell is FEMA? Folks on the coast are literally down to NO WATER, FOOD. Electricity will not be up for weeks, along with gas. And Galveston? Forget it. We are looking at MONTHS. Read more, a first hand account, here. Houston is messed up.

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and.....................

McCain invented the blackberry? So, they claim.

Palin's favorability is dropping

Hundreds of National Women Leaders Throw Support Behind Obama

Obama Regaining Ground In National Tracking Polls

Know the TALKING POINTS facts on Obama

Michelle blogging

Palin on Economics: Worse Than C+ Augustus

Folding Fannie and Freddie's debt into the national debt?

Crowds jam in Colorado to see Obama

and want some great pictures? Here is Al Rodgers, again......

Obama's Kick Ass Ad on McCain and the "Fundamentals" of the Economy



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Obama Campaign Manager, David Plouffe, On the Final Stretch of this Race

TO: Interested Parties
FR: David Plouffe, Campaign Manager
RE: Heading into the Final Stretch
DA: September 12, 2008

Summary

With both conventions and the vice-presidential selections behind us, the campaign is now heading into the final stretch. The race has settled into a tight race nationally with Obama well-positioned in the key battleground states, a historic enthusiasm gap, and a debate being waged on Obama's home turf - change.

In recent weeks, John McCain has shown that he is willing to go into the gutter to win this election. His campaign has become nothing but a series of smears, lies, and cynical attempts to distract from the issues that matter to the American people. But as Barack Obama said earlier this week "enough is enough." This election is too important and the challenges too big to spend the next 54 days talking about trivial non-issues.

Today is the first day of the rest of the campaign, and today we are releasing two new ads that go directly at the fundamental issue in this race: John McCain is out of touch with the American people and unable to address the challenges facing the country in the 21st century and bring about real change, and that Barack Obama is the candidate who will bring about change that works for the middle class.

We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people. We will not allow John McCain and his band of Karl Rove disciples to make this big election about small things.

Senator Biden will be integral to that effort, both in pushing back on the lies that we'll continue to see from our opponents, and in keeping the debate focused on delivering for everyday Americans. After all, that's what Joe Biden has done throughout his career: passing the Crime Bill to put more cops on our streets, passing to the landmark Violence Against Women Act, and serving as a steadfast voice every day for those more concerned about the price of gas and saving for retirement than the latest political charade in Washington.



A Change Election with Two Converts

For the entire general election campaign, the McCain campaign has insisted that years in Washington should be the yardstick by which Americans measure their next President. But in recent days, and with his selection of a running mate with no Washington experience, Senator McCain has abandoned his core argument. Now he and his strategists have belatedly come to the realization that, after eight disastrous years, the American people are demanding change.

So the candidate who just months ago was openly boasting that he has been a faithful supporter of George W. Bush's policies, and would continue them as President, now is improbably scrambling to offer himself as the candidate who will deliver the change America needs - even as President Bush holds a fundraiser for him today in Oklahoma.

This is a debate we welcome. It is the debate America needs.

For two decades, Barack Obama has challenged political insiders and outworn thinking to bring about real, meaningful change that helps people, not special interests. From welfare reform, to tax relief for working families, to health care for children of working families who lacked coverage, Obama has been at the forefront of fights that have made a difference in the lives of everyday Americans.

In Washington, Obama has been a consistent opponent of the Bush policies that have hobbled our economy and weakened the middle class, and his proposals for the future would steer us away from that disastrous course.

He's challenged leaders of both parties by passing landmark reforms that took dead aim at the campaign contributions and favors through which corporate lobbyists have rigged the system. He worked across the aisle to pass laws reining in no-bid contracts and opening the budget process to the American people.

And Obama has lived by those principles in this campaign, refusing the contributions of Washington lobbyists and political action committees and imposing those same rules on the Democratic National Committee. Lobbyists don't run his campaign. And when he's President, they won't run his White House.

But what about John McCain?

Can we really expect change from a Senator who supported the Bush policies 90 percent of the time? Who has said the Bush policies have brought about "great progress economically" and who just three weeks ago proclaimed the economy fundamentally strong?

The fact is that while he mouths the word "change," Senator McCain's record and proposals scream "more of the same." His plans for the economy, energy, health care, education and Iraq barely stray from the Bush policies that are in place today.

And can we really expect change from a candidate whose campaign is being run by some of the most powerful corporate lobbyists in Washington?

While Senator McCain loudly declares that he will tell the special interests in Washington that their day is "over," they are working overtime to elect him.

Seven of the top officials in his campaign are lobbyists. Between them, they have lobbied for Big Oil, the drug and insurance industries, foreign governments-even Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His campaign manager routinely lobbied for corporations who had business before the Senate Commerce Committee that McCain chaired.

Corporate Lobbyists and PACs have contributed millions of dollars to his campaign and the Republican National Committee on his behalf.

Does anyone believe they are spending their time, money and energy to put themselves out of business?

That is not change. It's more of the same.

A debate about delivering change is a debate we're happy to have. Because no matter how many times McCain and Governor Palin use the word "change" or try to reinvent their own records, one thing stays the same: the fact that when it comes to the economy, education, Iraq, or the special interests' stranglehold on Washington, they both are stubborn defenders of the past eight years and they both promise more of the same.

One final note:

Senator McCain has called the news media "his base" because of the friendly treatment he has received. And he undoubtedly is counting on his "base" to overlook the gulf between his newly minted "change" message, and the realities of his record and campaign.

His lobbyist-manager said Sunday that Governor Palin would only submit to questions about her record, statements and views when they determine that the news media will treat her with due "deference"-a startling and arrogant new standard for public officials in our democracy.

But we trust that the obvious conflicts between their rhetoric and records, their promises and their plans will not go unreported in the last 53 days of this campaign.

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New Obama Ads, "Still" and "Real Change" (Video)

still


Real Change

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Where was McCain at when someone called Hillary a bitch? (Video)

Here comes the surrogates.


h/t americablog

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Saturday Slo Mo...November is about GOTV.

barack with senator bob casey at the avenue diner in wyoming, pa

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Democratic Voter Registration Up, Republican Down

With all the hoopla around Sarah Palin, let's remember to keep our eyes on the prize.

One thing about the Obama Campaign, if you have been following, is upon conception this campaign has committed resources to state building. Barack has followed the lead started by Howard Dean of 2004. Building up our states to bring more competitive races with strong candidates, a presence of the Democratic Party, and the ability to perform massive GOVT (Get out the vote).

As Barack built ground operations all across this country, you saw activity awaken. Many people who had given up on grass roots activities in states like North Carolina, Georgia, Montana, etc. started to get involved again. With the candidacy of Barack, many new voters stepped up and came forward. You saw the results of this hard work by Barack's initial win in Iowa. Many did not believe he would win, but it was the ground operation, which was stellar and I was there in Cedar Rapids, which brought that victory.

Through all these months, wow it seems like years, the main focus was voter registration drives. From the grassroots operations across this country, the Obama Campaign made voter registration their number one focus along with building state operations. Now we are seeing massive numbers.

Five days a week, Linda Graham trolls tattered neighborhoods of this once thriving steel city outside Pittsburgh for unregistered voters she can sign up as Democrats — one of thousands of unknown volunteers whose work outside the limelight has already altered the basic arithmetic of the November election.

The epic nomination battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton helped put millions more Democrats on the voter rolls while Republican registration declined. Now Graham, 45, has taken three months of unpaid leave from her job at Pittsburgh's Central Blood Bank in the hope of adding to those gains before the presidential vote.

She's encouraged by the response here. "They're all feeling the crunch" of lost jobs and a sagging economy, Graham said. "But people are feeling empowered. They're feeling like, you know what, I hold a little bit of power in this."

To counter this effort, the Republicans are counting on a formidable, high-tech get-out-the-vote operation that has helped them win the past two presidential elections.

Since the last federal election in 2006, volunteers like Graham combined with the enthusiasm generated by the Obama-Clinton struggle to add more than 2 million Democrats to voter rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation. The Republicans have lost nearly 344,000 thousand voters in the same states.

The Democrats hope their voter registration efforts can boost Obama to victory in competitive states like Pennsylvania, Nevada and Florida and perhaps even give him a shot at winning traditional Republican states like Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. continue

This is why the Sarah Palin pick was necessary for McCain. She was picked for primarily what she has caused pandemonium among the conservative base of the Republican Party. John McCain had no ground operation in place, period. During his time as the 'presump' he did not open offices, did not put money into any ground operations and did not commit to voter registration drives. Instead McCain picked Palin to bring the George W. Bush section of the party in play to perform the necessary GOTV that is needed for November.

The problem is this; it just may be too late. I don't doubt, nor will ignore the operation of GOTV that won Bush his second term in 2004, it was massive, but this is 2008 and the chips are different. The conservative base doesn’t like, nor trust McCain, but with this pick it is for Palin. The Republicans have catch up to do, this includes working each state's voter registration rolls, purging folks, and performing voter registration drives, getting enough volunteers, phone contact, canvassing, etc. They are behind in all of this and McCain Campaign is just starting to open offices across the country, while Obama's operations have been up and going for months.

Sarah Palin will perform 30 fundraisers in 60 days. Money is needed for GOTV and ads for targeted states. Joe Scarborough of morning joe on MSNBC has been consistent about speaking to state party chairs on the Republican side, their sentiment is that they appreciate the attack ads that McCain has up on the air, but are terrified at the ground game of the Obama Campaign and are worried about the new voters being registered at break neck speed.

Finally, the GOP should be worried. These new voters may not be enough for Barack in some states to win, but they are enough for local, state and persons running for congress, too. This could mean a landslide in November for more seats in congress and state level. This is equally important, as Barack winning the presidency.

A great read, Bad News for McCain Campaign.

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joe biden on fire about the economy and the gop

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'I Don’t Believe in Coming in Second,' Obama Tells Bon Jovi Fundraiser

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., hit a couple swanky Garden State fundraisers this evening, starting at the house of Democratic National Committee treasurer Phil Murphy and his wife Tammy.

“Are you guys fired up?” bellowed Gov. Jon Corzine to the $2,300-per-person crowd. “You better be, because I think you’re liquored up!”

Obama again said that the GOP convention didn’t discuss solutions to problems facing ordinary Americans, unlike the Democratic gathering.

“The Republicans had a different approach to their convention,” he said. “They had a different theory, which was that ‘We are just sarcastic. We spent a lot of time talking about John McCain’s admittedly compelling biography, and we spent a lot of time lying about Barack’ -- that, somehow that’s a political philosophy or an economic theory.”

Obama told the appreciative crowd, “They don’t have a record to run on, so what they’re going to do is they’re going to try and just tear me down. Because it worked four years ago, and it worked eight years ago, you can’t blame them for trying it again, but I don’t think it’s going to work this time.” continue

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and...........................

The Lies Told by Sarah Palin

The Swooning Over Sarah...

Themes Set, Both Campaigns Begin Dash to Election

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at the Republican National Convention (Video)

Palin's cold shoulder

McCain and Obama clash on economy

Looks like the Fed will seize Fannie and Freddie

and bill maher....................


h/t to jedreport

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this week with barack obama will posted tomorrow evening

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