Posted on 10/04/2008 8:36:34 PM PDT by Rokke
Branding his opponent as “erratic in a crisis,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is preempting plans by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to portray him as having sinister connections to controversial Chicagoans.
Obama officials call it political jujitsu – turning the attacks back on the attacker.
McCain officials had said early in the weekend that they plan to begin advertising after Tuesday’s debate that will tie Obama to convicted money launderer Tony Rezko and former Weathermen radical William Ayers.
But Obama isn’t waiting to respond. His campaign is going up Monday on national cable stations with a scathing ad saying: “Three quarters of a million jobs lost this year. Our financial system in turmoil. And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy. No wonder his campaign wants to change the subject.
“Turn the page on the financial crisis by launching dishonorable, dishonest ‘assaults’ against Barack Obama. Struggling families can't turn the page on this economy, and we can't afford another president who is this out of touch.”
Then Obama says: “I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message.”
McCain officials told Politico that the new offensive is likely to focus on Rezko and Ayers. The officials said the campaign will not bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor, because McCain has forbade them from using that as a weapon. Without being specific, the officials said outside groups may focus on Wright.
When word of the planned attacks leaked Saturday, Obama officials said within hours that it was an attempt by McCain to distract voters from the economy.
“We think the McCain campaign made a huge error by telling the press that their strategy was to distract from the most important issue facing voters,” a senior Obama official said. “Every attack going forward will be easy to characterize for what it is – an attempt to distract from the Bush-McCain economic record."
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds hinted at the tough new line Saturday on “Fox & Friends.”
“There are associations that are important to who Barack Obama is as a candidate, who he’d be as president,” Bounds said.
Obama-Biden communications director Dan Pfeiffer said about the new ads: “If John McCain thinks he can ‘turn the page’ on the economic crisis facing American families, he is even more out of touch than we imagined. Now there may be no good answers for John McCain due to his erratic response to the financial crisis, but his desire to avoid discussing the economy is something we will remind voters of everyday for the next month.”
Thought ya’d get a kick outta that...;]
Unlike Alec Baldwin, I will leave, if he wins. lol... Not really. There’s no where to go. Obama is worshiped around the world. I think they call him the antichrist. ;)
"Politico is so in the tank for Obama."
Yep. Reminds me of Hussein Oblahma going around the country saying, "Just wait. They're going to start playing the race card."
yitbos
I’m not certain what kind of Townhall this is going to be, was looking around at debate info the other day and found out they partnered with WebMd and asked members to submit questions; are they going to throw a bunch of Universal Healthcare questions out? Is this going to be a setup like the youtube debates? Does anyone know the exact format they are using?
I don’t know, but McCain better liven things up or he’s done. That last debate was terrible. It was a snoozefest.
If you're asking about Tuesday's 'debate', the answer would be Tom Brokaw.
There appears no avoiding the leftist establishment for this campaign. The best thing the sponsors could have done was to draft at least one moderator from Fox, but that ship has sailed and they're stuck with having underscored the bias.
Pity a lot of people in the US still don't see the bias, however.
That’s what I always felt too. But then again, you just never knew if that’s what McCain had up his sleeve. Thank God they are finally attacking.
I agree. You watch him speak sometimes, and you wonder if he has a pulse.
Do you deny that McCain supports amnesty and expanded guest worker programs?
BS. We have millions of Americans unemployed. The black unemployment rate is 11.4% and the Hispanic rate is 7.8%. Most of the guest workers and illegals are low skilled workers. This is not what keeps us competitive in the global economy and these workers represent a net drain on our economy.
Nope.
Do you deny that Obama would destroy the country?
Explain OODA loop please!
Michael Barone suggests that McCain has gotten inside Obama’s OODA loop:
John McCain was trained as a fighter pilot. In his selection of Sarah Palin, and in his convention and campaigning since, he has shown that he learned an important lesson from his fighter pilot days: He has gotten inside Barack Obama’s OODA loop.
That term was the invention of the great fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd. It’s an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.
“The key to victory is operating at a faster tempo than the enemy,” Boyd’s biographer Robert Coram writes. “The key thing to understand about Boyd’s version is not the mechanical cycle itself, but rather the need to execute the cycle in such a fashion as to get inside the mind and decision cycle of the adversary.”
The Reps [read the US Chamber of Commerce] support open borders and the free movement of labor because it helps their bottom line. The realize the profits while the taxpayers pick up the social and economic costs.
Then we have groups like the Catholic Church and La Raza who see this as a way to get more members.
The September Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows the following:
The unemployment rates for adult men (6.1 percent) and blacks (11.4 percent) rose in September. The jobless rates for teenagers (19.1 percent), whites (5.4 percent), and Hispanics (7.8 percent) were essentially unchanged. The unemployment rate for adult women declined to 4.9 percent, partly offsetting an increase in August. The unemployment rate for Asians in September was 3.8 percent, not seasonally adjusted.
This is not a manufactured crisis, it is a real one. It was brought on by Democrat policies that essentially forced the mortgage industry to suspend good business practices in the name of equality and the redistribution of wealth. Comprende?
If an amnesty is passed, the country will be destroyed. John McCain is committed to getting one along with Obama. We have a Hobson’s choice.
It is going to be where the candidates take pre-screened questions from the audience. Seems to me that is not much different than getting the questions from a moderator, it is just the mouth delivering them is different. And since Tom Brokaw is involved in it you gotta know that the questions are going to be slanted.
I have to call BS. Show me your stats and proof on this. Now I am a Republican and I disagree with McCain on his Immigration Reform position. However I do support honest and helpful immigration where American businesses and industry require the help of skilled workers. I must admit for this discussion that I am a former Business Immigration Attorney. There is officially no such thing as a “Guest Worker” category as you define it. The Guest Worker program that would allow unskilled workers to be employed by US businesses for three years before deporting them was never signed into law (Note that I don’t support this either). Now there are “Temporary Worker” categories in the following categories:
H-1B: Skilled Workers (Cap of 65,000)
H-1C: Foreign Nurses (Cap of 500)
H-2A: Temp. Seasonal Agricultural Workers (Cap of 66,000)
H-2B: Temporary Seasonal Non-Ag (Cap of 66,000)
H-3: Training Visa in Approved Program (No Cap)
L-1A: Intra-company Transfer (Exec./Manager) (No Cap)
L-1B: Intra-company Transfer (Special Knowledge) (No Cap)
O-1: Extraordinary Ability (No Cap)
O-2: Spouse of O-1 above (No Cap)
P-1/P-3: Artists, Athletes, Entertainers (Cap of 25,000)
P-2: Art./Ent. in reciprocal exchange program (No Cap)
Q-1: Cultural Exchange (No Cap)
TN: NAFTA Visa (Specific Approved Categories) (No Cap)
E-1/E-2: Treaty Trader/Invester (No Cap)
E-3: Essentially H-1B for Australia only (Cap of 10,500)
There are also foreign national working on Practical Training under F-1 (Student) and J-1 (Exchange) visas but these are not technically “Temporary Work Visas”.
The fact is that the people that come through legally are for the most part highly skilled and educated. This is in fact a brain drain and it is beneficial to the United States. How many of those unemployed you mention are qualified for the skilled positions listed under the above visa categories? Not many I am afraid. And as for the few agricultural/unskilled visas, I’m not so sure that any of those unemployed you mention would want to take on working in the fields either (but there is nothing that forbids them from doing so if they wish to). The vast majority of workers are ILLEGALS, not people coming in on these important and legitimate visa programs. The problem isn’t the people coming in legally, it is the people coming in illegally and the fact that we do not have enough enforcement of the existing I-9 regulations. Your position reminds me more of one I would expect to hear from a Union member who does not understand that the real issue here is enforcing the current regulations and not trying to exclude “legal immigration” in valid and necessary categories.
We are on the same page just a different wave length.
I contend the outcome of their failed policies are only failed in the right’s
eyes bringing down the capitalist system is the goal. If that is the goal the Dem's had a very good week last week.Unless it is just a wacky conspiracy theory....who knows?
Correct there is no official category as Guest Workers nor would there be under McCain-Kennedy, Hagel-Martinez, etc., but a rose is a rose is a rose. The ones you listed are ways to import temporary workers into the US. You can call them whatever you want. I was using the term Guest Workers to cover anyone who came here on a non-immigrant visa to work.
The H-2A and H-2B programs are really unskilled workers and the H-1B program has been abused by employers who are just using it to hire workers at lower wages.
Here are some studies about the abuse of guest worker visas and programs.
Total up the various figures you provided for these various guest worker programs, i.e., workers brought into the country on a temporary basis to work on NIVs. You will see that the numbers no where near approach the 1.2 million LEGAL immigrants who enter this country each year. It is also important to remember that up to 40% of the illegals who enter this country come here legally on NIVs.
Our legal immigration policies are based on a kinship system, not a merit-based system. We are bringing in brothers, sisters, uncles, mothers, fathers, etc. They take jobs and some even qualify for SS benefits depending on their age.
The vast majority of workers are ILLEGALS, not people coming in on these important and legitimate visa programs. The problem isn’t the people coming in legally, it is the people coming in illegally and the fact that we do not have enough enforcement of the existing I-9 regulations.
Visa overstays provide anywhere up to 40% of the illegal population, which is reflected in the the 7 to 9 million illegals working in this country. And legal immigration is supplying major numbers of unskilled workers. The Hispanic out of wedlock birthrate is around 50% [topped only by the black rate of 68%] and Hispanics have an even higher school dropout rate than blacks circa 50%. In CA the school dropout rate is 25% and in LA it is 33%. These conditions--single family households and high school dropout rates--are the social pathology for failure in this country. We are creating a permanent underclass.
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