Make this election a rebuke to filthy politics

“[C]haracter assassination … appeals to race hatred … not an effective life raft for desperate opportunists looking to save themselves by degrading this country”

clipped from www.talkingpointsmemo.com I hope the result of the election can be a rebuke, a closing of the book on McCainism and the moral filth it has come to represent. McCain’s campaign has devolved into something altogether different … what with its increasingly open appeals to racial conflict and aggressive invocations of blood hatred of Arabs and Muslims. As The New Republic phrases it, McCain’s “subtle incitements of racial warfare and underhanded implications of foreign nativity.” Over the months we’ve become desensitized to the moral depravity of McCain’s campaign But as John Judis notes, a closer look at the language and imargery [sic] McCain’s ‘socialism’ pitch reveals it’s actually “about whites paying their taxes so that lazy, indolent, unemployed blacks can live off them.” We’ll always have a national dark side. But some signal needs to be sent, at least for a while, that this sort of filth, his character assassination and appeals to race hatred is not an effective life raft for desperate opportunists looking to save themselves by degrading this country. A McCain defeat would go some way to accomplishing that.

No one in this election is a true “leftist”

UPDATE:  With election hoopla at full frenzy, I hear scare-words (like “socialist”) being thrown around.  Truth is, almost no one in American politics is genuinely left of center; nearly all fall into the center-right regions, including both of the remaining presidential candidates.

It seemed like a good idea to re-post this graph from the primary days. As you’ll see, this being America, we’re pretty much all capitalists.  Our “left” and “right” are merely debates about how much leash we give our capitalism.

Meanwhile, pooh-pooh the idea that Obama’s palling around over there next to Karl Marx. That’s a long, long ways from true. -M

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Notice the old labels don’t work any more? Used to be that a fire-breathing politician could cry “LIBBRAL!” and everyone in the room would look shocked as linebackers near a penalty flag. Nowadays, no one looks up. Must be disappointing.

As The Political Compass points out, the old terms don’t express much helpful information:

The old one-dimensional categories of ‘right’ and ‘left’, established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today’s complex political landscape. For example, who are the ‘conservatives’ in today’s Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher ?

On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It’s not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can’t explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as ‘right-wingers’, yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.

So, Political Compass stirred in a couple more ingredients, then made a test to sample views. Try it—it only takes a few minutes, and I’ll guarantee it will give you something to think about—at their web page.

And, if you’re curious, my results are after the break:

Two election info links

Two election links you might enjoy (now in the blogroll at right):

First,

Pollster.com

which gives excellent analysis of what all the polls together suggest.  Take a look at their current trend chart:

Trend Chart, 10-9

And here’s their battleground states table:

Pollster's Battleground States

Second,

FiveThirtyEight

FiveThirtyEight Main Chart

which especially focuses on electoral vote projections, but has many other intriguing projections, as well (538 is the total number of votes in the electoral college).

At left, for instance, is their startling electoral vote projection for 10-10.

Have fun!

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Tags: pollster, fivethirtyeight, polls, presidential, Republicans, Democrats, electoral, votes, elections, Obama, McCain, projections, , Monte Asbury

Good news! There ARE clean elections!

A blog friend of mine from Europe wrote recently about her amazement at the role money plays in US politics. The idea that donors would give big bucks and expect favors in returns was purely astonishing, I guess. Of course to me it’s astonishing that it would be astonishing, having never even imagined any other way.

She tells me that if politicians in her country received donations from corporations or individuals, they would be breaking the law! Imagine it! How different would US politics be if private money weren’t involved! How different would US law be if corporations could not fund campaigns! How different would the slate of candidates be, if one didn’t have to be rich to run! How different would our itch for war be, if munitions-makers and oil brokers didn’t elect candidates! How different campaigns would be, if candidates weren’t begging for money!

Now an even greater surprise.

Dazzling: Olbermann indicts elected officials on healthcare-funded campaigns

Watch this video!

Keith Olbermann reveals the numbers behind those Senators and Congressmen and women who have funded their elections with health industry money, and who now deliver the goods by killing the public option.

I believe that Iowa’s own Chuck Grassley (who lately has joined in the “death panels” fabrication)  is among the top ten recipients of health industry contributions in the Senate.  Sen. Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, received more campaign money from the industry than from his home state.

The public option is the single greatest cost-cutting measure of this entire process.  It creates competition for an industry that operates in near-monopoly conditions. It takes the need to make a profit out of the choices doctors offer their patients.

It is good for Americans but bad for health industry millionaires.  And the CEOs are calling in their debts.

The politicians who rode industry money into office know what’s at stake:  choke the the public option, or find other money to fund your re-election.

Write your elected officials today.  Tell them you want the option to choose insurance that doesn’t connect care with profits.  You can find their addresses in the right sidebar, under the heading “E-mail.”

They’ve got the money.  But we cast the votes.

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