Today’s mail was interesting:
It needs a reply.
Dear Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,
I no longer live in Mark Souder’s district. Just so’s you know.
You can continue to send me the amusing direct-mail attacks, however. But as an editor, if I may: The most effective campaign literature spells the candidate’s name correctly.
Best,
Nance.
Colleen said on October 30, 2008 at 1:33 pm
At least they spelled “a lot” as two words…
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jcburns said on October 30, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I wonder which lot it was?
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Dorothy said on October 30, 2008 at 2:38 pm
The lot where they buried Mark and then replaced him with his evil twin, Mike.
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moe99 said on October 30, 2008 at 2:42 pm
JTP failed to show up for the Defiance rally. Dang!
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brian stouder said on October 30, 2008 at 2:53 pm
When we heard that jtp was awol, Pam joked that, no doubt, he was all tied up in high level negotiations with his publicist and a country-western recording label……(or possibly, in his capacity as idiot-savant spokesperson for the McCain-Palin campaign, he was on a stage somewhere, holding forth about how Obama will utterly destroy Israel, if he becomes president)
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Dexter said on October 30, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Nance: The Dems are running some very convincing attack videos against Souder, with the tag line being something about Washington has been very good , for Souder…not so good for Indiana. (I live in Ohio but we get Fort Wayne TV stations.)
These are the best ads of the season, by far.
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Kevin Knuth said on October 30, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I should also point out that earlier this year the NRC put out a press release calling THEIR Congressman Michael Souder (http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080615/LOCAL0202/806150453/1002/LOCAL scroll down to “what’s in a name”). Just shows he is forgettable- even to his own party!
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Kevin Knuth said on October 30, 2008 at 4:16 pm
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Gasman said on October 30, 2008 at 4:51 pm
If you saw Olbermann last night, he mentioned that not only is Joe shopping around for a book deal, he’s looking for a Nashville recording contract, and contemplating a run for congress. Wow. That is a lot – or as Joe might say, “alot” – to digest.
Based upon the utter imbecility suggested by his off the cuff remarks, I’m not sure that Joe has read that many books, so the writing process should be pretty unfamiliar to him. What the hell could he possibly have to say that would require more than a very thin pamphlet at best? Precisely how many people would actually shell out their hard earned money to read anything which Joe had written – or had ghost written?
Is there any evidence that the man has even the slightest vestigial trace of musical aptitude? As a working musician, this one really gets under my skin. He isn’t even licensed in his own profession and now he wants to be a pro musician. Anyone want to take bets on how cheaply his CDs would go for come inauguration day?
As for Joe running for congress, has the problem in Washington really been that we have had too FEW uniformed blowhard Republicans there? I’d like to hear George Wills, David Brooks, and other conservative intellectuals chime in on Joe the Congressman.
I’ll dedicate my quote of the day to JTP, who basically might not be bad guy at heart, but is getting presumptive and giddy with his time in the rarified air next to the stars. He is beginning to believe that he is someone important, someone who the country wants to hear from on any and every subject. I wouldn’t even go to him for plumbing advice, let alone foreign policy musings. Joe, this one’s for you:
“Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.”
— Heinrich Heine
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caliban said on October 30, 2008 at 5:09 pm
We get Savannah TV in Hilton Head, so we’re treated nightly to Sackless Chambliss that actually claim his Senatorial opponent supports soliciting children for prostitution. Once you’ve morphed Max Cleland into Osama, this shit is like heroin. Mitch McConnell is playing political Saw with Ted Stevens.
As much as I want to see those three quintessential GOP aholes humiliated, McCain remains the ultimate avatar of abject Republican reptile brain desperation. Most pitiful ploy right now? Tossup. On one hand, the twat is claiming the LATimes is protecting Obama. TLA fing Times. That employs Jonah Goldberg and Max Boot as its star pundintz. What a perfect storm of panic, ignorance, and total disrespect for the electorate.
Still, resorting to robo-calling in your home state five days before the election, well, goshdarn it, you almost feel…yeah, right. Run a campaign like so many Mole Men, and you get what you deserve when you break into a whole new circle of hell.
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Dexter said on October 30, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Colleen: That bugs me “alot”, too. Really…I bet over half the population believes “alot” is a word!
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MichaelG said on October 30, 2008 at 6:12 pm
That’s alot of the population, Dexter.
Back from my brief sojourn as MichaelJ. Just checking out an alternate identity.
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caliban said on October 30, 2008 at 6:15 pm
“Alot” is sort of like a verbal tick, like people that know better unable not to say “new-cue-lar”. The one that gets me is endemic misuse of “bias” for “biased”. What the hell? “I am Woman”? “We are Marshall”? “I am become death”? “We are all bias”?
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LA Mary said on October 30, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Whole nother is used alot.
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moe99 said on October 30, 2008 at 7:01 pm
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=13069
The modern day equivalent of the golden calf.
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Dexter said on October 30, 2008 at 8:28 pm
My brother has shortened “ballpark estimate” to just “ballpark”.
So…who is going to win the electoral college? Give me a ballpark, don’t be bias,
I have heard alot of stuff about Palin, but that’s a whole nuther ballgame!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our trick or treat was tonight; more kids showed up than I remember from past years. The weather was great and the costumes were creative…my fave was a girl dressed like a flying bug, green spotted wings and a crazy mask with a Z-shaped broken stinger for a nose. I kind of lost it, laughing so hard. They took all the candy we had, so the last-fifteen-minute-stragglers got bubble gum only. The last kid got the tub dumped into his sack…a LOT of bubble gum…but I have a mouth full of dental crowns and no way do I want any bubble gum around.
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brian stouder said on October 30, 2008 at 8:30 pm
You know, no matter how much Souder irritates me, I simply cannot vote for his silly opponent.
It would have been so much easier if Jill Long had run for her old congressional seat again
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JGW said on October 30, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I’m not in that district – I got to vote between Mike Pence, perpetual candidate Ed Welsh, or write in, hee hee. Since I’m a precinct judge I love playing with the Microvote and the write in field. Mr. Burns almost got my vote, but I stood strong for Obama and the ticket.
Plus as the old adage says, A vote for Burns is a vote for McCain. And the idea of V.P. Palin, well, put an “e” on the end and all makes Quayle look like FDR. The nice part is 90% of americans can’t tell the diff between her and Tiny Fey.
But D that I am, I still dislike carpet baggers. And Montagano has to spend 90 mins a day on dental care. But Souder’s ads. Charlie Rangel isn’t the devil, it’s a GOP attempt to play the race card and the harlem card, Spooky in Hoosierville.
The Souder attack ad is funny, with Montagano grilling in chef hat, then snoozin in a hammock. At least he cooks his grub and doesn’t go on beserkers in the congress dining room over grilled vs. toasted turkey sandwiches. I’d have went for the Senate Bean Soup, but after 14 years ya need variety.
Assuming Montagano is a paisano, he will find Alfredo’s and Miriams in DC and be just fine. Or Sutton Place Gourmet. I didn’t know how to take the name pronounciation lesson commercial with his dad, but my mom is a Mangaracina, so I see the benefits of that ad in a state that says “Eye-Talian.” Out east that’s like using the N word in the wrong part of the Bronx. Say you want “eye-talian” dressing in Bensonhust, Brooklyn and then duck.
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caliban said on October 30, 2008 at 9:46 pm
That Khalidi guy McCain is trying to tie Obama to? Might want to go Emily Littella on that one. All Bozos on that Straight Talk Bus.
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joodyb said on October 30, 2008 at 10:35 pm
wires at this hour have clarification from the Press Office (the Nashville PR firm) that the Plumber’s recording contract is rank hyperbole but the publicist is go. as they are said publicist, i guess they’d know.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 30, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Actually, the church regional gathering i was at this past weekend included a guy playing a garden hose and a funnel — Joe the Not-Really-Licensed-Plumber-Whose-Records-Have-Been-Combed-By-the-Dem-State-Officials could have done “Flight of the Bumblebee” on that assemblage.
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Terry WAlter said on October 31, 2008 at 6:51 am
A special invitation to my many NBF’s. Wander over to the Wall Street Journal site and read the column ‘Obama and the Politics of Crowds’. It’s written by Fouad Ajami, an Arab. But I’ll bet he’s just not telling us his middle name is Tom.
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beb said on October 31, 2008 at 7:27 am
The thing about Joe – the – Plumber’s 15 minutes of fame is that there is never a meter maid around to tell them that their time has expired.
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Jolene said on October 31, 2008 at 8:22 am
What prompts your invitation, Terry? Are you thinking that those of us who support Obama are living in Dreamland?
I think we know that Obama is not the Messiah, that there will still be choices to make, and that everyone won’t get everything they want on January 21st–or ever.
But what we can get from Obama, I believe, is a systematic, intelligent approach to our real problems and the sense that we can do better—that we don’t have to just let things be how they are and hope for the best. We can try to fix the things we know are not working.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 31, 2008 at 8:27 am
I’m visualizing a brigade of uniformed women in Andy Warhol wigs on Segways, scooting around the country, zipping up to folks past their sell-by date talking in front of a camera or a listening reporter, writing up a citation, ripping it off their clipboard with a flourish, and handing it to the Sixteenth Minute Offender (“You have the right to challenge this determination in court within seven days, or to plead guilty by mailing the fine to the address printed on the reverse of this form.”)
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nancy said on October 31, 2008 at 8:30 am
Fouad Ajami was born in Lebanon, but emigrated to the U.S. in the early 60s, where he’s lived ever since.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 31, 2008 at 8:45 am
Terry, i read that piece yesterday, and was baffled by it myself. Ajami is trying to raise the ambiguity point about Obama’s politics, which is fair enough and needs doing (still will after Jan. 20, for that matter), but does so in the most unhelpful way imaginable.
It doesn’t help that he bookends the piece with quotes from the wrongly honored Elias Canetti; as a big Iris Murdoch fan, let me just add that any reader of Murdoch can tell you that Canetti was a monstrous egocentric misanthrope, Nobel or no. Drawing a crowd should not be seen as ominous for Obama . . . or Palin, and that claim has been made both directions across the aisle.
Enough of anti-populism. We don’t necessarily need a resurgent populism per se (pace Wm Jennings Bryan, Ignatius Donnelly, et alia), but this idea that something large numbers of people like is therefore highly suspect and uncreditable (Norman Rockwell, John Rutter, Coldplay, John Grisham, Charles Dickens, Georgia O’Keefe) is pseudo-elitist bullpuckey.
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alex said on October 31, 2008 at 9:14 am
Regarding Khalidi, the WaPo put it best:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103003244.html
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brian stouder said on October 31, 2008 at 10:04 am
Alex – great article; thanks for the link.
As some pundit said – the McCain campaign doesn’t have any high cards left – but they’re playing all that remains in their hand.
It IS somewhat surprising that McCain is going down in such a dishonorable way. His presidential run presumeably marks the curtain-call of his career on the national stage, and to end on such a Nixonian note is more than a little odd. (his campaign looks more and more like the farewell-balloon ride of Professor Marvel in the Wizard of OZ “I can’t come back! I don’t know how to fly it! So long, folks!!”)
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The Subtle Rudder said on October 31, 2008 at 10:05 am
Not sure if this has been posted yet, but here’s an analysis of whether bad times lead to more zombies: http://tinyurl.com/6mjh3q
Check out that chart!
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moe99 said on October 31, 2008 at 10:05 am
Alex, there’s a few bloggers that I think got it right about Khalidi:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/10/if-you-have-a-r.html
http://icga.blogspot.com/2008/10/rubin-my-friend-neo-nazi.html
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/10/hbc-90003779
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/28/mccain-funded-work-of-pal_n_138606.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015449.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241253.php
The problem with the McCain campaign is that it has devolved into zero policy and 100% personal attacks. There is no redeeming value in McCain or Palin at the present time.
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RoryonLanGuyland said on October 31, 2008 at 10:27 am
Know what I also hear alot of? “Asterick.” No, you morons, it’s “AsteriSk!” Please, get it RIGHT! God, even heard a girl on a local radio spot say “asterick” the other day. Ack!
Rory the former Copy Chief
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LA Mary said on October 31, 2008 at 11:04 am
Um, I went out to dinner with Fouad Ajami once. When I managed a gourmet shop on the Upper West Side he used to stop in, buy stuff, and flirt with me. He got famous when Iran got crazy and the all the news shows needed someone to explain what Shiites are. I think he was a professor of poli sci at Columbia before that.
We didn’t talk politics at dinner. He mostly was coming on to me.
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nancy said on October 31, 2008 at 11:08 am
And Mary wins the thread in 33! Wooooo!
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brian stouder said on October 31, 2008 at 11:19 am
Mary rocks!
(and in so doing, proves once again that women have ALL the power, and too much refinement to utilize it)
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Terry WAlter said on November 2, 2008 at 12:56 am
So Mary, wouldn’t you say he was an asstute observer, and a great judge of character?
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