Yes, we can.

[Alex]

Sorry, I was amusing myself with the La Pine reference on the assumption nobody would know the place (my stepfather's mother had a bumper sticker on her car that said "Where in the hell is La Pine?").

I'm sure that the area tilts McCain (though I was amazed last time I drove through there just how much it has built out in the last decade.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Alex

Sorry, I was amusing myself with the La Pine reference on the assumption nobody would know the place (my stepfather's mother had a bumper sticker on her car that said "Where in the hell is La Pine?").

I'm sure that the area tilts McCain (though I was amazed last time I drove through there just how much it has built out in the last decade.

Lots of transplanted Californians live there so I wouldn't be surprised if the area was a tossup politically speaking...but yeah, most of the old timers are probably Republicans.

[scaeagles]

In all the discussion about Republican racism, I was very (not sarcastically - I really am) suprised by this poll from Stanford and AP.

Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks—many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles.

Now, I will say that I don't think the last item specifically listed in the quote ("responsible for their own troubles") is a racial thing. I typically think most everyone is responsible for their own troubles. I would not be surprised if that was what most respondents said, but I don't know for sure from what I've read.

Perhaps I live in some sort of sheltered bubble of good people....I know maybe 3 genuine racists (all republicans, btw). I was really shocked by this.

[flippyshark]

This survey seems mighty strange to me. I'd like to see exactly how it was worded and scored. Also, do these white democrats who apparently think black people are lazy or violent feel the same way about Barack? Really? Was the survey really that general? I'm appalled by it, but suspicious enough that I don't plan to put any store by it.

[Alex]

FiveThirtyEight.com raises some concerns about the article. Not so much a refutation as simple concerns (the polling methodology apparently hasn't been released).

Also, since the cell phone issue has come up several times recently in relation to polling, that site also has an article today looking at the differences between polling organizations that do poll cell phones and those that don't.

[bewitched]

I hate to say I'm not surprised by the poll, but I would suspect that many Dems who won't vote for Obama based on his race are probably part of the group we used to call the Reagan Democrats: generally blue collar workers (from the NE industrial states) who are socially conservative.

I'm not indicting all social conservatives, but they are a great deal more likely to be racist than people who are either liberal, or middle of the road regarding social issues.

[innerSpaceman]

So, surprise surprise, many of Obama's top donors are the very investment banks he supports bailing out this week with a $700 billion blank check from the taxpayers.


You youngin's who support Mr. Obama with your impressionable hearts and souls are perhaps too young to remember the similar campaign of Bill Clinton during the less drastic economic crisis of 1992 ... and how between the time of being elected and being inaugurated, closed door meetings with famed economist Robert Rubin caused, according to Rubin, a complete conversion in Mr. Clinton. This is bourne out by how he governed as president, gutting welfare and repealing the 1934 Glass Steigal act which was the post-depression firewall between risky investment banks (that have now tanked) and consumer banks holding the life savings of ordinary citizens ... which essentially prevented risky investments such as the ones which have again decimated the financial sector from affecting consumer savings.

Clinton repealed that act, under vast pressure from his masters, the investment banks and Wall Street.


Who's to say these large donors are not Obama's masters as well? Where will the countervailing pressure come from to hold Obama's feet to the populist fire he preaches so freely with his mouth?


Democrats in Congress want some minor conditions on the $700 billion blank check, such as caps on CEO compensation and protection for millions of homeowners facing foreclosure. But the Bush Administration (surprise surprise) wants a simple blank check and unlimited powers given to the Treasury Secretary to bail out failing banks by buying the bad mortgage debt packages with taxpayer funds as he sees fit, i.e., as banks demand. Banks are already salivating and urging Treasury to purchase other bad debts beyond the mortgage packages with our money.


Meanwhile, reputable economists have predicted this disaster for years. So this is not some unforseen disaster to Congress and the Administration like a hurricane or nuclear attack. These are their policies coming home to roost ... and suddenly we have the most activist goverment since the New Deal with powers and funds government long insisted it didn't have.

Where were these powers and moneys when it came to reforming health care, saving social security, restoring our national infrastructure??


All the young Obama supporters are too young to remember when government actually did anything, when government made things instead of unmaking them. In their entire lifetimes, all they've seen is cutbacks and can't do's. Oh-ho, suddenly there's plenty of money, and plenty of willpower to take radical and meddling action in altering the free-market economy trumped uber alis by our government for decades.


Meanwhile, in the midst of the looming and unfolding crisis, the two presidential campaigns have become nearly meaningless. And sure, Obama looks to be the better candidate on the economy than McCain by a long shot. But he's almost as dangerous. It already looks like he's under the thumb of his Wall Street donors, and what kind of president will good-mouthed Obama really be?

Ah memories of Clinton's promise ... and ultimate failings. Why the Republicans didn't just love him as president, I will never know. He governed precisely as a big-business Republican would have.


Meanwhile, FDR's New Deal after the depression was not a cake-walk for that administration. It was a series of radical and progressive acts, opposed by Wall Street at every turn. And the results were actually compromises Wall Street accepted ... because, at the time, the alternative was actual revolution in the streets.


That kind of serious, radical, prevalent grass-roots pressure from below is what it will again take for the next president to feel a countermanding pressure from Main Street below to match the intense pressure from Wall Street above.


I don't think the American people are up for it.



See you in the bread lines.

[scaeagles]

This is an easy to understand piece on why this financial crisis is largely the democrats failure, not the republicans. It also points out that McCain was one of three cosponsors on a bill that would most likely have averted this should it have passed.

Fannie and Freddie did this by becoming a key enabler of the mortgage crisis. They fueled Wall Street's efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-mortgage pools. In addition, they held an enormous portfolio of mortgages themselves.

....

The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn't be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie ``continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,'' he said. ``We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.''

...

Oh, and there is one little footnote to the story that's worth keeping in mind while Democrats point fingers between now and Nov. 4: Senator John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess.

This needs to be publicized from the mountain tops by the Mccain campaign.

No wonder Pelosi has been loudly proclaiming the dems have no fault in this. It appears to be largely their fault, and McCain was one who tried to pass legicaltion to reign in this problem three years ago.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

This is an easy to understand piece on why this financial crisis is largely the democrats failure, not the republicans. It also points out that McCain was one of three cosponsors on a bill that would most likely have averted this should it have passed.

It also is written by a McCain campaign advisor.

[innerSpaceman]

Three years ago when the Republicans controlled the White House and Congress??? I'm confused, and won't be examing any of this material until someone can explain to me how the Republicans are not responsible for anything that passed while they completely controlled Congress.


Believe me, I'm not holding the Democrats harmless in this. But certainly Mr. Keating Five Scandal, aka McCain, has been no less in the pockets of Wall Street Banks than the rest of his collaborators on both sides of the aisle.