I’m very proud to be a citizen of both Canada and the United States. I’m even prouder to call myself an American, even though I haven’t lived there in years. I’ll be back in the States in less then two years and I’m very excited.

But sometimes certain factions of the American population really anger me.

This time, unsurprisingly, it’s a few of the more conservative “pundits” and those who share their views.

Here’s why: Obama took some flack today from those conservative voices for bowing to the Emperor of Japan. Seriously.

He bowed to an EMPEROR. Apparently that’s a problem. Here’s a quote from a conservative who spoke on Fox News: “..it’s not appropriate for an American president to bow to a foreign one.”

Now, a conservative voice on CNN: “It’s ugly. I don’t want to see it…We don’t defer to emperors. We don’t defer to kings or emperors. The president of the United States — this coupled with so many apologies from the United States — is just another thing.” Apparently the U.S. president is King of the WORLD.

We actually still owe Japan an apology for nuking them. That deserves an apology. We’re assholes for doing that. No excuses for nuking.

Conservatives are comparing Obama’s bow to the last U.S. visit to Japan. Cheney was the last to go and he didn’t bow, he just shook Emperor Akihito’s hand.

First of all, how conservatives think using Cheney as an example of what TO do makes no sense. The man is the embodiment of Satan.

Second, how arrogant can you be? How can anyone think it wrong to adapt to a people’s reasonable customs? It was a sign of RESPECT. It does NOT symbolize apathy or a flaky attitude. It does NOT symbolize the U.S. being weak or too apologetic.

The only negative of Obama bowing is the reaction it got. And that’s not Obama’s fault. It’s not his fault that some of his countrymen are idiotic and arrogant.

I sincerely believe the majority of Americans are humble and not arrogant. So, World, don’t think us as such.

I’m glad Obama bowed and I hope he does it whenever appropriate.

As part of the Massachusetts Freedom to Vote Act, the proposed measure would allow a 16 1/2-year-old to pre-register to vote when they apply for a driving permit at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, so that when they turn 18, their registration will automatically kick in.

“This is an easy, no cost, common sense bill,” said State Rep. Ellen Story (D-Amherst), at a press conference before the hearing this week.

Story, who is lead sponsor for the bill, said she has had this proposal on her desk for a couple of years, and believes this is the right time to get it passed.

“The legislature is looking for things to do between now and Nov. 18, when we recess, that are good government bills and that don’t cost money,” Story said after her testimony to the Committee. “This doesn’t cost anything.”

Story said a person under the age of 18 should have the opportunity to pre-register, because young people at that age are starting to form their own opinions, and she said voting at a young age would lead to a lifetime of responsible voters.

“Voting is addictive,” said Story, who said the bill did not make it far last year but has heard no opposition from anyone. “If you start voting, you will never stop.”

In a study by Common Cause, the government watchdog found that only 50 percent of 18-year-olds are registered to vote in the US, and in the 2008 elections only 59 percent of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 24 were registered to vote.

The bill has already been implemented in 10 states around the country, including Connecticut and Maine.

The new bill would not change the voting age to 16, since 18 is the legal age to vote as stated in the US Constitution, but the bill might make it easier for 18-year-olds to vote.

“I’m a junior, and if I could just register to vote now it would make things that much easier because things are going to be hectic with college,” said said Donovan Birch, a junior at Boston Preparatory Charter Public School, who testified to the committee. “The first half of my year will be applying to college, then getting ready for it, then I have to fulfill all my requirement for my senior year.”

Birch, a member of Young Civic Leaders, a program sponsored by MassVote, a voters’ rights organization, designed to build leaders in the community, said this new bill would make it easier because senior year of high school can be a very busy time.

“Even though I’ll be 18, registering to vote isn’t going to be the first thing on my mind.”

Rep. Michael J. Moran, chair of the Election Laws Committee, was impressed by Birch’s testimony.

“We need more kids like you getting active,” said Moran, who jokingly told the group of 10 to 15 high school students that he tried to get them a half-day of school. “I know it can be very boring, but very important stuff goes on in here, and I appreciate you all coming.”

Avi Green, executive director of MassVote, said it was important for the high school students to voice their opinion to the Committee.

“It’s critical,” said Green, who, along with MassVote, sponsored the press conference before the hearing. “Everyone’s always saying ‘This is good for high school students or that is good for high school students or this is good for youth’ but I think youth can speak for themselves.

“I think Donovan was just as impressive as the adults that I heard, and I really hope that bill passes.”

Green is also an advocate for the other major proposed bills in The Mass Freedom to Vote Act. Including, Election Day registration, which would allow voters to register on the day of elections providing they have proof of residence and ID, and early voting, which would give voters a week in advance to vote in case they were not available on Election Day.

No vote was made on the bill, and Green said he hoped the Committee to act sooner rather than later.

The digital world came alive, and Wilson was quickly one of the most “trended topics” on Twitter.

Then Wilson’s website, http://www.joewilson.house.gov/ went down with a placeholder page that said: “This site is down for maintenance. Please check back soon.”

Then he became one of the most Googled terms of the day.

Some people even fired back. According to CNN, some new Twitter accounts were created, with their first and only Tweets being in support of Wilson.

But even other members of Congress went public and digital with their condemnation of Wilson: “Biggest disappointment of evening, the total lack of respect show by one member for the president,” Tweeted Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. “Never acceptable to behave like a jerk.”

According to CNN, South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler capitalized: “Once again a South Carolina Republican has embarrassed our state,” Fowler’s office said, referring to S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford’s extramarital, international affair. “Never has any member of Congress shown such disrespect for the president during a speech. … Joe Wilson is a poor example of a statesman and an American.”

Wilson currently faces Democratic challenger Rob Miller in the mid-term election in 2010.

Edward Moore Kennedy was born in St. Margaret’s Hospital in Dorchester on February 22, 1932, preceded by eight brothers and sisters, to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald, both from well-connected Irish-American families. As a result of several moves, to New York, Florida, and London, Kennedy attended many schools and was a mediocre student at most of them. He spent his high school years at Milton Academy where he maintained average grades and excelled on the football team.

Tragedy marked his life early on, and by age 16 he had suffered the deaths of three of his siblings: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. in World War II, Rosemary Kennedy to a failed lobotomy, and Kathleen Agnes Kennedy in a plane crash.

After completing high school, Kennedy enrolled in Harvard University, where his grades once again took a back seat to his football career. He had a friend take his Spanish exam in hopes of maintaining high enough grades to continue his sports career. When caught, both were expelled, leading to a stint in the United States Army for Kennedy in 1951.

Thanks to his father’s political connections, he was never assigned to combat in the ongoing Korean War and instead served as an honor guard in Paris after completing basic training and Military Police school.

Shortly after he was discharged as a private first class in March 1953, Kennedy returned to Harvard to finish his studies and, after his sophomore year academic probation ended, his football career as a second string end, working his way up to starting end by senior year. Despite not receiving a varsity letter he was contacted by a Green Bay Packers recruiter with an offer to play professionally, which he turned down to go to law school and “go into another contact sport: politics.”

While attending the University of Virginia School of Law between 1956 and 1959, Kennedy studied abroad at the Hague Academy of International Law and managed his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s 1958 Senate re-election campaign, helping to achieve a record-setting landslide victory. He also received charges of reckless driving and operating without a license, the first of his vehicle-related incidents.

He graduated from law school and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1959, after marrying Virginia Joan Bennett on November 29, 1958, at St. Joseph’s Church in Bronxville, New York. They had three children together: Kara Anne, Edward Jr., and Patrick. Due to his womanizing and her growing alcoholism, the marriage was soon troubled.

In 1960, Ted’s brother John ran for president, and Ted managed his campaign in the Western States, helping John win the first battleground state of Wisconsin in the Democratic primary. After the general election, Ted wanted to remain out West and not run for office immediately, and he was not eligible for John’s vacated Massachusetts Senate seat until his 30th birthday on February 22. Instead, John asked Governor Foster Furcolo to name Benjamin A. Smith II to the seat, which would hold it so Ted could later run in a special election.

Rehashing his brother’s campaign slogan from 10 years prior, Ted Kennedy went against Massachusetts Attorney General Edward J. McCormack Jr., who said that Ted would be “one Kennedy too many.” He faced his first public scandal when McCormack revealed his Harvard expulsion publically, but Kennedy rose above this, aided by McCormack’s overbearing nature in a debate, in which he said “the office of United States Senator should be merited, not inherited,” and called Kennedy’s campaign a joke. Kennedy went on to crush McCormack in the primary by a two-to-one margin and Republican candidate George Cabot Lodge II in the November special election.

Ted Kennedy spent his early Senate career avoiding the spotlight and trying to avoid making enemies of the older, more established Senators, and instead focused on his committee work. Not long after his career started, while presiding over the Senate, he was informed of his brother John’s assassination on November 22, 1963. Seven months later, Ted suffered severe injuries in a plane crash in Southampton, Mass., including a punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding, and a back injury that persisted throughout the remainder of his life. The pilot and one of his aides died in the crash.

For a review of some of Ted Kennedy’s major political accomplishments, read Dan Kennedy’s piece for Blast on the Lion’s legacy.

In 1968, after securing the California primary against President Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, the family member Ted was closest with, was assassinated, devastating the young Senator. He delivered a eulogy at his speech, which included one of his most famous quotes:

My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: ‘Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.’

Seen by many as the natural successor to his brother, Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago and others encouraged Kennedy to make himself available for a draft to take the nomination, though he declined as he felt unprepared and did not want to be seen as a filler now that his brothers were gone.

With his brothers dead, Ted took on the role of paternal figure to their 13 children, and rumors persist that he coordinated the marriage of Jacqueline Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis.

Despite the trauma and hardships he had recently suffered, Kennedy threw himself into his work and became the youngest ever Senate Majority Whip in 1969, a move that seemed to further position him for the presidency, which he still felt conflicted about.

A few months later, Kennedy was involved in what is now known as the “Chappaquiddick incident.” After leaving a party for the Boiler Room Girls, a group of women who had helped in Robert’s presidential campaign, Kennedy drove his 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 off the Dike Bridge and into the Poucha Pond inlet. He quickly swam to safety, but his passenger, Boiler Room Girl Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned. Kennedy did not report the incident to police until her body was found the next day.

Kennedy received a suspended sentence after a guilty plea to leaving the scene of an accident a week later, and gave a nationally-broadcasted speech in which he avoided admitting guilt to driving under the influence of alcohol or improper relations with the 28-year old Kopechne, but expressed his decision to leave the scene as “indefensible.” Despite the scandal, Kennedy received a positive response to stay in office from the Massachusetts electorate.

Doubts have clouded the reports of the events of that night, and to this day many question Kennedy’s story, which a secret inquest by Judge James A. Boyle found to be inconsistent. A grand jury on Martha’s Vineyard also conducted an inquest which was inconclusive. Kennedy condemned Boyle’s inquest, which was made public after the local inquest’s report, as “not justified.”

Kennedy overcame the allegations and easily won re-election the year following the incident, 1970, but lost his position as Majority Whip to Robert Byrd of West Virginia, which he confided to Byrd was a blessing as it allowed him to focus on his committee work.

Kennedy spent much of the 1970s focused on real political work, pushing through legislation such as the National Cancer Act of 1971 and working tirelessly on issues such as the conflict in Northern Ireland, health insurance reform and campaign finance reform. He repeatedly entertained thoughts of running for president, but family problems and the ongoing coverage of the Chappaquiddick incident kept him from committing, despite polling suggesting he could easily win the primary and the lack of other viable Democratic candidates.

In 1973, Kennedy’s son Edward Jr. was diagnosed with chondrosarcoma, resulting in a leg amputation. His other son, Patrick, was suffering from severe asthma attacks, and Ted’s wife Joan sunk deeper into her alcoholism, resulting in several stints in instutitions and an accident due to drunk driving leading to her arrest.

In the late mid to late 70s, Kennedy was at his lowest point politically, as he found himself without a chairmanship and Carter taking the reins as the ranking Democrat. Carter’s differing priorities put a strain on Kennedy’s efforts to improve health care, and he instead focused on international good will, visiting China and the Soviet Union in 1977 and 1978. He rose to take the mantle of Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, but suffered another blow when Carter refused to back the $60 billion price tag of his proposed national health care plan.

In an unusual bid to unseat Carter, a member of his own party, Kennedy eventually ran for president in the 1980 election, and was the favored candidate due to Carter’s unpopularity and weak stances on many issues, but he ultimately lost, in part due to negative press regarding his answer to the Chappaquiddick incident question and the electorate’s sudden support of the president during the Iranian hostage situation and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. When Carter badly bruised Kennedy in the Iowa caucuses, many of Kennedy’s key fundraisers bailed, and it was a downward slope from there. Kennedy, however, clung to his fearless nature, no doubt earned on the grid iron in high school and at Harvard, and pushed his campaign all the way to the Democratic National Convention despite almost impossible odds, but conceded the nomination when his measure to free delegates from their voting commitments was defeated on the first night of the convention. Ultimately, Carter’s inability to win over Kennedy supporters aided in his defeat to Ronald Reagan in the general election.

In 1981, Kennedy faced unique challenges, including being a minority member of the Senate for the first time, and announcing his divorce from Joan Kennedy, settling for $4 million in 1982 after a relatively benign proceeding. Kennedy, meanwhile, tirelessly fought against policies of the Reagan administration, once again turned down calls for a 1984 presidential run, and embarked on a landmark trip to South Africa, staying at the home of Bishop Desmond Tutu, which could easily have cost him his life in the tumultuous apartheid atmosphere of the time. He later went on to be a key member of arms control talks with Mikhail Gorbachev under the Reagan administration; despite political differences, he and the president respected each other and maintained amicable relations.

After his divorce, drinking and womanizing became more of a public burden for Kennedy, and he was involved in drunken incidents with fellow Senator Chris Dodd in Washington, including allegedly unwanted physical contact with a waitress in a D.C. restaurant. These factors played a big role in his cutting short any plans of running in the 1988 presidential election.

Following the 1986 Congressional elections, the Democratic Party regained control of the Senate. As a result of his good working relationship with many prominent Republicans, Kennedy was once again one of the most powerful men in Washington, and used his position to effectively defeat Reagan’s nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, which he saw as a threat to the civil rights he had fought so hard for. Kennedy used caustic tactics, including a speech which painted a picture of Bork’s America as a land of back alley abortions and segregation, which many saw as slanderous, but which was ultimately effective.

The 1990s saw Kennedy’s flaws magnified, through rape charges against his nephew following a night of drinking with the elder Kennedy, which Kennedy suppressed with a negative press campaign, as well as many articles and jokes about his conduct with women and his persistent drunken antics. This image put him in a position of ineffectiveness against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, which he opposed due to Thomas’ refusal to comment on Roe v. Wade. His silence on the issue hurt Democrats chances of blocking the nomination, but to speak out would have been regarded as highly hypocritical.

The acquittal of his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, and his serious relationship with Victoria Anne Reggie, which led to their marriage in 1992, improved his image, and Victoria is credited with stabilizing his personal life, which let him focus on the larger challenges ahead, including his fight against Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America legislation which earned his title of Lion of the Senate, alater challenge from Republican Mitt Romney for his Senate seat, and his defense of President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. More recently, Kennedy served as a voice against the Iraq War from the start, though he supported the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

By far his most passionate endeavour was the reform of health care in America, “the cause of his life,” he said, but which he died unable to attain. After a seizure in May of 2008, doctors announced Kennedy suffered from a malignant glioma, a brain tumor. After a risky operation to remove the tumor, which was considered a success, Kennedy underwent chemotherapy and radiation therapy. His condition declined quickly over the next year, and he died at his home in Hyannis Port, MA on August 25, 2009.

Frederick Rincon contributed research for this story.

Health care reform was one of Kennedy’s flagship issues and a cornerstone of his policy throughout his decades in the Senate. By naming the bill after him, many hope that he will accomplish in death what he was not able to in life, another in a long line of personal and publicized tragedies in his expansive career.

Byrd’s full statement:

I had hoped and prayed that this day would never come. My heart and soul weeps at the lost of my best friend in the Senate, my beloved friend, Ted Kennedy.

Senator Kennedy and I both witnessed too many wars in our lives, and believed too strongly in the Constitution of the United States to allow us to go blindly into war. That is why we stood side by side in the Senate against the war in Iraq.

Neither years of age nor years of political combat, nor his illness, diminished the idealism and energy of this talented, imaginative, and intelligent man. And that is the kind of Senator Ted Kennedy was. Throughout his career, Senator Kennedy believed in a simple premise: that our society’s greatness lies in its ability and willingness to provide for its less fortunate members. Whether striving to increase the minimum wage, ensuring that all children have medical insurance, or securing better access to higher education, Senator Kennedy always showed that he cares deeply for those whose needs exceed their political clout. Unbowed by personal setbacks or by the terrible sorrows that have fallen upon his family, his spirit continued to soar, and he continued to work as hard as ever to make his dreams a reality.

In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American.

God bless his wife Vicki, his family, and the institution that he served so ably, which will never be the same without his voice of eloquence and reason. And God bless you Ted. I love you and will miss you terribly.

In my autobiography I wrote that during a visit to West Virginia in 1968 to help dedicate the “Robert F. Kennedy Youth Center” in Morgantown, “Senator Kennedy’s voice quivered with emotion as he talked of his late brothers and their love for West Virginia. ‘These hills, these people, and this state have had a very special meaning for my family. Our lives have been tightly intertwined with yours.’

I am sure the people of the great state of West Virginia join me in expressing our heartfelt condolences to the Kennedy family at this moment of deep sorrow.

The Prime Minister, if you recall, gave the President Obama a pen holder crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British warship HMS President (whose sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood for the Oval Office’s desk), while the President gave the Prime Minister a collection of 20 classic American DVD’s. The First Lady didn’t help matters when she provided the Brown’s two young sons toy models of Air Force One, compared to the Brown’s who gave the Obama daughters fashionable dresses and matching necklaces from Britain’s famous Top Shop and a variety of books by British authors. [NY Daily News]

Well, apparently, the faux pas aren’t over.

Recently, Robyn Spizman an author and nationally acclaimed gift giving expert contacted the White House over the President’s gifts to the Queen and the Prime Minister at the London G20 summit. What were the gifts you ask?

Ipods.

While, Spizman supported the President’s “non-traditional” choice of gift, she suggested it might have been “more appropriate” to use the Ipods as “gift toppers” placed with larger gifts that had a more permanent value that would have made a lasting place in history.

These gifts – referred to as head of state gifts -  from one leader to another symbolize goodwill, mutual respect and friendship – especially so in the case of Great Britain. They further diplomatic efforts among nations with contradictory world viewpoints. Spizman stresses that these gifts have historical longevity and a personal touch – afterall, “What does the gift say about the giver, and about the country he or she comes from? …Now more than ever, it’s important to look at products that truly represent the heart, soul and spirit of a nation.”

For instance, the gifts from China’s President Hu Jintao gave the President a one of a kind custom made vase by Franz Porcelain, a Chinese manufacturer located in Jinzdezhen -  the homeland of porcelain – who is known for its exquisitely handcrafted and handpainted porcelain sculptures.  Another example is the Prim wristwatch that the Czechoslovakian Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek gave President Obama. Prim is a maker of classic and sport-style Czech watches with cases crafted of platinum, gold, stainless steel or damask steel.

Head of state gifts, as Spizman says,  can create new traditions, celebrate past ones, help the global artist community or pay tribute to handcrafted artistry. “Gifts that leave a legacy and represent cultural spirit, and the spirit of the hand that makes the gift, are a way to bridge countries.”
So what do you think? Do you think Obama represented with the giving of the Ipods?

“I Can Haz Feminism?”

Jezebel had a post today about an ongoing dispute between Ms. magazine and other self described feminists. Basically these “super feminists” are pissed that Barack Obama is on the cover of Ms. because of how he was portrayed as “Superman” which is…not feminism. Some feminists feel that, well, they could have put anyone up there other than Barack Obama. I can’t say I disagree, we as a nation had two women who made huge strides in the “feminist movement” and they chose…Barack Obama who…hasn’t really done anything outstanding for feminism in my opinion. The argument against it is a little ridiculous but I think Naomi Wolff says it best in this video by disagreeing and yet agreeing with the overall point.

I think the argument should be focused less on the fact that he’s a man (Ms. has had men on their cover before) and more because well…what has he DONE for feminism? Having the “ear of the administration” as Ms. Watts said is a huge stride after the past eight years of anti-woman policies from the Bush Administration. But does that explain how when he was a state senator he voted present on a few “horrnedous anti-abortion” votes instead of voting no? If these women who put him up there are the ones who largely define feminism by your stance on reproductive rights then they made a big mistake because while he calls himself “pro-choice” I wouldn’t say he’s voted like he’s proudly pro-choice. A feminist – male or female -  should be PROUD of it, proud of all of his/her opinions in regards to ALL women’s issues. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t but to a lot of us feminists, maybe he hasn’t quite proven it. Overall though, Amy Siskind was right – men can be feminists.

Still though, Barack Obama’s questionable feminist status aside, how 70’s angry butch feminist of us to say men can’t be feminist, while I realize this isn’t exactly what they’re saying- I think anyone devoted to “equalizing” rights (though I personally think they’re all pretty equal as it is) or committed to electing women to office – you know the whole “breaking the glass ceiling?” and creating policies that affect women in positive ways. I think that’s feminism.

Feminism (at least to me) is not just about reproductive rights, it’s not just about the Lilly Ledbetter Act. It’s about equality and empowerment and setting goals and accomplishing them because we’re not in the 1900’s anymore and we can vote, we can run for office and we can have careers and The Man can’t stop us. We’ve come a long way since Jeanette Rankin my friends. What Sarah Palin wasn’t a feminist? She was/is a successful governor, the vice presidential candidate of a party criticized for being the party of middle aged white men and so what if she’s pro-life…she values life over choice – surprisingly a decent sized percentage of this nation is split on this issue and not as pro-choice as we think ourselves to be (much more moderate than many “feminists” would like to think- and that’s their right. But the point is politics aside, that’s the great thing about our nation, we have the RIGHT to opinions. Sarah Palin is still a woman and she broke barriers, like it or not. Hillary Clinton is no more of a feminist than Condi Rice, or Sarah Palin or anyone else I forgot to mention. 80 some-odd years ago women couldn’t even vote and now we’ve had two women run as vice presidential candidates, a woman run for the presidential nomination and lose to a black man (who made strides in his own right which is admirable). All of these women are feminist heros in their own rights. In my humble opinion at least.

People are too quick to define feminism in black and white as a single issue cause. My problem with this is the”feminism is only reproductive rights” feminists.

I am pro-choice however, my feminism is not defined by my pro-choice opinion. I’m not as far left as groups like NARAL, but rather a bit more moderate. How can you be moderate and pro-choice? I value that it’s a decision we as women have the right to make. However I am not gung-ho pro-abortion as many pro-choice women are perceived to be.

This is why I think reproductive rights do not define feminism. They don’t. Feminism is about more than that. I like Amy Siskind’s idea of a fourth wave of feminism for anyone – man or woman regardless of politics – who is “focused on electing a woman — any woman — to public office regardless of her stance on issues.”

Why? Because, women deserve to represented by their peers. Women deserve to have equal representation. How many women are in the House of Representatives or in the US Senate? Certainly not 50% of either house is female – yet 50% or so of our population is comprised of women. Go figure. Women deserve to break that so-called glass ceiling. Shatter the s**t out of it if you will. But while trying to do this we should not oppress men just because they “oppressed” us. We should be equal, doing otherwise would simply make us hypocrites.

Feminism doesn’t need a face. If you say “I’m a feminist” and you know what it means to you, and you want to empower women? Then that’s freakin’ awesome. If you think you’re a feminist only on the basis that you’re pro-choice? Good for you I suppose. If you’re a feminist because you think we deserve to not be oppressed by the man and you want to do everything in your power to stop it then so be it. I don’t care if you’re a PhD, or if you don’t even have a GED. Feminism shouldn’t just be defined whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life, man or woman, Republican or Democrat. Feminism is about a cause, it always has been dating back to the Suffragists of the early 1900’s. They took a stand for a cause that they believed in. Same with the equal rights movement in the 1960’s, with Roe v. Wade and Title IX in the 70’s. Our issue now? Representation? Equality? Why shouldn’t they both be causes? And why shouldn’t we include anyone who wants to get women to higher places – be it in politics or business – in feminism?

Why not?

I’m proud to be a feminist. Feminism, despite the preconceived notion, is not a dirty word.

commentary cross posted to BlogHer and Blast Magazine

When history is written, George W. Bush’s worst critics will accuse him of everything from willful negligence in handling 2008’s economic crisis to war crimes in the context of the catastrophic mistake that is the war in Iraq. In the end, they very well may be correct, but it is possible that all of his mistakes were not of the completely sinister nature like they’re sometimes characterized, but rather can be traced back to overall tragedy that he was simply a president stuck in the wrong century. Bush’s core beliefs — that the free market could police itself, that oil is always our answer, and that we can bomb and kill others into submission without chain reactions of consequences — were dying an eventual death around the time of Y2K, but Bush made sure to keep them on life support much longer than they ever should have survived.

There is no bigger example of The Past sucking the blood out of The Future than GM, Ford, and Chrysler begging for money from the U.S. Government yet again. This past month, we saw the Big Three auto companies fly in their private jets to Washington to request billions of dollars because for the past 25 years they have steadfastly refused to look at the calendar. They defiantly rejected efforts to increase their fuel efficiency standards as every country—even China—passed us in their mandatory requirements. Because executives lobbyied Congressmen to vote against everyone’s interests but theirs, their companies made short term profits that both crippled them and damaged the country. After all, only a 7.6 mile per gallon increase in our collective car efficiency would be enough to completely free ourselves from Middle East oil, while saving the individual American consumer critical pocket money. Instead, these companies marketed trucks that could pull airplanes down a runway and consumed oil at a breakneck pace. But why would they care about those details? They could just shove SUVs down Americans’ throats by luring them through tax breaks into a choice so obviously against their interests.

This is just the most blatant example of our chronic sickness of holding onto the past. It illustrates that the worst flaw of George Bush, and in turn of the corporations he represents, may be that he simply did not realize what century we lived in. The banking crisis, car company meltdown, and failed fight against Islamist extremism can be boiled down to using 20^th century policies in a 21^st century world.

———

As tears were streaming down the faces of millions of Americans on the night of November 4, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama said, in words that would ring loudly far after the last piece of confetti had fallen, “The time for change has come.” It was a beautiful sight for more reasons than one. Many were crying because the sight of a black man winning the American presidency was possibly the most powerful symbol of American exceptionalism anyone had ever seen. But those words were much more than a symbol of tolerance and the triumph of ability. They were a prologue to the tangible changes that will dramatically alter this country in the coming months—much more change than has ever happened in our lifetime.

Obama has spent his transition months putting together what has been almost universally lauded as a cabinet filled with experience, pragmatism, and overall excellence. It is a cabinet based solely on achievement, without regard for partisanship or political and financial connections.

While all of Obama’s cabinet picks have been praised for their qualifications and temperance, none exemplifies the stark realities of the new way of doing things better than Obama’s pick for Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu. Chu is a Nobel Prize winning physicist who is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a global warming research center whose primary goal is “to develop methods to “store” solar energy in the form of renewable transportation fuel.” There is a reason Al Gore is planning a Green Inaugural. It’s because The Age of Oil is coming to a close and Obama plans to kick it out the door.<!–nextpage–>

Bush’s pick for Energy Secretary, on the other hand, was Spencer Abraham, a Michigan senator most famous for taking more campaign donations from those same dinosaurs in the American Auto Industry than any other senator, and led the fight against corporate average fuel efficiency standards in automobiles. Change indeed.

But this is not just a Liberal president replacing Conservatives with more of the same from the other side. It’s a complete change in a philosophy that has run our government since its inception. Obama, when asked what he would do to help his “friends” in Springfield, Illinois to stem their State’s budget shortfalls,  challenged the very nature of the question.

“Part of the charge [of the budget team] is to make sure that we are proceeding on projects and investments based on national priorities and not based on politics,” he said. “Now you mentioned, sort of, ‘my friends.’ I want to be clear friendship doesn’t come into this. That’s part of the old way of doing business.

“The new way of doing business is, let’s figure out what projects, what investments are going to give the American economy the most bang for the buck. How can we protect taxpayer dollars so this money is not wasted; restore a sense of confidence among taxpayers that when we spend their money, it’s on things that are actually gonna improve their quality of life; create the jobs that are so desperately needed; help to spur on economic growth and business creation in the private sector? That’s all part of the new way of doing business.”

Being friends with the President is no longer a means to an end in any sense. Just ask John Kerry, one of Obama’s biggest and earliest supporters. He was passed over for Secretary of State in favor of Hillary Clinton, a person many accused of secretly rooting for Obama’s political destruction only months ago. While Kerry was certainly qualified, Obama’s decision underscored the notion that the age of cronyism is over. No more “Heckuva Job” Brownies or “I do not recall” Alberto Gonzaleses.

This Cult of Competence has been put in place to help Obama alter our policies as smoothly as possible, and the cornerstone to this change will come in the form of a massive stimulus package that Obama plans to sign perhaps as early as Inauguration Day, every single element of which is designed take take us out of the antiquated 20^th Century once and for all.

For a month now, Obama’s economic team has been crafting this new package, not aimed at Wall Street Banks or the crumbling car companies, but for Middle Class Americans. And it starts with the Internet. The money will be spent on laying broadband across the country, with the goal of giving every American free Internet access, a move that’s been on the FCC’s desk for years but which the Bush Administration has stubbornly tabled. As Obama has said, “we are the nation that invented the Internet, yet we are 15^th in the world in broadband adoption. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online.”

But that is just the start of what may come to be known as America 2.0. Every goal of the stimulus bill is designed to put Americans to work immediately, but even more importantly, set us up for the future. A nationwide high-tech power grid that will allow states to share solar and wind power will accelerate our ability to get off our dependence on foreign oil. Along with that universal access to the Web, a transfer of all hospital records to an electronic broadband system will eventually save the country billions of savings in administrative costs annually. Moreover, massive construction efforts to modernize public schools will encourage young Americans to learn and save massive amounts of money by making the buildings more energy efficient with new lighting and insulation.

As Obama often said during the campaign, the money that we spent on the Iraq War could have been used to rebuild every road, bridge, and school in our country — an intriguing thought that some might say is farfetched. Not anymore. This stimulus package could reach as high as $800 billion, actually approaching the number we have fiddled away in Iraq.

With all of this new technology helping the lives of people in the United States, Obama’s foreign policy will be aimed at change for everyone that lives outside of the country. He is in the midst of planning a major foreign policy speech to be given in an Islamic country in his first 100 days, through which he hopes to win the hearts and minds of everyone looking for an end to the seemingly never ending violence in the Middle East and beyond. This has never taken on greater importance than now as Israel’s War against Hamas threatens to put the region and the world on an even greater imbalance. The 20th Century was filled with religious wars and intolerance on a global scale, and as the leader of the Free World, the weight of moving not only our country, but the world in a new direction has fallen squarely on Obama’s shoulders

Our new president will face tough questions about how to bring the Iraq War to an end and how to fix a war in Afghanistan that now includes Pakistan, India, and even complications with Iran—a daunting challenge. But if we learned anything from Barack Obama on that historic November night, while the path to the future may be tough, there is only one answer to the question as to whether this country and the world can succeed. Yes We Can.

All the items, which include paper plates, cups, party hats, napkins, balloons, a table cloth with “Bush-isms,” and the infamous “Pin the Tail on the Ass’s Ass” game, are branded with the logo Hernandez created of an animated Bush face with Dumbo-like ears.

“It’s a really provocative product,” Hernandez said. “I knew it would be something that people would talk about and pass along. I am a long time Bush critic, a year and a half ago I just started talking about having an Inauguration party to celebrate that he was gone and the idea would not leave me alone. I played with designs and put the party pack together.”

The design and the items to sell were not difficult to choose. However, finding a manufacturer to brand all the products was.

“From manufacturing to producing about two thirds of the original manufacturers refused to print the design. While finding a replacement one guy said, ‘I don’t care what you print, I put porn on plates.’ I sent him the design of Bush’s face and he called five minutes later saying he couldn’t print that. People are either extremely offended or extremely supportive and some think they’re going to get in trouble, or something, but the response has been on the two extremes,” Hernandez explained.

The party kit can be purchased online for $39.99, with rush delivery available, so that you can celebrate in style this January 20. There are also t-shirts and trucker hats available.  Hernandez also added that the product does not, in any way, disrespect the office of the president. His intention was to celebrate the departure of a man who made several wrong decisions and welcome someone, “competent, educated, inclusive and thoughtful,” who will help mend our divided country.

“I’m surprised to see how this product has been embraced by people across party lines.  It’s a cathartic product for anyone who has felt totally powerless to express his or her disdain and frustration these last eight years.” Hernandez said. “It’s already creating this movement for people to have full on celebratory Inauguration parties all across the country.”

George Bush Party In A Box (Georgie Is Outta Here!) @ Yahoo! Video

Did Barack Obama just trick every single person in the country?

It would seem on the surface that President-elect Obama stirred up his first controversy with his supporters this week, after announcing that Rick Warren, pastor of the Sattleback Church and arch-villain of gay marriage in California, will be giving the opening prayer at Obama’s inauguration on January 20th. Criticism ranged from Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) calling the move a “mistake” to a Time Magazine columnist stating, “Obama has proved himself repeatedly to be a very tolerant, very rational-sounding sort of bigot.”

But let’s take a step back for a minute and take everyone’s strong opinions about Warren out of the equation. Policy-wise, his prayer before the swearing-in is meaningless . He is not part of the Obama administration in any capacity, and in fact, Obama is stridently against Warren’s views on gays. Not to mention, Warren certainly will not being saying anything even coming close to the subject at the inauguration.

Selecting Warren was simply, in Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s words, “a showing of unity,” further inoculating Obama from any criticism from Republicans that he never bucks the party line. Liberals might be frustrated, but they aren’t going anywhere, and as a bonus, every conservative evangelical in the country will smile and nod when hearing all this, not realizing Obama never actually changed his position at all. As a pure political move, it makes perfect sense.

Much more critical, though, is the fact that the criticism leveled at Obama is only vaguely directed at him. The real venom and sting has been reserved for Warren’s words and deeds over the last few years, from which the preacher has avoided taking any flack for at all. The beating Warren is taking in the national news this past week is much larger than it would have been had he been left out of the January 20^th lineup, regardless of his infamy in California. For the past week, the press has been digging up all the ridiculous things he’s said over the years, such as comparing gays and lesbians to pedophiles. As a consequence, he is now forced to go on TV and give interviews and press conferences emphasizing how he “loves gay people,” and “has many gay friends,” effectively killing the message of the most famous anti- gay marriage messenger in the country.

Essentially, Obama’s imaginary insult to the Left caused Rick Warren to completely change his tone about the issue, thereby advancing the Left’s cause, while making sure to pick up some Conservative votes along the way and never actually changing his position on anything.

And to think — he’s not even president yet.

Photo Credit: FBI

When State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson’s arrest hit the news, everyone knew that there would be a messy fallout. Other Boston-based power brokers, in the state and city levels, would likely be implicated, leaving the leadership stuck with a major public relations hit and ongoing anxiety. The public, of course, would become increasingly skeptical of their leaders. This fallout was rearing its head today.

Chuck Turner, a charismatic Boston City Councilor,  who was arrested last week for allegedly taking a bribe, was all over the news again this week. Not only did Turner hold a press conference to claim innocence and plead for public support, but Maureen Feeney, city council president, preempted that 2:30 p.m. press conference with one of her own.

At 1 p.m., at City Hall’s Curley Room, Feeney said that while she respected Turner’s rights to claim innocence, thought the investigation would render him ineffective as a councilor. Feeney had already, and unilaterally, stripped Turner of his committee assignments.

But Turner, a Roxbury member of the Green-Rainbow Party, said he was being abused by city officials and members of the media.

“Obviously, the press is working to publicly destroy my reputation before I even have an opportunity to have a day in court,” he said. “Since I am being tried by the media and my fellow councilors, I have made the decision to publicly defend myself. That is, I will act as my own lawyer in this media trial in which I find myself. Some argue that I should keep quiet for fear that I may make some statement that can be used against me. So be it! I will not sit back silently and allow my reputation to be ripped to shreds.”

He added, “They are criminals.”

Chris Faraone, writing for The Phoenix, observed the situation.

Turner stepped to his crowd as planned. Even before a working microphone arrived, he launched into a condemnation of his colleagues and the pad-and-camera-wielding culprits who he deems responsible for his predicament.

The crowd was energized. Everyone expected fireworks, as the councilor’s operatives circulated an announcement declaring war against the media. “My main concern is that I am not being tried by a jury of my peers, I am being tried by the Globe, the Herald, Fox News, Channel 7, Channel 5, etc…,” Turner wrote and went on to say

Vocal support rang loudly. Some folks belted pro-Chuck chants, while others were noticeably angrier. When it became obvious that the sound system was busted, one participant suggested that evildoers “Stop controlling the truth and let him be heard.” “Get him a mic,” another person yelled.

Welcome to the surreal state of Massachusetts politics in 2009. It is sure to be a constant stream of drama, accusations, arrests and subpoenas.

The public is left to watch, and wonder who to trust.

It was more than four years ago that Howard Dean put an exclamation point of his sinking presidential campaign, with his now infamous “scream speech” after the New Hampshire primary in 2004. The speech featured a dejected Dean, coming off of a crippling second-place finish, screaming something along the lines of “yeeaargh” as he listed off a large chunk of the remaining states in the union that he was hoping to win.

Contrary to the ruminations of many pundits, the scream is not what did Dean in. The New Hampshire primary effectively ended his hopes for the nomination. Nonetheless, it was this speech that came to define Dean and his campaign.

But now, in the wake of an historic election which saw President-elect Barack Obama pull out a blowout win that included victories in traditionally red states, Howard Dean seems to have found redemption -amongst his party, its supporters and, in some instances, the media.

Earlier this week, as expected, Dean stepped down from his post as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. As speculation abounds over Dean’s future and his prospects for a cabinet level position in an Obama administration, it is worth looking into his role in this presidential election and in the Democratic Party’s campaign apparatus. Dean, by many accounts, deserves credit for two major elements of the Obama campaign and the Democratic domination of Congress: the implementation of the 50-state-strategy and his role in the growth of the “Netroots” which has grown into a crucial fundraising tool for the party establishment.

The road to the chairmanship

When Dean took the chairman job in 2005 it was viewed as a fairly benign post that provided little opportunities for its holder to shape the direction of the Democratic Party in any
meaningful way. The Party was coming off an embarrassing presidential loss to President Bush, after a lackluster campaign led by John Kerry that failed to take advantage of growing anti-war sentiment that had been fostering among the country, and would eventually catapult the Democrats into power in the legislative branch during the 2006 mid-term elections.

Dean had previously attempted to harness this energy into his presidential campaign, and for a while was quite successful. Weeks before the New Hampshire primary, Dean was leading in the polls. But, in the days before the primary, his stock started plummeting dramatically. Democrats feared Dean would be unelectable in the general election and members of the democratic establishment were resistant to Dean and went on the attack.

While Dean’s liberalism was often overstated (he is actually a fiscal conservative and a staunch drug warrior), he and his supporters represented something of a shift from the centrist, pro-business wing of the party that had dominated it for much of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Channeling the words of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, Dean would argue that he was “from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.”

But this line of thought did not sit well with the party establishment, the most powerful of whom (Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman etc …) had aligned themselves with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), a group which was started in 1984 in reaction to Ronald Reagan’s blowout win over George McGovern in the 1984 presidential election. The basic goal of the DLC was to move the party to the right, especially on matters of economics and foreign policy, under the theory that this was the only way to curb Republican dominance of the federal government.

The DLC sharply attacked Dean, saying he was from “The McGovern-Mondale wing” of the Party, defined “principally by weakness abroad and elitist, interest group liberalism at home.”
In July of that year, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, then- chairman of the DLC, said “The [Bush] Administration is being run by the far-right. The Democratic Party is in danger of being taken over by the far left.” They also joked about Dean’s web site following by asking: “Will he be the next dot com bust?”

The Associated Press is reporting that Rahm Emanuel has been asked to serve as Obama’s Chief of Staff. Emanuel, who is apparently still mulling over his options, is a curious choice. While few doubt that Emanuel has the respect of his party — he is the fourth ranking House Democrat and has chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) — he is not generally viewed as a change agent.

In fact, as a member of the “New Democrat” Caucus and the conservative-leaning Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), Emanuel is a pro-business Democrat who supported the War in Iraq and advocated for a run-to-the-right strategy that many think doomed the party for years. Adding to the intrigue, is the fact that Obama has made serious efforts to distance himself from this centrist coalition of Democrats, which is now infamous for its enthusiastic support for the invasion of Iraq.

In May 2003, when the DLC included Obama on its list of “100 New Democrats to Watch,” Obama responded in kind.

“I don’t know who nominated me for the DLC list of 100 rising stars, nor did I expend any effort to be included on the list…. I certainly did not view such inclusion as an endorsement on my part of the DLC platform.”

“The message was clear: The DLC needed Obama a lot more than Obama needed the DLC,” wrote Ari Berman in the Nation.

Emmanuel was also an opponent of Howard Dean’s “50-state strategy.” Implemented in 2005, the year Dean was chosen to chair the Democratic National Committee, the plan eschews the old strategy of ignoring red states to focus on more winnable contests. The strategy has been widely viewed as a major success: Democrats have made huge gains in the 2006 and 2008 elections, including in some former Republican strongholds.

Of course, given the state of the economy, many are wondering who will replace Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Some media reports have heard names, and if the reports are accurate, it appears Obama may pick someone whose approach to solving the current crises is not too distant from Bush’s.

CNBC reports (Bold text in original article):

Newspaper reports suggested New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is being vetted for the position. Meanwhile we’re hearing other names on the short list include former Clinton Treasury head Larry Summers, New York Fed president Tim Geithner, former Fed Chair Paul Volker and possibly BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

According Dylan Ratigan, it’s widely believed that Larry Summers is at the top of the list. What does that mean for the Street?

“I don’t think Larry Summers’ bag of tricks will be any different than Hank Paulsons,” says CNBC’s Steve Liesman on Fast Money. In other words Summers basically agrees with the prescriptions made by the Bush administration.

The names listed above are all friends of Wall Street, and in most cases, have direct ties to the industries that have caused the most damage to the US economy. They would all likely favor the status quo on the crises, trade policy and the other basic staples of the American finance system.

Now, Obama has earned a lot of good will from liberals, so he may be afforded some latitude from his supporters – such as unions and the liberal blogosphere. But the possibility exists that if Obama appoints a cabinet loaded with the old guard that dominated the last 30 years – and certainly both parties have supported the deregulation that is now blamed for economic collapse – some of his supporters may not be pleased.

Joe Trippi, who managed Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004 and John Edwards in 2008, made an astute observation on C-SPAN the other day when he suggested that GOP operatives knew damn well that John McCain would lose the general election, and crafted a strategy to cope with this inevitability.

The theory, Trippi explained, is that Republicans went on the attack – calling Obama a socialist, a terrorist sympathizer, an enemy of Israel and a baby killer – not to appease independents in swing states, but rather, to energize the right-wing conservative base in the hopes that they would vote GOP down the ticket, and prevent possible Democratic takeovers in hotly-contested Senate races. The race was over and they were trying to cut legislative losses, so to speak.

“They were not using swing-state language,” Trippi said.

And, it appears the strategy may have paid off. Republican Sen. Ted Stevens is up in Alaska , despite his fraud convictions last week; Sen. Norm Coleman is beating Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota (in a race that may be decided in a recount); Gordon Smith may hold on to Oregon and Saxby Chambliss may hold Georgia.

These were closes races, but a week ago Coleman, Smith and Stevens were all behind in the polls.

Make no mistake, this elections stands as a clear and unambiguous rejection of the GOP. But the sinister attacks that came from a desperate campaign, may have kept the Democrats from expanding the senate even further.

Dear Members of the 4th Estate:

Having spoken to numerous reporters and some editors with the national media (as distinguished from the local media) about the blackout or near blackout of the Nader/Gonzalez presidential campaign, striving to challenge the two party, exclusionary duopoly, (debates, ballot obstacles, etc.) I must ask a general question:

What journalistic criteria have you been employing in this presidential year that guides your pronounced non-coverage of the number three campaign that advances majoritarian agendas based on long experience, involvement, and accomplishment. These agendas are either opposed or ignored by McCain and Obama (see www.votenader.org) and are often rooted in the very investigative reports by your reporters?

It is puzzling how editors and publishers who oversee these prize winning stories seem to lose interest in covering Americans who are trying to do something with that information for a better country.

We asked one top editor of a major daily why his paper was not covering us at all and he said, “Because you can’t win.” Besides being a catch-22 that he quickly acknowledged, that is not a supportable newsworthy judgment. News Media have covered many stories outside the electoral arena of people “who can’t win” and such coverage extends to both the import of the struggles and the reasons why “winning is not possible” given the stacked deck against them.

There has been a witting or unwitting political bigotry against third parties and independent candidates, as there was years ago against minority voters. Against the status of such candidates obstructed through ballot access laws by the two parties that dislike competition they present other rigged ways to secure their domination over the electoral landscape, including gerrymandering each other in the majority of Congressional Districts, for example.

This is meant to be a short letter. Journalism scholars, reporters, and other post-election writers of books and articles will be chronicle, no doubt, the quantity and quality of media coverage (see the previous analysis by such scholars as Stephen Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter).

For now, please verify for yourselves your own non-coverage or coverage and inform us what your journalistic criteria standards or policies led you to this definition of your readers, listeners, and viewers rights to know.

Thank you for responding, even though there is obviously no obligation to do so.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

From the early days of George Washington’s home-brewed ales and James Madison’s attempts at creating a national brewery, patriots and early American leaders relied on beer for nutrition and inspiration.

In more recent history, Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy, promoted his own brand of brew, Billy Beer, shortly after the Georgian peanut farmer was elected. During the last presidential election in 2004, polls found that Americans would rather have had a beer with George W. Bush than John Kerry.

Throughout the country’s existence, the humble hopped beverage has lubricated the wheels of democracy by sparking debate or resolving conflicts. And the beverage has come up in some pretty interesting ways this year on the campaign trail.

Senator John McCain faced criticism after the Associated Press highlighted the candidate’s extensive fundraising connections to Anheuser-Busch through his wife’s fortune and high-powered position in Hensley and Co., the nation’s third-largest A-B distributor. Although McCain’s financial connections to the brewing giant may be close, don’t expect the White House to replace the stemware with Pilsner glasses. McCain’s campaign manager Jill Hazelbaker told the Associated Press that he “very rarely, if ever, drinks alcohol.”

But who could forget Governor Sarah Palin’s now infamous appeals to “Joe Six-Pack”?

In August, Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s taste for beer was challenged during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes. During a discussion of his campaign’s attempts to court blue-collar voters, Steve Kroft, the interviewer, remarked to Obama, “You tried really hard to reach these people. You went and sipped beer, which I know you don’t particularly like.” Obama promptly told the reporter that he had a beer the previous night and then said, “Where does the story come from that…I don’t like beer? …C’mon, man.”

Though politicians may use beer as an image to appeal to the common person, some breweries and drinking establishments have long abided by the folk ethos of not combining politics and alcohol, while others embrace the mix. With the heightened energy of the upcoming election, many brewers and barkeeps around the country are getting into the spirit of the election season.

“What better way is there to celebrate the diversity of ideas and thoughts that come out every four years during our election process with something that goes way back to our founding fathers, that’s beer and ale,” said Wayne Mayer, director of marketing for the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company.

The northern California based brewery’s ALECTION lets customers “vote” for a candidate by buying either the “Obama Ale,” or the “McCain 2008,” re-labeled versions of their English-style light ale. Each week the results are tallied on the brewery’s website.

While encouraging their drinkers to show their preference for the candidates, the style of the beers themselves is the same.

“We did that for political reasons so no one could say that we were trying to favor one over the other,” explained Mayer.

Currently the Democratic candidate is in the lead “by quite a bit,” according to the brewery. When Blast contacted Half Moon Bay in mid-October, Obama had 4,991 bottles over McCain’s 1,274.

“We’ve seen a huge jump in our incremental beer sales,” said Meyer.

Unlike the real upcoming vote this November, Mayer jested, “This is the only election where you can vote early, often, and legally.”

Magic Hat Brewing Company, based in South Burlington, Vt., released a politically themed Participation variety 12 pack, containing a few of their normal offerings and a special pre-prohibition style “Participation Lager.”

“Beyond the political packaging and beyond the beer itself, which is also politically themed, we actually as a sales team go into our bar promotions and register voters,” said Krissy Leonard, spokeswoman for Magic Hat.

Magic Hat partnered with HeadCount, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization to register people to vote. On the night before the election, the brewery is sponsoring a concert at the Highline Ballroom in New York City to benefit HeadCount featuring Robert Randolph, Joss Stone, and other artists.

Winter variety packs are now being shipped but there should be more of the politically-themed 12-packs in stores until Election Day, Leonard said.

Below the Mason Dixon line, the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, a chain of beer bars, is conducting another presidential poll. Patrons at the bars can buy a pint glass for $5 bearing either Obama or McCain’s face drawn as a cartoon, which is counted as one vote.

With 13 locations in Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, and other traditionally red states, some might find the current standings a bit surprising. Obama’s 11,420 bottles leads McCain’s 9,220 as of Oct. 28, according to the company’s website.

Fort Worth, Texas and Cordova, Tenn. are the Flying Saucer’s only locations where McCain is holding a lead.

In New York, one of the strongest Democratic support bases, Sixpoint Craft Ales located in Brooklyn created the “Hop Obama” in honor of the democratic candidate’s grassroots campaigning style.

“We were tossing it around as far back as late September last fall,” said Jeff Gorlechen, one of founding members of Sixpoint. “Then his campaign started steam rolling. At the time it was all word of mouth, and we identified with that.”

After Obama won the first few primaries, Gorlechen and the other four workers at the brewery decided to brew the ale.

While the brewers may admire the candidate, Sixpoint stopped short of fully endorsing him, as their label points out: “Although we do not intend this beer to be a direct Sixpoint endorsement of Obama, we do believe the delicious and refreshing quality it represents reminds us of the Senator’s successful grassroots campaign.”

There are “many parallels” between the rise of craft and micro brews and Obama’s style of campaigning, he said.

“There was no marketing, no advertising dollars behind it. It’s hard not to admire him,” explained Gorlechen. “In the last five years the craft market segments exploded. It kind of caught the major breweries off guard. I think [Obama] did the same thing when he won Iowa.”

Available on draft in N.Y. and Mass., Gorlechen described the Hop Obama as a hybrid ale “sort of like a British session ale, sort of like an amber, sort of an ESB [Extra Special Bitter]” that uses Scottish, English, and German malts and three different hops from the Pacific Northwest. Also, a part of the profits go to Get Out The Vote, an organization that registers voters.

Of the seven ales produced by Sixpoint, it is currently their second best seller and the brewery sold its stock of the beer faster than any other single batch released for the first time.

Although one of Sixpoint’s best selling products, some bar managers have refused to serve their beer because it is mixing beer and politics, he said.

The “Ale to the Chief” by Colorado’s Avery Brewing Co. has hit shelves in the 32 states. “Instead of an Imperial Pale Ale we’re calling it a ‘Presidential Pale Ale’ because it’s a democracy here, it’s not an imperialistic nation,” mused Matt Throll, beer manager for Avery.

This past spring, Adam Avery, the owner of the brewery, returned from a road trip with the idea of creating a politically themed beer.

Overall, the reaction to the “Ale to the Chief” has been positive, the Brewery said.

“We’ve only had one person call up and complain to say ‘leave politics out of beer,’” Throll said. “We had to tell them that beer has been a part of politics a long time, that’s just the way it is. We weren’t setting out to offend anybody, but of course that’s going to happen.”

“It was not necessarily pro any of the candidates but pro change,” said Throll

Avery’s brewmasters have another batch of “Ale to the Chief” underway for Inauguration Day.

In the Midwest, the St. Louis Brewery Inc., producer of the microbrew Schlafly, is selling posters and T-shirts with altered versions of their labels featuring the candidate’s images.

“I changed our Hefeweisen to  ‘Hefe-Biden,’ our Oktoberfest became ‘Baracktoberfest,’ and our actual flagship pale ale became ‘Palin Ale,’” explained Troika Brodsky. graphic designer for Schlafly Beer.

Two days before the Vice Presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Brodsky learned that a church group would be screening the debate at Schlafly’s downtown brewery and restaurant.  To celebrate the debate, Brodsky made four custom tap handles and posters featuring altered ‘political versions’ of the brewery’s labels.

Although the other candidates’ names were easy to juxtapose with the labels, Brodsky said creating one for McCain was difficult. He settled on ‘McCain’s Maverick’ American Pale Ale.

“Its basically just parody,” he said. “They were a big hit, actually.”

Even though the church group holding the screening was “more conservative-leaning,” Brodsky said, “Still, the Baracktoberfest and the Hefe-Biden taps sold far more.”

Schlafly is now selling a limited number of Baracktoberfest and Palin Ale T-shirts on its website.

Beyond the tension and mudslinging of the election, it’s all in good fun, he said.

“The point of this is that everyone’s really exited about the election around here. We want to encourage that energy, encourage people to vote,” said Brodsky.

CMJ Week, in and of itself, is evidence of the fact that thousands of people are still passionate about hearing, promoting, and playing music. There’s often a resistance to bring political implications to the forefront of discussions about music, but at the end of the day, it’s legislation that shapes the music industry as we know it today.

Last week, President Bush approved legislation creating a cabinet-level position of copyright czar that will work similarly to the drug czar, increasing penalties for the infringement of copyright law and providing additional resources to prosecute piracy.

The legislation is just the latest attempt to “stop the bleeding” of the failing music industry, said panelist Gary Adelman, an attorney who represents both artists and record labels.

There is also legislation in the works to require AM/FM radio to pay artists royalties when their songs are played, in an attempt to “level the playing field” between other outlets such as satellite radio, television and film, all of which do pay royalties, and traditional radio, the only medium that does not.

“Arts are an important part of our economy,” Adelman said, citing the current free-fall that has led to thousands of lost jobs in the music business and diminished returns in the past few years.

It goes without saying our next president will undoubtedly face more pressing issues than the copyright concerns of musicians and record companies (”I don’t think this will be at the top of anyone’s agenda come Inauguration Day,” deadpanned panelist Daryl Friedman, VP of advocacy and government regulations for the National Association of Recording Arts & Sciences).

But, even in their campaigns, both candidates have already had to deal with copyright and fair use issues. John McCain, in particular, has faced criticisms and even lawsuits from artists like Heart, Bon Jovi and the Foo Fighters for using their songs in ads and at political rallies.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s position on copyright and technology issues has been vague, although one of his advisers is Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, who has denounced the music industry’s attempts to sue individuals who download illegally. Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, is strongly against piracy, as the co-chair of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus. GOP nominee John McCain has a record of championing media consolidation and consolidated playlists for mainstream radio, while Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin has not taken an official position on the issue.

However, Friedman pointed out, Obama is the only candidate who is actually a creator of intellectual property, having authored two books.

Panelist Charles Sanders, who provides counsel for the Songwriters Guild of America, criticized Lessig for ignoring the nuances of the copyright argument.

“Lessig has gone a very long distance to convince people that there is an irreconcilable difference with those who support freedom of speech and freedom of information and those who support copyright,” he said. “It’s not true. Copyright law and free speech … are not at war with one another.”

According to NBC-Universal, 70 percent of Internet bandwidth is consumed by only 5 percent of all users. And 90 percent of that is used for peer-to-peer illegal file sharing. But introducing sweeping legislation to combat this problem could limit the debate of how to handle piracy, Sanders cautioned.

“This threatens to ruin the Internet experience for everyone,” he said.

The current situation we’re in is in no small part the fault of the music industry itself, panelists agreed, which showed an astonishing lack of foresight in its resistance to digital downloads during the 1990s.

“It’s not only illegal file-sharing,” Adelman said. “It’s how the industry has reacted to illegal file-sharing, which is almost as bad as the illegal file-sharing itself. If, instead of fighting it, the major labels had embraced [digital downloads], we’d be much farther ahead now. … Spending all that time, effort and money to try to fight that tidal wave … it’s useless.”

Fifteen years since the advent of Napster, there’s now a moral ambiguity surrounding illegal downloads, and a belief among a substantial portion of society that there is a fundamental difference between physical and intellectual property, Sanders said.

“In the mid-’90s,” Gandel added, “everyone felt that people would come to the realization that, at the end of the day, stealing is stealing. I think that was one of the big miscalculations.”

There is inherent value in copyright, the panelists agreed. At the most basic level, it provides an economic incentive for the creation of art, Gandel noted.

“Art is what moves our society forward,” he said. “We’d all like to believe that people do art for the love of it,” he said. “But everyone still has bills to pay.”

This afternoon, the US House of Representatives failed to pass a $700 Billion bailout plan that was the result of a weekend of compromises with the White House. The measure failed with a vote of 228 to 205. By the closing bell the DOW was down 700 points in what is now being referred to as Black Monday.

Now, I’m no economic major, and I’m still trying to figure out how this affects me, the country as whole, one thing I do know is that this is probably not a good sign.

The House and Senate were scheduled to recess until November 4th to give members time to campaign at home, however, both houses were in session for much of the weekend. The measure, though it had the support of the administration, failed to garnish support from many House Republicans and Democrats alike. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) blamed the failure on Speaker Pelosi’s partisan floor speech minutes before the vote opened. The house is currently in recess until Thursday when they will reconvene in hopes of passing a similar measure.

While party politics are a given in Washington and hard to get past, both parties need to come together to pass a measure that not only helps the financial sector but doesn’t leave the American Public paying for it for years to come. Until Thursday, keep your assets frozen (perhaps literally?) and hope for the best?

McCain suspended his campaign this afternoon “calling on the president to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself. It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.”

The problem specifically being the $700 billion bail out legislation that Congress has been negotiating with the White House. Senate Majority Leader claimed “It would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy. We need leadership, not a campaign photo op.”

Obama commented on the McCain decision by saying “if I can be helpful then I’m prepared to be anywhere, any time … [I] don’t want to infuse Capitol Hill with presidential politics.”

What the Obama campaign fails to realize is that until November 4, his job is not just to be campaigning, he is an elected official which requires making decisions and being a leader. Would it be too much to ask for both of them to be doing their jobs during this time of need for the American People? Both Senators are major players in the US Senate and both could contribute greatly to this debate while showing the American people their leadership skills in action rather than just claiming leadership during a campaign stump speech.

Meanwhile, the University of Mississippi is continuing preparations for Friday night’s debate. The McCain campaigned noted that he would participate in the debates “if an agreement was reached on Friday morning.” While the debate is scheduled to be focusing largely on foreign policy issues, there may be a large portion of economic debate thrown in based on the recent current events.

NEW YORK — Results from the Dow Jones Insight-2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse show that Sarah Palin continues to hold the lead in overall media coverage of the four nominees for president and vice president — clearly giving a boost to Republican running mate John McCain, whose recent coverage has matched or exceeded that of rival Barack Obama after trailing the Democratic candidate for most of the year.

While Palin had virtually zero coverage in the days prior to her August 29th unveiling as the Republican vice presidential nominee, in the period from August 30 through September 13 her coverage surpassed that of presidential nominee Obama, and left vice presidential rival Joe Biden far behind, according to analysis of mainstream and social media sources tracked by Dow Jones Insight.

When considering coverage of the two presidential candidates only, McCain had 179,004 total mentions in all tracked media sources during the same time period, or a 55 percent share, to Obama’s 148,000 mentions, or 45 percent share. McCain also led in terms of headline mentions in the mainstream press, with 21,995 mentions, or 54 percent, to Obama’s 18,769, or 46 percent, while in social media sources (blogs and boards) Obama had 33,120 headline mentions to McCain’s 32,900, for a 50-50 split.

Palin May Have Stolen the Show in Minnesota, but Obama Still Pulled in Higher Convention Coverage

The timing of the Palin announcement could be viewed as a clear effort to steal Obama’s thunder, but it couldn’t quite offset his coverage during the Democratic convention itself. While the spotlight has shifted toward the Republicans over the past few weeks, when comparing mainstream and social media coverage of both candidates around the time of their respective conventions, Obama still came out ahead.

Dow Jones Insight tracked coverage of the candidates on the four scheduled days of each convention, plus the preview day before and the wrap-up day afterward — or August 24-29 for the Democrats and August 31-September 5 for the Republicans — and found that the Democratic convention time period saw 91,395 total mentions of both candidates, 14% more coverage than the 80,250 total mentions in the days surrounding the Republican convention. Since the Republican convention was shortened by a day due to Hurricane Gustav, the higher overall total for the Democratic convention is understandable. However when comparing each candidate’s percentage of total mentions, Obama had a more dominant share of the conversation during his convention than McCain had during his.

• Obama had 54,624 mentions, or a 60 percent share, during the Democratic convention time period tracked, compared to McCain’s 36,771 mentions, or 40 percent, in the same timeframe.
• In the days tracked surrounding the Republican convention, McCain received 45,448 mentions, for a 57 percent share, compared to Obama’s 34,802 mentions, or 43 percent
• When combining mentions from both time periods, Obama received 52 percent of the total to McCain’s 48 percent

If Money Talks, Which Candidate Speaks Loudest?

With Barack Obama’s announcement this week that he had raised a record $66 million in August and lined up more than 500,000 first-time donors, he is by far the leader in donations from the public, and also leads the way in terms of media coverage on the topic. According to analysis of mainstream and social media sources tracked by Dow Jones Insight, there were 1,740 mentions of Obama’s name in close proximity to fundraising-related terms in the previous seven days, or 36 percent of the total 4,826 fundraising mentions of the four candidates over that period. His running mate, Joe Biden, who has not played a very public fundraising role, netted just 279 mentions, or 6 percent.

While Obama declined to take public funds to finance his campaign, McCain, who has accepted public financing and is therefore limited in how much he can raise and how he can spend it, is expected to spend far less time drumming up donations. In the previous week McCain drew 1,665 mentions in reference to fundraising, or 35 percent of all fundraising mentions of the four candidates. Meanwhile, Palin received 1,142 mentions on the issue, or 24 percent, as she took on a major fundraising role for the McCain campaign.

Higher Overall Coverage for McCain Translates to Ownership of Additional Issues

In the period August 15 – September 15, media coverage of the campaign issues being tracked by Dow Jones Insight surged again, with a trend in issues ownership toward McCain reflecting the overall increase in McCain- related coverage. McCain had the lead in 17 of the 25 issues being tracked, up from six in a previous analysis. Among the issues he led were the economy, taxes, terrorism, health care and abortion (each with a split of 54 percent for McCain to 46 percent for Obama), as well as energy (59 percent to 41 percent) and the environment (56 percent to 44 percent). Obama owned just five issues, down from seven in a previous analysis, including faith, race, Israel, gun control and NAFTA. Total issues- based coverage was up 22 percent during this period, reaching 1,137,582 mentions of all 25 issues compared with 934,408 from the previous analysis.

The Dow Jones Insight-2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse (http://dowjonesinsight.blogspot.com/) provides a high-level view of a competitive media landscape and demonstrates how candidates and issues are covered in the media and how that coverage changes over time. Dow Jones Insight combines proven research methodologies, trusted content and advanced text-mining and visualization tools to deliver strategic qualitative and quantitative media measurement metrics. Organizations use the analysis to nurture their reputation, demonstrate the effectiveness of their communications strategies and achieve business objectives. The platform processes nearly a million articles, Web pages, blogs and message board posts per day.

Both presidential candidates have been in the limelight long enough to talk of their life experiences and ideas for how to better the nation. However, they have been so involved in obtaining the nomination that until now will they be able to further explain how exactly they plan to fix the economy, offer health care to the more than 47 million uninsured Americans, restore the ailing educational system and figure a way to deal with the 20 million plus illegal immigrants and their American families who are in the country-amongst many other important issues.

While trying to build their case and be viewed as political saviors, both candidates must also prove that their vice presidential picks were good choices… and survive the gossip media frenzy that has been unleashed. Biden has had several years of political experience, becoming a senator in 1973 at the Constitutional minimum age of 30. He was the fifth-youngest senator in U.S. history and is the current chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee aside from serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He can give Obama the credibility amongst voters who are doubtful he is able to run a country after only eight years as senator.

Still, Biden is not easily recognizable by the youth of America and because of his age he can be seen as just another high up politician from the bunch. On the other side we have Palin, the young charismatic female governor of Alaska. If the Democrats were making history by having a black man and a woman running for the presidential candidacy, the Republicans are offering retribution by giving the people the first ever-female vice president hopeful.

The difference between the two parties, though, is that in the Democratic side both candidates launched themselves into the race. The Republicans front chose their woman practically out of the blue and shocked even its own members by doing so. The same doubtful voters can see Palin as an inexperienced, beauty-pageant contestant who needs to fill a void to attract those who were planning to vote for Hillary. Palin served in the city council of Wasilla, AK, in the 90’s until she became its mayor in 1999. The young politician, who has a bachelor’s degree in journalism, won the position of governor in 2006 and serves approximately 670,000 Alaskans.

After all these political character identifications my fear remains. Is this going to be a historic campaign because America will elect either its first black president or first female vice president? Or, will it be historical because America will elect the candidate who can solve the thousands of problems that are bringing the country down the drain?

True, race, gender and experience can be considered when making a decision. But what I want to suggest is blind, educated, decision making. Blind and educated in the sense that whenever listening to debates or political commentary we, as responsible voters, listen to the facts and the options offered.

So far, neither candidate has had a face-to-face debate. Democrat team has laid a blueprint for how they plan to refurbish the educational system by providing the necessary tools inner city and poor neighborhood schools are missing. They have also expressed their interest in a type of universal health care system and offered a plan for how to better the economy by investing in fields like energy independence. In the spirit of bipartisanism it must be said that the Republican presidential nominee and his VP gal have spoken of these issues and others like immigration. The pair would implement a clear two-step immigration process that offers various levels of working permits.

It is still safe to say we do not know each candidate completely. Whoever wins the presidential seat will have to grow into the position just as the country will grow to know them. Yet one thing remains clear. In this race it is extremely important to stray away from what the two parties are constantly shoving at us, this race is important because of one black and one female candidate.

The yellow journalists will continue, “uncovering” facts behind the specified candidate’s life and personalities. And although this is important-yes a black candidate and a female candidate are a first-EVER, please don’t be blinded.

The facts, the plans, the solutions being discussed are most meaningful part. These will make or break our America. These will ensure we do not have another four or eight years involved in warfare under economic and societal emergencies. These will prove that as Americans we can look past gender and color, like many claim to do, and truly elect a candidate for what they stand for.

While I may disagree with her politics, I have to admit that her nomination to the VP slot is a big deal. Hillary Clinton herself proclaimed during her speech last week at the Democratic National Convention that she and her campaign had made eighteen million cracks in the glass ceiling. This is one more.

Sarah Palin’s capability to fulfill the duties of Vice President shouldn’t be questioned simply because she’s a mother with young children.  No one has asked Senator Barack Obama, who has two young children himself, if he will have the time to balance being fatherhood and the presidency.

I commend Sarah Palin for continuing to push up against that glass ceiling, though I may not be a Republican, I admire her for holding strong to her beliefs, supporting her family, and ignoring the naysayers. I’d like to think America has come a long way since the 1964 film “Kisses for my President” which featured a female President who resigned when she become pregnant while in office ‘for the good of the country.’  I guess we’ll just have to see.

During the roll call, where state delegations announce their votes, New Mexico yielded their time to the Illinois delegation. After announcing themselves as the home of the “next President of the United States of America,” Mayor Daley of Chicago, yielded to the state of New York – home of Senator Hillary Clinton. In a showing of unity, Senator Hillary Clinton, after the state announced themselves, motioned to suspend the rules, count all delegate votes, and nominate Senator Barack Obama by acclamation.

With a loud cheer from the floor and no opposition, Barack Obama was nominated the Democratic Candidate for President. The Democrats, despite the bitter ending of their primaries, have a story book ending with a unified nomination on the Convention Floor. The party has been reunited for the common goal of winning the White House in November, despite the battles over the past few months.

Senator Obama will give his acceptance speech tomorrow evening at Invesco Field.

I’m sorry, I love Caroline Kennedy, but she just…isn’t a great public speaker. Slightly monotone, lacking excitement. Speaking about her uncle, who since a young age was like a father to her, and walked her down the aisle the day she got married, you’d think she’d be a bit more enthusiastic.

While her facial expressions (thank you C-SPAN) show emotion, her voice? Not so much. She lacks the inspiration and conviction that you would expect given her heritage.

With the diagnosis of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s (D-MA) brain cancer earlier this spring, the Democratic National Convention wouldn’t have been the same without him making an appearance. When it was finally publicized that his doctors had given him the okay to make the trip, it was as if he had come back from the dead. An impression emphasized by the quasi-memorial tribute video screened at the convention.

I am by far the biggest fan of Teddy. I interned for him in his Boston office my senior year of college, and ask any of my pals, I can spew out Kennedy trivia on command. But really? This memorial/tribute? Senator Kennedy is not dead yet, thank goodness, and I hate that the evening’s programing makes it feel like he is. I know people are worried that he won’t make it to the next convention but really now? This is…moving, and depressing. I can’t imagine a Democratic Party without Senator Kennedy, let’s not bring that to reality any sooner than necessary.

The man finally took the stage, with stoic laughter, and a modest thank you or two or four, with the wounds from his brain surgery obvious, and his face thinner because of chemotherapy. For someone who has been through so much in the past six months, his energy seemingly never faltered.

His energy, courage, and dedication are incredibly moving and motivating. “New hope,” he speaks of, not only does it resonate as the theme for for Senator Obama’s campaign, but also as the political legacy of the Kennedy family. As “Still the One” plays, you see emotion throughout the crowd – through Senator Joseph Biden’s (D-DE) glassy eyes, and through awe-struck Democrats who happen to be lucky enough to witness what could possibly be Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s last convention speech.

Connecticut State Senator Gayle Slossberg (D-Milford) is concerned over an apparent rape scene in Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 4. The only problem — it doesn’t exist.

The Senator, who admittedly has never played a single mission of the Grand Theft Auto series wants confirmation of the supposed scene from Rockstar’s parent company Take2, fears that it will corrupt the youth.  In an interview with The New Haven Advocate newspaper, the apparently gullible Slossberg hints that she’ll introduce legislation in the upcoming legislative session that will call for a overhaul of the way the ESRB rates and labels games, adding that she’s unsure of what would be a sufficient label for the game. “Maybe, ‘this game will make you a sociopath,’”  the Senator scoffed.

A quick google search for the terms “GTA 4 rape” brings up nothing but curious message board posters asking about the rumors validity and a single Youtube video titled “GTA 4 Rape” that doesn’t deliver, but does serve to show off some sick pretty sick crashes around Liberty City.

 Take2 has not commented on the rumors, and don’t expect them to.

It was a tale of three speeches. On the night when the Democrats finally had their nominee, the two general election candidates — and the one just vanquished – all gave speeches laying claim to the title of Best Equipped to Be President.

The first, a plodding and awkward ramble, given in front of a grotesque lime green backdrop to what seemed like only a few dozen onlookers, gave viewers a taste of the John McCain they will see over the next few months: a grumbling curmudgeon who will try to steal the “change” platform from Obama by explaining his “change” means a third term of George Bush domestic and foreign policies that promise to change absolutely nothing. The listless, same-old speech from McCain was roundly panned by critics, even his buddies at Fox News, as not what he probably wanted compared to what everyone was about to witness from the new Democratic-elect.

The last orate, by contrast, was a soaring, transcendent victory claim given in front of 33,000 people; 18,000 who filled the arena and 15,000 more that stood outside in a constant, frenzied state. Everything that John McCain’s speech wasn’t, Barack Obama’s was.

In a booming voice that crescendoed over the uninterrupted screams and applause of the massive crowd, he gave the American people a taste of the Obama presidency: An end to the war, negotiations with our enemies, rescinding the ridiculous tax cuts for the rich and an actual energy policy were laid out as rebuttals to McCain, who has been in lockstep with George W. Bush on all the vital issues facing the people of the United States.

On the historic night when Obama finally became the west’s first real African American candidate for president, he pronounced, “America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past.”

And then there was the speech in the middle.

A defiant, grasp at something that has been lost for months, Hillary Clinton, who many were expecting to at least concede something last night, gave what was at best a confusing quasi-victory speech for someone who had just lost and at worst a selfish narcissistic view of the contest that dripped with delusion and self denial. Ceding no ground to Obama, except that “he and his supporters have run an excellent campaign,” she went on to mimic asking what everyone in the press has been for the last few days, “‘What does Hillary want?’” and then refused to answer. She left the door open to her future plans and addressed the crowd as if she had not just lost the Democratic Nomination for President, which, unfortunately for her, she just had.

What Hillary Clinton will do in the next coming months for now remains a mystery. She will almost certainly have to admit she lost in the coming days, and with any luck, will fade into the background. But the two who remain will undoubtedly give us more of the taste they gave us last night. For John McCain, it will be idea that the world is extremely dangerous and only a war monger like himself can run it. And for Barack Obama, it will be the chance to bring a new face, a new voice, to the Presidency, one that has never been heard before.

Let’s hope, this time, the American people make the right decision. Though, if they just listen to the speeches from last night, it will really become an easy choice.

Barack Obama finished the night with one win, a disappointment to that camp as Hillary Clinton was expected by many to end her campaign if she suffered losses in Ohio and Texas.

But suffer losses she did not. Senator Clinton clinched wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island, and her campaign will trudge on to Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary, which looks critical for both sides.

It is estimated that Senator Clinton may have picked up 187 delegates to Senator Obama’s 183 yesterday. It is also rumored that Senator Obama has 50 super delegates waiting in the wings to be announced as a block in the near future. However, super delegates are not committed, and as we’ve already seen are not committed to anyone regardless of whether they’ve already pledged support.

Meanwhile on the Republican side of the aisle, Governor Mike Huckabee ended his campaign Tuesday night as Senator John McCain officially clinched the Republican Nomination with decisive wins in all four contests.

Governor Huckabee still lagged behind already dropped out GOP candidate former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in delegate counts.

Senator McCain now has until August when the conventions will take place to attack the Democratic candidates and win over the crucial independents throughout the country. They will be vital for a win in November.

“I must now stand aside, for our party and our country,” Romney said during a speech in Washington Thursday.

The move means Senator John McCain has all but won the nomination.

Romney suffered a string of embarrassing third place defeats in the South, where he was banking on conservative votes on Super Tuesday. Instead, it was former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who won nearly all the southern races. Huckabee still trails Romney in the delegate counts, but McCain has a commanding lead over both.

“This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters … many of you right here in this room … have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President,” Romney said. “If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America.”

McCain leads with 707 delegates, to 294 for Romney and 195 for Huckabee. It takes 1,191 to win the nomination at the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn in the summer.

“I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating al-Qaida and terror,” Romney said.

Romney has been attacked from the start for flip-flopping on a number of key conservative issues.

Going into Super Tuesday, the closest thing we have to a national primary, Romney labeled McCain as a liberal and claimed he was the clear conservative choice in the Republican Party. He was aided by conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh, who said he would vote for Hillary Clinton if McCain was the Republican nominee.

The world waits with baited breath to see if he follows through. But a serious question remains as to whether or not McCain can rally the whole party to his cause.

Video courtesy/The Boston Globe

Over the past few weeks, since his victories in both South Carolina and in New Hampshire, McCain has begun to emerge as something of a steamroller. Depending on how he fares on February 5, in what is as close to a national primary as possible, he could likely secure the nomination in a few weeks.

McCain won all 57 of Florida’s delegates after winning 35 percent of the vote. In Florida, McCain received the endorsements of wildly popular Republican Governor Charlie Crist, and Republican Senator Mel Martinez.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney came in second place with 31% of the vote. Romney, despite his second place finishes (with wins in Michigan, Nevada and Wyoming), has enough money to ensure that this campaign carries on and will not likely concede the nomination anytime before the last primary in June.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani finished a disappointing third after throwing all of his resources of the past month into the Florida primary.

Sources say Giuliani will drop out of the race tomorrow at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California and endorse McCain. Despite tensions among the other candidates, the two have always been respectful of one another.

Only Senator Hillary Clinton campaigned in the delegateless Florida primary. She claimed victory at a rally on Tuesday night. The Democratic party stripped Florida of its delegates for holding an early primary.

The nation now turns to February 5, where over 20 states will hold their primaries.

Stick with Blast and our Politics with a Touch of Class blog!

Stick with our Politics With a Touch of Class blog for details!

From our Washington reporter:

Rumors have it that if Romney doesn’t do well tonight, this could make or break his campaign – the man has millions so I don’t understand but coming out of Iowa and NH with a couple second place wins and a “gold medal” from Wyoming, his support seems to be waning [...]

It is not surprising that people refer to him as the Obama-rama because of the glow that he projects when speaking to crowds. It’s this inspiration and passion that moves us and inspires us to hope for something better for America — to move us forward to a more diplomatic foreign policy; to a better health care system; to a presidency that brings change that we can believe in.

Over the past eight years, we have suffered from an administration that lacks sympathy for the little guy, that forgets about the middle class and that leaves students and the sick to fend for themselves.

American’s have suffered for too long in a world where banks are foreclosing on homes at an astonishing rate, putting students in an economy with a growing unemployment rate while carrying thousands of dollars of debt and leaving the terminally ill to fight the health care crisis on their own. We have suffered from a president who does not listen to the American people when they say they demand a change in foreign policy.

Barack Obama would bring needed change in the Democratic Party. He would listen to the American people.

His policies exude change and responsible change at that — getting America out of Iraq in a responsible way, ensuring health care to all Americans and bringing tax cuts back to the middle class. He has seen disparity; he has seen Americans shut out by the government.

Barack Obama has what it takes to bring change to this nation. Change desperately needed after eight years with broken domestic and foreign policies. It his inspiration and passion that moves us and inspires us to hope for something better for America. To move us forward to a more diplomatic foreign policy, to bring better health care to American’s and a policy that brings change that we can believe in.

BLAST MAGAZINE endorses Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Moving forward from their victory in Iowa, both Illinois Senator Barack Obama and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee face the challenge of translating their early success into momentum which will sustain their candidacies through the remainder of the primaries.

Senator Obama won the Democratic Iowa Caucus’s on Thursday night with 38% of the vote. In second place, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards came out with 30% of the vote with Edwards having a slight edge over Senator Clinton in third place with 29%.

On the GOP side, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee won with 34% of the vote with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney taking second place with 25% of the vote. Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson and Arizona Senator John McCain tied for third with 13% of the vote.

Both winners are widely seen as the “likable” candidates out of the wide playing field of presidential hopefuls. However, historically Iowa has not been a reliable predictor of the eventual nominees. In recent New Hampshire polls for instance, Governor Huckabee has been polling in the single digits behind Senator McCain

The next primary in New Hampshire will bring the candidates in front of a different electorate. Whereas in Iowa, Huckabee relied heavily on his Evangelical beliefs, religious values tend not to be as important to New Hampshire voters. It’s an open question whether Huckabee can broaden his appeal beyond the self described Evangelical and born again Christians responsible for his rise to the top tier in Iowa.

Ultimately, the most important factor that Iowa serves is to narrow down the field of candidates in the race — by the end of the night two Democrats, Delaware Senator Joe Biden and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, ended their bids for the presidency, and no doubt several other may follow suit in the coming days.

Blast Magazine staff writer John Guilfoil contributed to this report.

In the Iowa Democratic caucus, Barack Obama has won over former senator and vice presidential nominee John Edwards and Senator Hillary Clinton. Clinton is likely to finish in third place in a 37, 30, 30 close race.

In the rural , 95 percent white state, Obama has made a broad statement going forward.

The Associated Press has called the Democratic poll for near 9:30 p.m. Thursday.

This is terrible news for John Edwards, who many feel needed a win in Iowa to maintain his strength in the Democratic race. He has little funding left, and won’t get much of a bonus after barely sneaking away with second place.

Blast Magazine has learned that Senator Chris Dodd (Conn.) will drop out of the race. Senator Joe Biden also announced near 11:30 p.m. Thursday that he would leave the race.

On the right side of the aisle, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has won the Republican straw poll.

NBC and CNN called the race shortly after 9 p.m. Thursday.

Huckabee beat out former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by nearly 10 percentage points.

Fred Thompson finished third while John McCain was down in fourth.

Rudy Giuliani is not campaigning in Iowa.

Huckabee was outspent 15:1 in Iowa. “People are more important than the purse,” he said during his victory speech.

“Tonight the people of Iowa made a choice, and their choice was clear; their choice was for a change,” Huckabee said.

Huckabee will certainly find financial support in the coming days leading up to New Hampshire — whether his momentum will propel him remains to be seen.

Blast Magazine staff writers Heidi Buchanan and John Guilfoil contributed to this report.

In a controversial move, former Arkansas Governor and current Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee left the campaign trail the night before the Iowa caucuses to appear as Jay Leno’s guest on The Tonight Show for its return to live broadcast Wednesday.

Acknowledging the ongoing writers strike, the Governor’s campaign explained that the decision to appear was made only once they were, “…assured that no replacement writers were being used in the show’s production.” because, “Governor Huckabee believes that the writers deserve to be fairly compensated for the sale of their work.”

Huckabee said he would like to been seen by the American people as the, “…guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off.” A view apparently shared by some political bloggers who have taken to referring to him as “Awshucksabee.” He is a former Baptist minister, and explained to Leno that he entered the political arena when he realized that decision makers were making policy “without knowing real poverty.”

Adding to his down home image, Huckabee is also known for his rock band “Capitol Offense” who performed in Des Moines at a January 1, 2008 fundraiser where he cajoled former Congressman and current MSNBC morning anchor Joe Scarborough to join him on guitar. In a moment reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s famous campaign appearance on the Arsenio Hall Show, Huckabee even accepted an offer to join Kevin Eubanks and The Tonight Show Band for a brief set.

Generally, the conversation between Leno and Huckabee avoided policy specifics, with the exception of a brief description of his Fair Tax proposal. Which is essentially a national sales tax in which everyone would pay 23 percent of what they consume – food, gas, sales however, the poor – below a certain threshold would be “untaxed” by getting a rebate. Huckabee said his plan would free people up to earn what they want.

Governor Huckabee also explained his decision to pull his first attack ad two days ago, minutes before a press conference with major media outlets seated only to then showed it to the media anyhow because he didn’t want them to think it didn’t really exist when it did. He cited that his conscious got in the way of dissing Romney, who has spent $8-9 million on negative ads in Iowa and New Hampshire against his two biggest opponents – Governor Huckabee and Senator John McCain. Huckabee pulled his own attack ad because he claimed in front of Leno he wanted to “stick to his message” which is to “stay positive” and talk about what the country needs, rather than what’s wrong with the other guys.

One Republican Party activist — not affiliated with a specific candidate — said the decision to appear on the show highlights Huckabee’s confidence with his current standing in Iowa. However, he noted, it is reminiscent of former Governor Howard Dean’s ill-fated decision in 2004 to leave the campaign trail during a similar time frame in favor of a joint appearance with former President Jimmy Carter.

Huckabee, sticking to his message, ended the evening on a positive note. When Leno asked which candidate he’d like to see on the Democratic side, Huckabee noted that all the Democrats were “sincere” however, there is a fundamental difference in their politics but he “respected anyone running for president.” He did note, that it seems as if Senator Barack Obama and him share a similar value in horizontal politics that is, politics is not just about left, right, liberal, conservative, Democrats and Republican but rather values vertical politics – where the candidate wants to bring the country up and not down, forward – not backwards.

Transcript:

JAY LENO: Folks, up until a few weeks ago, my next guest was an also ran with a funny name in the Republican campaign. He still has a funny name, but now he’s near the top in the national polls. He’s neck in neck with the Mitt Romney in Iowa, and the caucus there will be held tomorrow. Please welcome Mike Huckabee, ladies and gentlemen.

(Applause.)

JAY LENO: Thanks for coming.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Wonderful to be here. Thank you.

JAY LENO: This is what I find fascinating about American politics. I kind of follow this kind of stuff. So I’ve known who you are for a while, but you literally, in the last couple of months, have come from nowhere with hardly any money. Explain how this happens.

MIKE HUCKABEE: I’m just trying to keep from going back to nowhere as fast as I can.

(Laughter.)

I’ve seen a lot of this. People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off. I think that’s part of what’s going on right now.

(Applause.)

JAY LENO: Right. Now, tell us about your background. I know you’re from Hope, Arkansas.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Yes, born and raised there.

JAY LENO: Also, of course, President Clinton did you know each other
growing up?

MIKE HUCKABEE: We didn’t know each other growing up. He’s 9 years older, and he had moved away when he was like 7 years old and went to Hot Springs. When he ran for President, somehow it just didn’t sound right to say, “I believe in a place called Hot Springs.” So he talked about his birth place.

(Laughter.)

You can understand that. We all understand that.

JAY LENO: Now, your first career was as a Baptist minister. How long did you do that?

MIKE HUCKABEE: About 12 years.

JAY LENO: How did you become how did get into that line of work?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I mean, the honest and serious answer is that I just saw life and a perspective in the church that I think very few people get to see. You see every single social pathology that’s out there. Nothing is abstract to you. You put a name and a face on everything, and I really began to believe that so many people making decisions that affect the way we live, the way our future would be governed, didn’t have a clue about how people were really struggling.
It became evident to me that there were a lot of folks making decisions that didn’t understand poverty, hunger, or disease. They didn’t understand the challenges that people had in their families, and for my own three children, who were small at the time, I decided I don’t want to spend the rest of my life complaining about what “they” are doing.
And I finally thought it’s time to get out of the stands and on the field and get my jersey dirty.

JAY LENO: You also played in rock band.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Yes.

JAY LENO: So it’s this is like TV Baptist minister during the day,
playing White Snake at the KitKat Club at night. Doesn’t that seem

(Laughter.)

JAY LENO: Some of your congregation (making rock music sounds.)

MIKE HUCKABEE: I never played with my teeth or anything like that. So it wasn’t totally bad. I started playing guitar when I was 11 years old. I was like so many kids that came out of the ’60s that wanted to
play guitar more than anything. When I finally got a guitar my
parents got a guitar from JCPenney, ordered it from the catalogue. I
got it Christmas 1966. They paid $99 for whole rig guitar,
amplifier. It took them a year to pay it off. My parents barely made enough money to pay the rent. We lived in a little rented house. It was a big sacrifice for them, but I played that guitar until my fingers
nearly bled and until their ears nearly bled. It was

(Laughter.)

JAY LENO: And they said, “Son why don’t you become a minister?”

(Laughter.)

MIKE HUCKABEE: I think they were hoping for me to do anything, and obviously, I wasn’t good enough to make it as a professional. So I had to find something else to do, and that looked like it was mostly indoor work and no heavy lifting. I thought it would be a pretty good way to go.

JAY LENO: Do you think you could sit in are you good enough to sit
in with our band later?

MIKE HUCKABEE: No, but I’d like to do it anyway.

(Applause.)

JAY LENO: I think you first got elected about the time I took over this show, about ‘92?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, ‘93 was the first year. I ran in ‘92 and lost an election. Then I ran in ‘93 for lieutenant governor, and I won and reelected in ‘94, became governor from the position of lieutenant governor when my predecessor resigned and then reelected twice and served ten and a half years as governor.

JAY LENO: Because when I first met you, you were living in a trailer in Arkansas.

MIKE HUCKABEE: My wife wanted me to tell you it was a manufactured home.

JAY LENO: Yes.

(Applause.)

Why were you living in a trailer? Were you trying to put on the airs and impress public constituents?

(Laughter.)

MIKE HUCKABEE: You know, it was a triple wide. A lot of people only have a single wide trailer, but we had a triple wide. It was pretty significant. Actually what was going on was the governor’s mansion was
undergoing renovation. There were a lot of things the wiring and all
this stuff had to be redone. So we had an option to go out and rent this very expensive place or find alternative housing arrangements. We decided to move in a triple wide manufactured home on the grounds of the governor’s mansion. We knew we were going to take a beating.

JAY LENO: We had a million jokes about it.

(Laughter.)

Thank you. You supported the monologue for weeks with that.

(Laughter.)

MIKE HUCKABEE: The big line was they said, “I’m sorry. I’m running
late today. I was on the interstate and got behind the governor’s mansion.

(Laughter.)

JAY LENO: Well, we actually interviewed that was the first time I
met you. You looked a lot the different then. Here he is. We’re talking seven years ago.

(Clip shown.)

(Applause.)

JAY LENO: When we come back, I want to ask you about that triple wide jacket you had on there.

(Laughter.)

We’ll take a break and come back with Mike Huckabee when we come back.

(Applause.)

(Break taken.)

(Mike Huckabee is playing his guitar with the band.)

JAY LENO: Nice job.
Before I ask you about news, I want to ask you about the triple wide jacket. You lost quite a bit of weight. How much weight did you lose?

MIKE HUCKABEE: About 110 pounds.

(Applause.)

JAY LENO: Congratulations on that. What was your secret?

MIKE HUCKABEE: The legislature kept eating my lunch every day.

(Laughter.)

No. My doctor sat me down. I faced a health crisis in 2003, and he basically told me if I didn’t make a lifestyle change, I was entering the last decade of my life. Then he described it. He said to me, “Here’s what’s going to happen.” And when he described it, that’s when I decided I needed a new exit strategy. So I really changed my lifestyle. I started eating differently, got rid of the fried foods and sugars. You know, I’ll tell you something, when you grow up in the South, everything is fried. I mean, you don’t eat anything unless you fry it.

JAY LENO: Fried water.

(Laughter.)

MIKE HUCKABEE: That’s right. You know, it’s very difficult to do that.
If you don’t fry it, you put sugar on it. It’s just the way we eat.
And between that and not exercising, which I did not do, it really caught up with me. I was in a health crisis. So my life was kind of representative of like a lot of people in this country that just don’t take care of themselves. We don’t have a healthcare crisis as much as we have a health crisis, and I was the epitome of it.

JAY LENO: So that’s terrific.
Now, you and Romney seems to have gotten into fisticuffs lately. What’s
going on here? You guys are neck and neck and seems to be getting

MIKE HUCKABEE: Oh, it’s politics. I mean, that’s what politics is about. I tell people that, if you can’t stand the sight of your own blood, don’t run for anything, just buy a ticket and watch it from the stands.

(Laughter.)

Because this is a full contact sport. No doubt about it.

JAY LENO: On Monday, you had a press conference. You were going to release an attack ad which seemed a little unusual for you. Why were you going to do that?

MIKE HUCKABEE: We had been hammered. We had been outspent 20 to 1 in
Iowa. 20 to 1. And that’s tough. And we had been hammered

JAY LENO: How much did you spend?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Oh, I think probably 3 to $400,000.

JAY LENO: And how much did Romney spend?

MIKE HUCKABEE: 8 or 9 million. So I mean, you know, it’s a substantial difference. We just kept getting hammered with negative television ads, negative radio ads, and mail pieces. And finally, decided “We had better answer this, or somebody is going to believe all this stuff.”

JAY LENO: So they work negative ads.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, they seemed to.
Then he started hammering John McCain over in New Hampshire. John McCain may be a rival of mine in the presidential race, but I have nothing but respect for him. He’s a great American hero. I think he’s a great American and a wonderful man, and a great guy

(Applause.)

JAY LENO: So you were going to do an ad.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Right. So we put together an ad and taped the tape, got it all ready. We were going to release it at a press conference, and Monday I just didn’t feel right. We had gotten where we are by being positive and talking about what this country needs to be rather than
what’s wrong with the other guys, and I just said

JAY LENO: As you were making it did you feel like

MIKE HUCKABEE: I needed to go take a shower or something like that or give Romney a shower maybe. I don’t know.

(Laughter.)

You know, at the time you think this is what we have to do. You don’t
like it, but you think it’s necessary, and at the end you just think

JAY LENO: So then you get a little conscience saying not to, but then why show it to the press at the press conference?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, they were very cynical about it, but the point is, if we hadn’t shown it, they would have said, “You didn’t have an ad.
You’re just bluffing us.” If I had really wanted to be disingenuous what I would have done is run the ad for three days and then said, “Oh, I have a conscience now. I think I’m going to pull it.”

JAY LENO: You did that very well. “Oh, I have a conscience.”

(Laughter.)

That was a real good political

MIKE HUCKABEE: I hope I have a conscience, which would be very unusual for politics to have a conscience.

JAY LENO: I know. Now, you have some interesting positions. I was not aware of this one until just this week when I started to research you a little bit. You want to dismantle the IRS. Everybody cheers that.

(Applause.)

Everybody loves that idea, but what is your alternative? You do away with the IRS, then what?

MIKE HUCKABEE: We would have a consumption tax rather than a tax on productivity.

JAY LENO: Value added?

MIKE HUCKABEE: It really wouldn’t be a V.A.T. It’s a simple like a sales tax at the point of retail sales. Let me tell you why that’s different. You, first of all, eliminate the underground economy. So
everybody is paying drug dealers, prostitutes, gamblers all those
people pay like the rest of us.

JAY LENO: There must be some legitimate work in there.

(Laughter.)

Boy, you really are in politics.

(Laughter.)

Now, what about a poor person goes and suddenly how much is this tax?
23, 24 percent?

MIKE HUCKABEE: It’s 23. But here’s the thing. Every person receives a “prebate” of the taxes that they would have on the level of the poverty, which means that what you really do with this fair tax, which is what it’s called, is you untax the poor. They don’t pay taxes, which means it’s really a progressive tax system. That’s why I love it because it would take the people least able to afford the taxes, and it virtually untaxes them.

Here’s what it also does. It frees people up to earn as much as they want. You don’t get taxed on income, savings, investments, capital gains, or debt.

I met a guy in New Hampshire. This is an interesting point. He’s working a second shift at a machine shop, trying try to help his daughter go through Cornell. She’s in grad school. $54,000 bucks a year to help her out. And he’s working a second shift. My first thing was, “Thank you, Lord. My daughter is not in grad school at Cornell because that’s a lot of money.” But then he tells me, “I’m now in a new tax bracket because I’m working a second shift, and the additional taxes I’m paying almost takes away what I’m getting on the second shift.”
What we’ve done is we’ve told him that, if he really, really works hard, we’re going to make it really hard for him to help his daughter. Here is how he can get his daughter some help: Quit both shifts, stop working, and he could then qualify for his daughter to have some federal assistance. That’s nutty.

We ought to have a system that encourages people to work, to think about the small business guy that sketches out the idea on his kitchen table.
He wants to go into business for himself, but his greatest competitor is not the guy across town or across the country. His greatest competitor is his own government that makes it real difficult for him to fill out the paperwork and pay the taxes.

(Applause.)

JAY LENO: Now, quickly the Democrats also seem to be gaining in
Iowa. Let’s say you win. Who would you want to win on the Democratic ballot? Who would you want to run against?

MIKE HUCKABEE: I still want them all to drop out, and let me have a clear shot all the way to the White House.

(Laughter.)

JAY LENO: So you’re realistic about this.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Yeah, frankly, I think there’s some Democrats that I
think they’re all sincere. I think there’s a fundamental difference between us in terms of whether we think taxes ought to go up or down, whether government ought to be more or less involved. Look, I have respect for anybody that runs for president. I have a great respect for Barack Obama. I think he’s a person who is trying to do in many ways what I hope I’m trying to do and that is to say let’s quit what I call “horizontal politics.” Everything in this country is not left, right, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican. I think the country is looking for somebody who is vertical, who is thinking, “Let’s take America up and not down,” and people will forgive you for being left or right if you go up.

(Applause.)

JAY LENO: I know you’ve got to get back to Iowa.

MIKE HUCKABEE: I do.

JAY LENO: I love Iowa. Thank you, sir, Mike Huckabee.

Emeril Lagasse is next.

Recently, Oprah Winfrey laid out the red carpet for Democratic Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama. The event was expected to raise $3 million for Obama’s campaign. With guest appearances by Will Smith, Stevie Wonder and Halle Berry, along with Oprah’s announcement that this presidential candidate was her “favorite guy,” one would think Obama’s audience increased.

But a survey conducted b y E-Poll Market Research may prove otherwise. The celebrity and brand research firm polled 2,237 voting age Americans. Of those, only 16 percent say a celebrity would influence their vote in the 2008 Presidential Election. In fact, 10 percent of participants said that a celebrity influence would have a negative impact on their vote.

E-Poll asked which celebrities – if any – would be the most influential in deciding which candidate to vote for. The top celebrities did include Oprah Winfrey along with George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Survey results show that democrats could be more swayed by celebrity endorsements than republicans. Although Obama is among the top three democratic presidential candidates, Hilary Clinton is still on top, and her campaign has not included any celebrity endorsements to date.

If candidates are looking for a boost, they should not turn to Rosie O’Donnell, Tom Cruise or Madonna. E-Poll’s survey suggests they would have the least influence and the most negative effects.

Candidates looking to gain votes from those who are still undecided for the 2008 election should not look to celebrities for help. Independents are the least likely to be swayed and only 13 percent say it would be a positive influence.

Overall, the survey results show that celebrity endorsements basically have no effect on young voters’ decisions.
Perhaps Oprah should have saved the red carpet gala until her next birthday.