Two Degrees of Separation to Sarah Palin

[Steve]

Is your dad copping a feel back there?

[straffo]

H-E-double hockey sticks.  Darn tootin'.  That boy's done 22 yrs of service, and a bit of time in the Hanoi Hilton.  How many kids are serving their country?  Aren't Palin's son and nephew doing that.  Let me see that kind of stuff from the commie left...

The current president didn't made any time in Hanoi .
But he was elected.
Do you really think it's a valid argument ?

[Jackal1]

Very cool Eskimo....................... .............even if it does make rpm whimper.

[Bodhi]

The current president didn't made any time in Hanoi .
But he was elected.
Do you really think it's a valid argument ?

The current President did serve in the Armed Forces though.

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

I served in Alaska while in the Coast Guard. I quickly learned Alaska has almost nothing in common with the other 49 states.
Palin has less experience than the mayor of Detroit. Is that what you want at the helm when GQ is called?

Obama can ask Biden for advice. McCain can ask...who's the rest of his cabinet anyway??
Let's not go to the next level where the POTUS becomes unable to perform his duties...

Oh, so we want the experience of the mayor of Detroit instead? Or we want Biden's advice? For Obama, a 1/2 term Senator who has spent all but 150 DAYS of that 1/2 term running for President? Oh, but before that he was a state senator, and before that a "community organizer"  , and before that a lawyer  , and president of the Harvard Review. There's REAL experience for you. NOT. Now Obama claims "running my campaign gives me more chief executive experience than Sarah Palin, my budget is bigger".

[john9001]

Palin has less experience than the mayor of Detroit.

thats true, she hasn't been indited. Or was that the mayor of chicago? Or both?

[Hornet33]

Now Obama claims "running my campaign gives me more chief executive experience than Sarah Palin, my budget is bigger".

Yeah, see that might be true if Obama's campaign mannager was running instead of him. Obama isn't "running" anything, he's just doing what his manager is telling him to do. Of course I'd be willing to bet the state of Alaskas yearly budget is quite a bit more than Obamas campaign budget could ever hope have in it's account.

http://www.legfin.state.ak.us/Publications/FY2008SummaryOfAppropriations.pdf

Alaskas state operating budget for 2008, enacted and signed by Palin to the tune of over 145 million dollars to operate the states main departments and agencies. Total available funds over 2.3 billion and she plans on carrying a surplus into 2009 from the 2008 total funds.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/summary.php?id=N00009638&cycle=2008

Obama has raised 389 million, spent 324 million on tv adds owes over $900,000 for various things as of the end of July AND he's spent ALL of that money on himself.

I wonder who I would trust with my checkbook? Sure as hell isn't Obama, but yeah he has more experiance "running" his campaign.

[Elfie]

Obama has raised 389 million, spent 324 million on tv adds owes over $900,000 for various things as of the end of July AND he's spent ALL of that money on himself.

So what happens if he loses the election and is still in debt? Does he try to raise the funds? Or does he try to earn them.......

[RATTFINK]

RPM, good choice...

The Mayor of Detroit has all the experience of a spineless skum


Allegations of mayoral misbehavior

Text-messaging scandal

Criminal charges

Slander suit

Funneling of State Grant Money to Wife

Preferential hiring of friends and family

Allegations of assaulting a police officer

Kilpatrick Jailed Over Bail breach

FBI corruption investigation of Kilpatrick family and friends
 

[Charon]

Palin has less experience than the mayor of Detroit. Is that what you want at the helm when GQ is called?

See that's just it, and what adds to her appeal. I'll fully admit Obama has FAR more experience with big urban political machine politics. He was hand picked to be successful by the Daley machine, and specifically by State Senate president Emil Jones. Here's what his experience involves:

1. Community organizer -- your job is to solidify a voting block in this case for the Capos of the African American units of the machine. You are given a salary paid for by the state's or the fed's (taxes) as part of some pork bill. Though maybe you siphon off some liberal foundation dollars. As with most outfits, you deliver for your leaders, keep your cut and distribute token jobs to the faithful or the children of the faithtful. You generally support the leader of the machine -- the mayor -- but you also support your community capos in the battle for the pork with other community capos. Perhaps, like the "reverend" Meeks you organize a march at a suburban highschool to highlight the lower funding for inner city schools, except that the CPS are actually funded higher than the state average... Maybe you can extort an extra 100 million from the Governor/State Assembly that ends up mostly in school programs (led by you or other patronage clout babies affiliated with your political "crew") and not in the classrooms themselves.

As an organizer you basically build your political base and your network for advancing in state politics while getting a salary in the process.

2. Member of the black churches -- Obama and his wife may fully support black liberation theology, but maybe not. Within the African American political machine community the churches are really the power infrastructure for organizing the community and the redistribution of pork though community programs. I get the impression the Obamas have some affinity for the philosophy, but it could also be a political calculation. Regardless, it was a necessity for Obama to be part of the power structure. Now, we hear Ombama supports continuing and even expanding Bush's faith-based initiatives. I'm sure a nice slice of that pork will find it's way back to the Chicago AA Church outfit -- that's the Chicago Way.

Cont.

[Charon]

3. Illinois State Senate. Emil Jones was his mentor. To push his caree Obama needed a record, so Jones gave him one. On the issues where he didn't simply vote "present" to avoid potential fallout from tough issues he was handed legislation:

Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city's most popular black call-in radio ­program.

I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:

"He said, 'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'"

"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"

"Barack Obama."

Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.

"I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen," State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. "Barack didn't have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.

"I don't consider it bill jacking," Hendon told me. "But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book."

During his seventh and final year in the state Senate, Obama's stats soared. He sponsored a whopping 26 bills passed into law — including many he now cites in his presidential campaign when attacked as inexperienced.

It was a stunning achievement that started him on the path of national politics — and he couldn't have done it without Jones...

So how has Obama repaid Jones?

Last June, to prove his commitment to government transparency, Obama released a comprehensive list of his earmark requests for fiscal year 2008. It comprised more than $300 million in pet projects for Illinois, including tens of millions for Jones's Senate district.

Shortly after Jones became Senate president, I remember asking his view on pork-barrel spending.

I'll never forget what he said:

"Some call it pork; I call it steak."
http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/

4. Then is came time for the next step -- US Senate. Anybody watch Amadeus? Remember when Antonio Salieri describes the miracle of his father choking to death that freed him to become a composer? Well...

Ryan married actress Jeri Ryan in 1991; together they have a son, Alex Ryan. They divorced in 1999 in California, and the records of the divorce were sealed at their mutual request. Five years later, when Ryan's Senate campaign began, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, sought to have the records released. On March 3, 2004, several of Ryan's GOP primary opponents urged release of the records.[5] Both Ryan and his wife agreed to make their divorce records public, but not make the custody records public, claiming that the custody records could be harmful to their son if released. On March 16, 2004, Ryan won the GOP primary with 36 percent to 23 percent against Jim Oberweis who came in second.[6] Obama won the Democratic primary, with 53 percent to 23 percent against Dan Hynes, who came in second.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(Senate_candidate)

Now, being part of the Daley/Cook County/Illinois machine carries with it some baggage. For example, if you are a man of principal you have to endorse people that are, ethically challenged, to say the least. For Obama, THE REFORMER - THE CHANGE - THE FRESH BREEZE they include:

Todd Storger, the man who brought me the highest taxes in the country, and who hires relatives and has backed away from his promise to be a reformer. Here's a nice video of democrats who refused to endorse Stroger (but not obama) with one description of why: http://www.truveo.com/Democrats-Ducking-Todd-Stroger/id/98996028

Then there was Doroty Tillman:

Though it didn't make national news, Obama inflamed many residents in his old state Senate district last March when he endorsed controversial Chicago alderman Dorothy Tillman in a runoff election.

Flamboyant and unpredictable, Tillman is perhaps best known for once pulling a pistol from her purse and brandishing it around at a city council meeting. The ward she represented for 22 years, which included historic Bronzeville, comprised the city's largest concentration of vacant lots.

Just three months before Obama made his endorsement, the Lakefront Outlook community newspaper ran a three-part investigative series exposing flagrant crony­ism and possible tax-law violations that centered on Tillman and her biggest pet project, a taxpayer-funded cultural center built across the street from her ward office that had been hemorrhaging money since its inception.

The series won a national George Polk Award, among the most coveted prizes in journalism. Not bad for a 12-page rag with a circulation of 12,000 and no Web site. I had already left the Outlook and had nothing to do with the project.

In the end, Tillman lost the election despite Obama's endorsement, which critics said countered his calls for clean government. Obama told the Chicago Tribune that he had backed Tillman because she was an early supporter of his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign. http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/

And a few more.

Mayor Daley, of course:

When Mayor Richard M. Daley geared up for his 1995 re-election campaign, he was not dependent on the Democratic ward organizations that rallied city workers for the political machine of Richard J. Daley a generation ago.

Instead, in Chicago's 50 wards, the campaign installed its own political operatives to get out the vote, according to a map of Daley ward coordinators obtained by the Tribune.

Eleven years later, in federal court this week, the names of many of those same Daley loyalists re-surfaced hundreds of times as the alleged sponsors of applicants for city jobs and promotions in the 1990s.

Even as aldermen and committeemen remain the public faces of political power in Chicago, the true clout belonged to obscure city officials who could marshal their workers to campaign for Daley, judging by a hiring list allegedly kept in the mayor's office.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0606210190jun21,0,7399746.story

Rod Blagojevich:

Just some highlights.

Although Blagoejvich was elected on a promise to end the corruption in Illinois government which led to the federal indictment and conviction of former Governor George Ryan and others, his administration has been plagued by similar controversies.[12] Polling completed in July 2008 put Blagojevich's approval rating among Illinois voters at 13.%. Blagojevich ranks as “Least Popular Governor” according to Rasmussen Reports By the Numbers. [13]...

In September 2006, it was revealed that Blagojevich had accepted a $1,500 check from Mike Ascaridis, whom the governor described as one of his closest friends, in 2003.[17] The check was given two weeks after Ascaridis' wife, Beverly, received a state job at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Mrs. Ascaridis received this appointment despite having failed a state hiring exam.[18] Blagojevich initially asserted that the check was written as a birthday gift to his oldest daughter. He then later said it was a gift for his younger daughter's christening.[19] U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald[19] and the FBI[20] are investigating the matter...

On October 11, 2006, Blagojevich fundraisers and businessmen Antonin "Tony" Rezko and Stuart Levine were indicted for participation in a scheme to obtain kickbacks from investment firms seeking business from two state boards. Levine pleaded guilty two weeks later and agreed to testify against Rezko.[23][24]
The governor's wife, Patricia Blagojevich, was a business partner of Rezko's for at least a decade. In 2004, she received over $38,000 in real estate commissions from him.[25]
In October 2006, it was revealed that Mrs. Blagojevich, a licensed real estate broker, earned $113,700 in commissions from Anita and Amrish Mahajan. These were the only commissions earned by Mrs. Blagojevich this year. Anita Mahajan owns a urinalysis company that holds a no-bid contract with the state Department of Children and Family Services. Amrish Mahajan is president of a bank that has two requests pending before state regulators to acquire two out-of-state banks.[26]...

In the midst of the Rezko trial, the Chicago Tribune reported on what it called a "$25,000 Club" in which 75% of businesses, unions and individuals that gave a $25,000 donation to Rod Blagojevich's political campaign received benefits from the State of Illinois, including state contracts and appointments to state boards...

During July and part of August 2007, Illinois lawmakers were in a deadlock over approving a state budget.[54] In light of this, Blagojevich came under criticism for choosing to take daily, expensive commutes between his Chicago home and his office in Springfield rather than stay in the Governor's Mansion in Springfield during the budget crisis. The round trip on a state plane costs nearly $6,000, and Blagojevich made the trip nine times between May 22 and June 7, costing Illinois taxpayers more than $75,000 according to state transportation records.[55]...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich

[Charon]

5. Now, at the federal level, we have to consider Obama as the agent of change. I'll ask a simple question. Can you expect "change" from someone who was mentored in the Senate by Dick -- American Soldiers = Auschwitz camp guards - Durbin and supported early on over Hillery by the Ultimate Washington Insider Ted Kennedy? Wouldn't these consummate, far left progressive business as usual political hacks be afraid of real change? SERIOUSLY! Would Ted Kennedy truly endorse an agent of change?

And would an agent of change be so cozy (much cozier than is broadly reported) with so many of the usual PACS and lobbyists and industry contributions:

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama often boasts he is "the only candidate who isn't taking a dime from Washington lobbyists," yet his fundraising team includes 38 members of law firms that were paid $138 million last year to lobby the federal government, records show.

Those lawyers, including 10 former federal lobbyists, have pledged to raise at least $3.5 million for the Illinois senator's presidential race. Employees of their firms have given Obama's campaign $2.26 million, a USA TODAY analysis of campaign finance data shows.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-04-15-obama_n.htm

There's another one out there showing the bundling from major financial institutions. Does Wall Street Back change in Washington?

Now, I'll wait to see just how much "reform" McCain actually delivers if he wins. And Pailin, for all her positive points has some negatives and is certainly a politician -- a formidable one. But frankly I would kill to have a Palin in office at the state level -- anywhere -- and clearly believe she is more qualified to even be President than BO and more likely to support any real change that could happen with the current Washington morass.

Charon

[Kaw1000]