It seems that many of those who are regular guests of this space are committed to a worldview based on some degree of reason and rationality.
That's a handy thing if the "Covert Alarm Locator Apparatus" in your Isaac Daniel® Compass Global 1000 GPS sneakers should happen to fail and you need to find your way back to where the rest of us are; sadly, not all voters are equipped with such a helpful worldview.
Luckily for them, there are lots of conservative "mouth organs" ready to fill the "information gap".
They send out lots of emails every day, spreading their Word, and as a public service I receive several of them; this to help keep track of just what's out there, exactly.
If you ever wondered why otherwise normal people believe some of the craziest things about "Obama's Secret Death Care And National Virgin Sacrifice Program", have a look at some of the things I get every single day, and it might all make a bit more sense.
We are coming down to the home stretch on healthcare, and we have seen the results of the first couple of rounds of crazy that have been sent forth in an effort to stop the process.
In addition to the Town Halls, opponents are flooding the email inboxes of America's "low information" voters with no end of lies. Those emails are getting passed around and around and around, and by now some of them have probably appeared in your inbox.
But it's summer...and who has time to respond to this stuff?
Well, guess what, Gentle Reader: I've already done the hard work for you.
Today's story is an email response that you can send right back to your "inbox friends". It's a reminder of some of the frustrations that we all share in this country and some explanations of what's being proposed...and a few words about socialism, to boot.
So get out there and copy and paste and forward and reply, and let's see if we can't fight the madness, one email at a time.
The McCain campaign is beyond desperate, at this point, and as you might expect, the emails are full of things McCain supporters would like us to know.
I had one of those emails cross my inbox yesterday morning...and I thought to myself:
"Self...since the author of this email asked me to look up her facts, maybe I should."
So I did.
Next thing I knew, I realized I was looking at a giant load of hooey.
Follow along, and I'll show you what I mean.
Here are a few items for a fine Wednesday evening:
Two new national polls, from NBC and CBS, both show Obama up by 3%, down from 6% in both a couple weeks ago. Obama continues to lead, but McCain continues to catch up.
"If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system," Obama told some 1,800 people at a town-hall style meeting on the economy.
That's cool. Although, I do wonder about single payer sometimes. I mean, France isn't single payer, and they have just about the best system in the world (not to mention a lot of private, supplemental insurance), so it isn't exactly the end-all, be-all of good health care systems.
QUESTIONER: If we don't reenact the draft, I don't think we'll have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.
[Appaluse]
MCCAIN: Ma'am, let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said.
No matter the context, a competent, properly vicious, attack minded Democratic campaign would go after McCain hard for this.
Speaking of attacks, during the Democratic national convention, just about every speaker should mercilessly attack Republicans for their convention themes: peace, prosperity and reform. That is just bald face lying, and it needs to be called such. It needs that these are the three things that have been most lacking under Republican governance. Republicans brought us nothing but war, corruption, and an erosion of our national wealth. And, to boot, they continue to lie about it, by claiming they are bringing the opposite. During the convention, Democrats must hammer this home by directly, repeatedly attacking Republicans for their convention themes. Do it.
I have been very spotty on checking my email over the last few days. I just don't want to do it all the time anymore. Weren't there times in our lives when people would call other people if they had something important to say to them? Now, I get hundreds of emails a day, most of them I either don't want to read because they are press releases and email list discussions, or because it is just piling another hour or more onto my workday. Email has become an omnipresent source of work related stress-you are never done or free from work, because you have to check your email. Aarrggghhhh. It just never ends, and I need a breather.
This is an open thread. What are you thinking, reading, or doing tonight?
Some of you may remember that I raisedsomeconcern over email chain letters that flow around the internet. Particularly the ones about Obama being a muslim which bring a general problem into specific relief. I have borrowed the concept of "memes" invented by Professor Richard Dawkins to refer to these as "memetic emails" - emails that flow and ebb according to how likely each recipient is to forward the message.
I'm happy to say that someone is now trying to do something about this, and I'm pleased to point you all to Truth Fights Back. TFB is a project run by John Kerry's internet director, Brian Young and funded through Kerry's PAC Campaign for our Country. It is an effort to build a piece of (hopefully permanent) infrastructure that will combat the memetic nonsense (which I believe is generally more harmful to Obama and liberal causes generally).
Obviously John Kerry has more reason than most to be concerned with the power of negative information to play on the irrational fears of voters and turn them away from candidates they might otherwise support. It is fitting that it comes from him. Inside some more commentary on the site, and the thinking behind it.
Here are the 9 articles on John McCain that Chris Bowers put together. Below I've listed them with a complete reference and the link address visible so that you can copy and paste this directly into an email message and send along to your friends who only do email.
John McCain thinks there is a military solution in Iraq:
"McCain Defends Bush's Iraq Strategy," by Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press, Jan. 12, 2007.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/12/ap/politics/mainD8MJRGCO0.shtml
John McCain sees a very long war in Iraq:
"McCain in NH: Would Be 'Fine' To Keep Troops in Iraq for 'A Hundred Years' ," by David Corn, Mother Jones Magazine, January 3, 2008.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/01/6735_mccain_in_nh_wo.html
John McCain opposes a new GI Bill:
"Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition," by Alex Koppelman, Salon.com, May 22, 2008.
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/05/22/gi_bill/index.html
John McCain wants to ban abortion:
"McCain says overturn the law that legalized abortion," USA Today, February 19, 2007.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-02-19-mccain-roe_x.htm
John McCain supports NAFTA:
"McCain blasts Obama's and Clinton's attacks on NAFTA," Los Angeles Times, March 1, 2008.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/01/nation/na-mccain1
John McCain wants to privatize Social Security:
"Bush, McCain plug Social Security," by Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times, March 23, 2005.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002216444_bush23.html
John McCain opposed SCHIP:
"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion," CNN, October 3, 2007.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/
John McCain opposed raising the minimum wage:
"John McCain Votes to Filibuster Minimum Wage Hike," AOL News, January 24th 2007.
http://news.aol.com/elections-blog/2007/01/24/john-mccain-votes-to-filibuster-minimum-wage-hike/
John McCain relies on lobbyists:
"McCain housing policy shaped by lobbyist," MSNBC, May 27, 2008.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24844889
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee's surge in Iowa, from single digits in the polls to a virtual tie for the lead among Republicans, has captivated the political world and prompted speculation about just how he did it.
The Fix may have found the answer: a physician from Montgomery, Ala., named Randy Brinson.
Brinson is the keeper of a massive e-mail list of much-coveted Christian voters that Huckabee is using to reach and organize people in early-voting states such as Iowa.
Brinson's list numbers about 71 million contacts, with 25 million identified as belonging to "25 and 45 years old, upwardly mobile, right-of-center, conservative households," he said.
The list was constructed for GOTV and voter registration purposes during 2004 using publicity around Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ. Here is why this is mind-blowing. First, the list has 414,000 contact in Iowa alone, which is stunning. Second, if it is still active enough to play a major role in swinging a presidential nomination contest, what was it doing for the previous three years? Third, all of this has been taking place so under the radar, that there isn't even a wiki entry on Randy Brinson. I mean, there is a wiki entry on me, for crying out loud, and there isn't one on some guy with the largest functional email list in the entire country. How did the continuing operation of a list this size go so under the radar? There are 71 million contacts on the list--everyone should know about it.
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