Saturday, June 6, 2009

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Taylor Marsh: My Blue Collar Husband and Terry McAuliffe Top
by Taylor Marsh We're new to the D.C. area. So when we started paying attention to the Virginia governors race it was late in the game. But it didn't take long for my blue collar husband to take sides. I haven't, except that Brian Moran isn't an option for me. He's still fighting '08 primary fights against Terry McAuliffe because he backed Clinton. That turned us off from the start. So it's between Creigh Deeds and Terry McAuliffe. Well, not for my husband. There's only one choice for him. That's McAuliffe. I'll explain in a minute. For those of you not familiar with the race, here's where it stands : For months, much of the attention in the race had centered on its most unexpected candidate: McAuliffe, the well-known confidant to President Bill Clinton who joined the race in January, after serving as chairman of Hillary Rodham Clinton's failed presidential campaign. With millions of dollars from his enormous national network of donors, he began a presidential-style campaign across Virginia, building what is now believed to be a massive grass-roots organization throughout Northern Virginia and in the African American communities of Hampton Roads and Richmond. Moran, long the presumptive favorite for the nomination, struggled to adapt to McAuliffe's entry into the race and is now hoping voter loyalty in Northern Virginia will be his trump card. As a symbol of his slow but steady effort, he has held on to a tortoise saved from a Prince William highway, keeping it in his SUV. But it has been the race's most unheralded candidate that has shown momentum in the final mad dash of campaigning. Deeds, the most conservative and least polished of the three, has been blitzing the Washington suburbs since recent polls showed him surging in an area where it was assumed he would have trouble connecting with voters. Even modest success there could help him cobble together a majority, given his strength elsewhere. People must be a little worried, because a couple of posts have lately picked on Terry McAuliffe. One post a bit earlier took issue with something I'd written and even goes so far as to completely misrepresent a post I wrote in order to target McAuliffe. The post I wrote was about Moran targeting McAuliffe through Hillary . Believe it or not, this post takes out after McAuliffe for backing Clinton too. What does that have to do with Virginia? As my husband looked for work, he wanted to know that too. After having the same job since he was in his twenties, when we moved he took early retirement, which meant my husband was looking for work once we landed. Even as talented as he is it was daunting. He can build anything; give him two beams and you'll get yourself a shopping mall; he can also fix anything. He was offered a couple of jobs, then landed a really good one, but the hunt had an impact. That's when McAuliffe's ads started showing up. He also heard Creigh Deeds, coming to the judgment that he "sounds like a solid guy." But McAuliffe's ads had a bigger impact on him. What my husband heard from McAuliffe was a man who can widen his job options if he goes hunting again. He also heard enthusiasm and someone who he believes has the dynamic optimism to convince businesses to choose Virginia. When I told him I hadn't decided whom to vote for, though neither of us will vote for Moran because of his negativity, he looked at me like I'd just insulted him. "How can you not vote for the guy?, meaning McAuliffe. "He's so optimistic. You just know he'll tell businesses they have to come to Virginia and they'll come." Of course, my husband doesn't know a thing about the progressive push against Terry McAuliffe, so when I told him he just laughed. After looking for work and seeing the job market after so long, he's looking for someone who can pitch big companies, get them to Virginia and help people like him have more choices. As far as he's concerned it's McAuliffe. "You've gotta vote for him," he now simply says. I just don't know. With Moran hitting me wrong from the start, looking at Creigh Deeds, he seems solid, his record a good one. The Washington Post endorsement was impressive. But... I'm just not convinced he can beat Bob McDonnell, who is slick . He's also got serious right-wing tendencies, and the guy he picked to run his campaign proves McDonnell's judgment stinks . "One of the underlying concerns that many thoughtful Virginians have about McDonnell are his ties to the Christian right," Sabato said. "I can't tell you how many times senior people have asked, 'Who will Bob McDonnell appoint to the 4,000 appointments he gets?' 'Who will run the college boards of visitors and the state agencies?' "The reasons these questions matter to the people asking them is they fear it will be the far right and the Christian conservatives," he said. So, it gets down to who can beat McDonnell for me. Nothing else matters. I'm just not sure it's Creigh Deeds. Taylor Marsh reports from Washington, D.C., and you can also follow her on Twitter , as well as through her podcasts, "TM-DC" . More on Barack Obama
 
Geoffrey Dunn: Palin Plagiarizes Gingrich in Anchorage Speech Top
Sarah Palin's garbled, often incoherent speech delivered in Anchorage on Wednesday--the one in which she declared "screw political correctness" and wondered why "we have to pussyfoot around our troublesome foes"--was largely lifted from an article written four years ago by Newt Gingrich and Craig Shirley. Palin apparently also felt that she could "screw" intellectual integrity. While Palin twice mentioned Gingrich in the speech (she never once acknowledged Shirley), virtually every single reference she made to Reagan was lifted directly from the Gingrich-Shirley article. It's a pure case of unadulterated plagiarism. A little background: Palin was on the stage at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, donning red Franco Sarto high heels (she mentioned them) and introducing Michael Reagan, the rightwing talk show host and son of the former president, Ronald Reagan. Her introduction lasted about 17 minutes and has already garnered significant national attention. Doing real research on Reagan, of course, was a bit much to ask of the busy governor, currently on-tour in New York, so she simply "borrowed" from Gingrich and Shirley--at least eleven times. Our dear Governor, it appears, is a one-source wonder. The indomitable AK Muckraker of The Mudflats undertook the near impossible task of transcribing most of Palin's ramblings (my wife filled in on a couple of spots as well), and after slogging through the muck of verbiage while listening to a recording of the speech (replete with Palin's shrill intonation, stilted phrasing and peculiar syntax), I realized I had read some of this before. So I tracked down the original Gingrich-Shirley article , "Republicans Need to Relearn Lessons of the Reagan Revolution" which appeared in the Union Leader , November 1, 2005, and is also online. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Palin was accused by Daily Kos of plagiarizing a Hillary Clinton passage. In that instance it was, at worse, petty larceny; in this case, it's grand theft. In Anchorage, Palin went through her standard introductions, including the "First Dude," Todd Palin, then said: 1. Palin : First, I think what we're going to learn tonight via Michael is that Ronald Reagan's ideas were the right ideas and all we have to do is look back at his record, his economic record and his national security record to know that his ideas were right. Gingrich/Shirley : What should Americans learn from this remarkable man and his remarkable Presidency?...The "right" ideas really matter (the left was wrong and Reagan was right about virtually every major public policy issue and the historic record is clear for those willing to look at it). After that, Palin acknowledged that "Recently, Newt Gingrich, he had written a good article about Reagan...." (Recently? It was four years ago; and she said "good," with an obvious disdain, since Gingrich has been rather dismissive of her recently.) 2. Palin : He said, regarding your dad Michael, he said that we need to learn from his example that courage and persistence are keys to historic achievement. Gingrich/Shirley : Courage and persistence are the keys to historic achievement. 3. Palin : With Reagan's example, D.C. politicians calling the shots for our country, they had better rely on the good sense of the American people and bag their alliance on the entrenched bureaucrats and the elite self-proclaimed intellectuals, and the smug lobbyists who dominate Washington. Gingrich/Shirley : Relying on the good sense of the American people beats relying on the elite intellectuals, entrenched bureaucrats and smug lobbyists who dominate Washington. 4. Palin : We have to remember first that Ronald Reagan never won any arguments in Washington. He won the arguments by resonating with the American people. Gingrich/Shirley : Reagan never won an argument in Washington. Reagan won his arguments in the country with the American people. 5. Palin : We the American people through him, we imposed our will on Washington... It's our will to be imposed on them. Gingrich/Shirley : [T]hen the American people imposed their will on Washington. 6. Palin : What Newt had written in this article, he wrote: "Remember how refreshing it was with his outrageous directness that Americans loved, and praised and deserved." Gingrich/Shirley : Candidate Ronald Reagan responded to the failures of the left with enormous clarity and directness. 7. Palin : [Reagan's] vision for the Cold War?--we win, they lose. Gingrich/Shirley : On the inevitability of the Soviet Union, Reagan responded with a then shocking vision for the Cold War--"we win, they lose." 8. Palin : So Ronald Reagan spoke to us then with us here in our hearts is where he reached us.... He captured our hearts so he could affect positive change by what he did. He focused on our kids, on our children, on their future, Gingrich/Shirley : The key to capturing the attention and, yes, the hearts of Americans is to focus on their future and their children's future. Reagan understood this... 9. Palin : He stood strong on his knowing that the framework through which he believed that positive change that framework for our kids, it was freedom [sic]. Gingrich/Shirley : Successful governance means having a framework through which to lead the American people. For Reagan, that framework was freedom. 10. Palin : We would do so well to look back on those Reagan years as he championed the cause for freedom and then he lived it out as our president --cheerfully, persistently and unapologetically. Gingrich/Shirley : Cheerful persistence rather than easy victories were the keys to Reagan's career. 11. Palin : And with detente, speaking of detente, he used two words: "Evil Empire." Gingrich/Shirley : Reagan replaced the entire vision of detente with two vivid words: "Evil Empire." It's an impressive bit of intellectual larceny, worthy of a high school sophomore. Palin then segued off the beloved Gipper (about whom, it became obvious, she knew nothing), and shifted back to what has become her favorite subject these days: the embattled Sarah Palin. In the end, it's always about Sarah--even when she's introducing someone else. That portion of the speech she didn't plagiarize from Gingrich, who, when asked to name the "emerging leaders" in the GOP this past April in an interview with Christianity Today , refused to name Palin, wondering instead when pressed: "Is she willing to do the kind of development of national issues and development of a national profile that would be required?....[B]ecoming a national leader would take a significant amount of work." This may not have reflected the "significant amount of work" that Gingrich had in mind. Award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn is at work on a book about Sarah Palin and her role in American politics, to be published by Macmillan/St. Martin's in 2010. More on Barack Obama
 

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