Sweetheart Deal

Joe Biden is the first politician in the history of the sport to benefit from a sweetheart real estate deal.  OK, make that the first I have noticed today:

While their earnings probably would not be enough to purchase their Greenville estate today, the Bidens have managed to live in such splendor partly because of two financially rewarding real estate deals with political supporters.

In 1996, Biden sold a home in Greenville for the asking price of $1.2 million -- more than six times what he paid two decades earlier -- to John R. Cochran III, a top executive at the MBNA credit card bank that was a longtime political benefactor.

Using profits from that sale, Biden paid $350,000 cash to real estate executive and developer Keith D. Stoltz for 4.2 vacant acres -- a long, narrow lot a few miles from Biden's old home. Stoltz had bought that same lot five years earlier for the same price.

Stephen Pyle, who sold the land to Stoltz in 1991, said he was surprised that Stoltz, who lived on a neighboring estate, did not make any profit selling to Biden. "That doesn't sound like Keith Stoltz," Pyle, an artist who now lives in Texas, said of Stoltz, whose company recently proposed a $525 million project at nearby Barley Mill Plaza, a former DuPont Co. office campus.

Cochran did not return numerous calls for this article.

Although Cochran paid Biden's asking price, Stoltz wrote in an e-mail to The News Journal that "the residential real estate market was soft" when he was selling his lot.

The market was softer in 1996 than in 1991, the year which until recently provided the baseline for bad markets?

Time does not permit, but subject to some obvious caveats (all real estate is local, this is a national index of single family homes, not a Delaware index of undeveloped lots), let's note that in 1991 the best month for the National Association of Homebuilders real estate index was June, with a reading of 42.  In 1996 the worst month was February, with a reading of 49.

I very much doubt the Delaware market had gone soft all by itself and I further doubt that this Mr. Stoltz, who appears to be well off, was in a hurry to sell and felt obliged to dump the property in a weak market.

C'mon, Stoltz did a favor for a friend., which is a scandal when Republicans are involved.  As to why a real estate developer with holdings across the country wants a friend in the Senate, need you ask?

PILING ON: I am so late to this story.

Comments

[kim]

Keep digging I know there is a pony under there, somewhere. Or a Rezko.
=====================================

[Charlie (Colorado)]

If I'm getting this right, Biden sold a property for a million two, bought another lot of 350 thou, and has a neet worth now of only $300,000.

I hate to put this past Biden's intellect, but turning $1.2 million and a property bought in a soft real estate market, plus, one assumes, the house he actually lives in now, into a net worth of only $300,000 would take real talent.

[capitano]

Maybe Biden learned how to make money in real estate by reading the Wall Street Journal -- similar financial miracles have visited politicians before. Or by emulating the Japanese.

No, wait, not emulating the Japanese... Biden's turning Japanese. Did you see those eyes? Video">http://news.google.com/news?q=biden+florida&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=">Video of him on the trail looked like he was auditioning for Spain's Olympic Basketball team.

[richard mcenroe]

I see now why he appealed to Obama.

[Danube of Thought]

Finally found my way to your site, Charlie--absolutely wonderful work. (Linked to it from Lucianne.)

[Jor]

Just doing some basic math, Biden's house was originally 200K -- at a 7% rate of return, his house would have been valued at 800K. He sold his house, and bought an empty undeveloped lot.

There definitely looks to be a "bit of padding", but not as much as implied if you adjust for inflation / increasing value, etc.

[Jor]

just quick note, 7% rate of return, over 20 years -- means your principal increases 4 times.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Steve Diamond has a link to a paper that analyzes the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to open it.

Anyone else want to try?

Also, in about ten minutes Greta van Sustern will have a program about Sarah Palin on Fox News.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

The thing is, this is an unusual political-wealth story. Even if we assume that the house they live in is worth nothing, he had $1.2 million in cash after the sale. he bought a property for $350,000. According to the Washington Post in 2007, he had a net worth of between $100,000 and $150,000.

Something don't add up. Or else he's got a major cocaine habit.

[TCO]

It's a bribe.

[TCO]

Can I get the Palin story streaming or on youtube or something? I don't have cable.

[Mike]

Obama obviously took real estate lessons from Biden. Of course Molihan from WV also has done well in real estate too.

I have been trying to sell my crappy beach cottage here in Massachusetts since February (half heartedly through Craigslist) and have not found any wealthy benefactors to by it.

I should run for Senate.

[JM Hanes]

TM:

Would you consider fielding a new Annenberg thread of some kind as an HQ for the folks slogging through the documents? Related comments are now turning up every which where, and it would really help to keep a visible spot for them going.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

TCO, you can watch the video">http://www.foxnews.com/ontherecord/index.html">video at Fox News.

They have an interview shot while she was pregnant with Tryg. Very charming.

Piper looks to be the most precocious political child since John John Kennedy. Her mom asks her what she wants to be when she grows up, and she answers, 'A baby sitter.'

[Jane]

I thought it was a really great snapshot of the next Vice President.

And I'm damn sure if for some reason she doesn't win, she will be running for President in 2012.

[RAH]

He may have gotten a sweetheart deal But I bought my house in 1992 and it was a soft market in 1991.I remember trying to take advantage of it.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

There are about a thousand sound bites the Republicans could pull from this Fox program that will charm the socks off most Americans. McCain should go on an extended vacation and let Sarah get'r done.

She's the most charming human being ever to run for national office. Better even than JFk and Bill Clinton. And they were faking it.

[bad]

Patrick

Steve Diamond appears to be teasing us with up and coming attractions. Let's not forget to keep abreast of his new info.

[larwyn]

Where Biden's $$$ went - Geraghty Sept 1st:

Joe Biden Spent His Fortune on Amtrak Tickets

Over on Culture11.com, they calculate that by taking Amtrak, salt-of-the-earth, working-class Joe Biden spends $222 on commuting every day that the Senate is in session.

Looking at Amtrak's page, the rate for a train from Wilmington, Del. to Washington D.C.'s Union Station ranges, from $42 to $125 one way. So if he bought the cheap seats — and anecdotal evidence suggests that is not the case — he spends $84 per day; two one-way peak tickets on Acela (presumably Biden doesn't always know when the Senate will finish its work for the day) costs $250 per day.

Not that Biden has been in attendance every day, but the Senate has been in session 129 days so far this year. So his commuting cost range, had he gone to Washington every day that the Senate was in session, would range from $10,836 to $32,250, just from January to August.

As they note, if Biden worked five days a week fifty weeks a year like most Americans, his train expenses would exceed the median household income in the nation. If Biden is, as he once claimed, "the poorest man in the Senate", some of it may have to do with how he spends his money.

UPDATE: Some readers note that if Biden gets a monthly pass, he’s spending $1,062 per month – so $12,744 per year.

However, according to Amtrak, "Northeast monthly ticket holders may upgrade to certain off-peak Acela Express trains for an additional charge. This may only be done at staffed Amtrak stations within 30 minutes of departure." Anecdotal evidence suggests Biden takes Acela regularly.

LINK: http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWEwMjY5ODhkNWJmNmFmMDA0NDVhZWJkMDg0NGVjYWY=

Well, my memory isn't completely shot even tho I still can't remember where I saw the post on how much Joe's traveling on AMTRAK costs the taxpayer via the subsidies, or the posts showing the trash at the DNC.

[baked alaska]

McCain cited the same reasoning when asked why he and nine other congressional leaders urged President Bush in a letter dated Dec. 6, 2001, to next target Iraq since the Taliban regime had collapsed in Afghanistan.

It is "imperative that we plan to eliminate the threat from Iraq," the lawmakers wrote. "We believe that we must directly confront Saddam sooner rather than later."

Later that day, McCain told MSNBC that it is "possible, if not probable, that internal opposition forces can prevail over time." Asked if it wouldn't require 100,000 U.S. soldiers as occupation troops, McCain demurred. "Oh, no," he said. "I don't think so at all."

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-mccainiraq23mar23,0,7280469.story

[Elliott]

Didn't see the Fox program, but caught a repeat of the CNN program on Obama. I didn't know that in Emil Jones' telling Obama came to him saying Jones had the power to make someone a U.S. Senator and recommended himself for clientage. Lovely.

Thought of the day from me: Sarah Palin has given Richard Curtis the oppurtunity to make a U.S. version of Love, Actually.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

So, baked, you're saying you prefer someone who got it wrong once and changed his mond to someone who got it wrong, changed his mind, changed his mind again, said he didn't change his mind, said claiming he'd changed his mind was a distraction, changed his mind again, said he didn't mean what he'd said, changed his mind again, and finally changed his mind and said that even though he was wrong before he was right to be wrong because being wrong wasn't right.

[Uncle BigBad]

CNN is now running back-to-back bios of Obama and Palin. It won't surprise anyone that the Obama piece is a puff piece and Palin's is a hit piece.

I expect this will be followed by something similar on MSNBC,the networks and print media. They're not going to let up until Palin is completely destroyed.

While it shakes my faith in humanity, I believe the truth will prevail--if not in this election cycle, then in the next.

[Uncle BigBad]

CNN is trying to pretend their Obama coverage is not a puff piece, but don't be fooled.

[Pofarmer]

Let's just let this stuff slide, Mkay? I'd really just as soon it was Biden on the ticket.

[Neo]

Actually, if my memory serves me right, in 1996 (or 1995), there was a mass movement of banks and credit card operators like MBNA from Norther Jersey to Delaware. People were getting ridiculous evaluations on the North Jersey homes.
For what they sold moderate to tiny houses (1000 to 1200 sq ft) in North Jersey, they could buy 2000 to 3500 sq ft homes in Delaware. This created a dearth of $300,000+ homes in Delaware and a local housing boom developed as transferring employees wished to roll over their North Jersey capital gains.

[Neo]

Whoops .. my memory failed me .. that was 1989.

[Rocco]

There's also a shady deal where Biden's biggest donor, an Illinois lawfirm SimmonsCooper, specializing in asbestos litigation lent Biden's brother and son 2 million to buy a hedgefund company. Asbestos litigation was under threat in Congress and with Biden's help, efforts by the asbestos and insurance industries to get asbestos related lawsuits out of the courts were unsuccessful. Always looking out for the little guy isn't he?

Business dealings of Biden family could be problematic for him

[Uncle BigBad]

Patrick

I have downloaded the PDF of Diamond's paper. We can't post any of it without his permission, but I see no reason I shouldn't email it to you - if you'll confirm that the email address at "Let's Fly Under the Bridge" is yours.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Thanks Uncle, it is [email protected].

[SukieTawdry]

Who's Joe Biden?

[Buford Gooch]

Rocco,

I know John Simmons of the SimmonsCooper firm. Heck of a nice guy. One of the crookedest law firms in the nation, though. John sold his share.

[TCO]

still looking for the palin american woman vab sustern peice. only get the preview so far.

[Danube of Thought]

Baked knows he's already lost. This election is history, and the most charming politician since Ronald Reagan, or perhaps since FDR. is going to turn this thing into something of a rout. Oh God but the gloating will be sweet.

[Danube of Thought]

Off topic, but truly wonderful:

"Months of attacks by unmanned US predator aircraft have caused carnage among the middle ranks of terrorist leaders in the lawless lands along the border with Afghanistan, where al-Qa'eda remains dangerous despite suffering a serious defeat in Iraq.

"Their victims have included experienced Arab leaders and, it is now thought, Adam Gadahn, a former heavy-metal fan and so-called 'killer computer nerd' originally from California. Nothing has been heard from him for months, leading intelligence experts to conclude that he may be dead.

"Mr Gadahn has been credited with helping transform al-Qa'eda's al-Sahab propaganda wing into a slick operation which communicates in fluent English and produces professional quality DVDs, including one for Osama bin Laden last year.

"But he may have fallen victim to an expanded programme of predator assassinations which in the last year has targeted and killed many of al-Qa'eda's military commanders, terrorist trainers and facilitators."

My only hope is that the bastard died slowly, and knew who it was that got him and that he was going to die. And oh, yes, I hope he suffered excruciating pain while his life drifted away.

[MayBee]

Elliott- I love Love Actually!

[Elroy Jetson]

Good one Sukie. He has been left in the dust lately with the fireworks between Obama and Palin. I'm loving every minute of that.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Field trip anyone?

[Uncle BigBad]

Patrick, et al

The Diamond paper I downloaded doesn't include anything he found at the UIC library, but another paper will be forthcoming, which I'll watch for.

It does confirm the incompetence of the CAC, along with Obama and Ayers, for which we can be thankful. I'm guessing their education philosophy is more Gramcian (march through the institutions) than Maoist.

If anyone is paying any attention to this, it should be explosive.

[Barry Dauphin]

Biden spent the profit on hair plugs.

[BobS]

OMG, DOT!

Such hostility!

[Elliott]

I love it too, MayBee.

[Elliott]

I don't really want an American version, just a collector's edition where we have Palin's convention speech instead of that lefty fantasy of a press conference.

[Topsecretk9]

I have a prediction on the Book banning meme - and I bet the left will regret

I left a comment at Volokh's blog where he debunks the left's phony list but he says

That Palin would ask about censorship suggests, but doesn't prove, that she was very probably actually contemplating asking the library to censor or remove books.

Librarians aren't very different than Barnes and Noble buyers (liberal snobs who won't stock conservative books)- and Sarah was mayor of a small, secluded our definition, town. I bet she had people complaining to her the library would not supply popular conservative books - or books the librarian didn't like despite the requests

Here is my comment at VC

I would presume the opposite, only because my Library had a elderly citizen appoint himself a citizen ombudsman liaison to our local library since so many of his friends at the library were complaining they would not order or supply popular conservative books.

Incidentally, he got results and now he supplies the main library with a list of books requested by the library patrons. He explained to me that these folks do a lot of work for the library and libraries should stock books their communities desire.

Do you think the book ban question was more to question the librarian's Jane Hamsher school of burning a book before it's read type behavior based on citizen complaints?

I do.

[TCO]

you tube comes through:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq4ljBIlOTY

[Porchlight]

Librarians aren't very different than Barnes and Noble buyers (liberal snobs who won't stock conservative books)

You said it, Tops. I had to request that my library (and place of work) order a copy of Clarence Thomas' memoir. Ridiculous.

[larwyn]

Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner has just released a survey that indicates that voters perceive Republicans once again as far and away better on national security issues than Democrats.

Forty nine percent of those surveyed thought Republicans were better on national security while 35 percent thought Democrats better. When it came to combating terrorism, 48 percent thought Republicans superior to Democrats while 33 percent gave Democrats the advantage.

According to the Greenberg study researchers:

The national security credibility gap is returning. Old doubts about Democrats on security, after diminishing during 2006-2007, have begun to re-emerge: concerns that Democrats follow the polls rather than principle; that Democrats are indecisive and are afraid to use force; and that Democrats don't support the military. Because these weaknesses are longstanding and deeply ingrained, and because Republican weaknesses are newer and do not yet have a label associated with them, Republicans continue to win on many security issues........

fr Democrats see the return of the wimp factor
Frank James at Merv's
http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2008/09/democrats-see-return-of-wimp-factor.html

[Topsecretk9]

Porchlight

That's incredible, since it was a NYT bestseller bonanza.

It's quiet dumb that the Library buyers supply a NYT for patrons to read the bestseller list and then insult their patrons by embargoing the books that they personally don't like.

My head hurts.

Jane Hamsher burned books before they were read. She's one of their gold standards. She set the standard.

[larwyn]

...SIGH...Just put that in wrong thread.

[Publius]

Danube of Thought,

I do hope your projectin of a rout does come to pass because I fear that if, on Nov. 4th, the outcome is at all in doubt, the street agitator's network of community projects, Code Pinkers, and Acorn affiliates, spread throughout the country, and organized in the ways of the Chicago machine, will make a Hugo Chavez election look free and open in comparison.

[Publius]

****projection*****

[Porchlight]

Tops,

Our director actually called the Swift Boat book "trash" in a meeting and said we shouldn't have it in the library. A director of a freaking major research library said that! And we're supposed to be all about nonjudgmentally providing access to information.

Whatever. I am pretty disgusted with my profession lately. I try not to pay close attention because it steams me so much. And I absolutely refuse to join the uber-lefty American Library Association and go to their meetings (where Fahrenheit 911 was screened not that long ago).

[Ann]

"My only hope is that the bastard died slowly, and knew who it was that got him and that he was going to die. And oh, yes, I hope he suffered excruciating pain while his life drifted away."

DoT, I think Sarah Palin would agree with you, as I do. The politically correct can go correct themselves.

Publius, Again I agree with your forecast. Obama is so sure of getting elected, it makes me wonder if Acorn has something to do with his audacity! With the FEC unmanned it sure looks like they will get away with anything and everything.

[Ann]

Porchlight,

Thanks for your compliment on the other thread.

Funny, I have told my daughter how Barnes and Noble will not display conservative books, much less have them on their shelves. When Hillary and Bill's tomes came out we both (god forgive me) re-arranged some point of sale kiosks.

When Laura Ingraham's book came out it was on a back shelf until we visited the book store.

And I must admit that the US magazines in the grocery lanes I visited are no longer prominent. What do you call someone like me?
Neo-libratarian?

[Publius]

Ann,

When Barry told McCain awhile back that "he had no idea what he was in for", I thought that voter fraud and ballot challenges is what he had in mind.

[Elliott]

Ann,

It's sounds like you are angling to replace John McCain as leader of the troublemakers. I'll hold off on endorsing you until your official announcement.

[Ann]

Roger that Publius:

“I hope you guys are up for a fight. I hope you guys are game because I haven’t been putting up with 19 months of airplanes and hotel food and missing my babies and my wife – I didn’t put up for that stuff just to come in second,” he said. “I don’t believe in coming in second. The American people can’t afford for us to come in second.”

Obama: ‘I Don’t Believe in Coming in Second’

[Elliott]

No one will ever say The One has not suffered for us.

[larwyn]

Biden will be on MTP tomorrow. Think he'll be asked about anything in this thread?::::::laughing at my silliness:::::

[Porchlight]

Ann,

You're welcome! I must admit I have had similar urges myself about, uh, "rearrangement" of the shelves. Let's just say that the library's copy of Alex Russo's Chicago School Reform is going to stay on my desk awhile. And I occasionally change the display copies on the new books shelf (the only area where dustjackets are still on the books) so that the lefty volumes are not quite so prominent. Hey, it's only fair, right?

[Ann]

Me troublemaker???

No, just a true country loving, flag waving, truth telling mom who wants the best for all of us, as I make my next LIST. :) Hearts, Elliott. :)

[JM Hanes]

Mark: Where is your crappy beach cottage located?

[Ann]

Neo-libratarian?

Watch out Porchlight. Bob Woodward will have a book out any day about us.

Hey, Can you do anything about stopping his tome from circulation until say Nov.10.??

We can all play this game can't we?

[Porchlight]

Ann,

Re: Woodward. I shouldn't. But I can. :)

Then again it probably won't make a bit of difference in my blue town/red state.

[Publius]

Do you suppose his 19 months of airplanes, hotel food, and missing his family, is Obama's way of responding to McCain's 5 1/2 years in the Hanoi Hilton?

[Simple Simon]

The one was the wizard of the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy ( Sarah ) opened the curtain to reveal the wizard.
Check out Rev. Wright's threads in the Church he could have borrowed them from senator Byrd except for the hood. Grand Wizard.

[JM Hanes]

Ann:

Thanks for that great link to the Obama/ Bon Jovi fundraiser! What a piece of work. Talk about taking things personally. I loved this little thought poem too:

“For the next 60 days,” Mr. Obama said, “their assignment is going to be to see if they can snuff out that spirit in this campaign and to knock me down more than one peg.”

That sounds kinda like racist talk to me. But this bit was telling:

As he stood beneath a tent on the expansive Bon Jovi compound, which resembled an Italian villa, Mr. Obama criticized the message of the Republican convention. He even suggested that his rival was running a negative race – perhaps more so than Mr. McCain would like, but offered no evidence to bolster his point.

I suspect that McCain is running a less negative campaign than Obama would like. That's why he has to keep going back to that tired trope about how "We know what they're going to do/doing, trying to scare you by saying I look different, have a funny name etc." Seems to me that's just more evidence that the left believe all their own stereotypes and all their own excuses for losing elections. The campaign Obama is describing is the campaign he thought McCain would be running. It's the campaign he prepared for, and he's reduced to pretending that's what he's up against, because it never occurred to anyone that he'd need a Plan B.

[Publius]

The campaign Obama is describing is the campaign he thought McCain would be running.

It seems McCain is well within Obama's OODA loop. Now, to watch him go down in flames. :-)

[Topsecretk9]

The media really stepped in it...they made me a neo-antimediaite

it's basically a vote against the media and tribute to David Gregory, my proxy I don't want---a vote for McCain/Palin

Getting the feeling McClellan's book was a false flag?

[M. Simon]

First a little bit of fun:

∅bama ∅bama

Second off there will be an corps of R lawyers out on election day and an army of poll watchers including a lot of PUMAs.

We are not going to give up the ground game to the 'rat bastards. And a lot of them will be going to jail.

In any case the FEC is useless. All they do is punish well after the election.

[M. Simon]

Now here is a teaching moment:

Suppose you want to teach some one how to make a ∅bama?

here is the code for that
& amp ;empty & #59 ;bama

No spaces.

[M. Simon]

∅bama
∅bama
∅bama

I think that is deep enough.

[Rocco]

Buford

Sorry I didn't reply to your post but I fell asleep. I work in a prison and it's a very old prison. Years ago, worked in what we call "the hole". Well, at the time the law said we had to let isolation and segregation inmates out of their cells for an hour a day. When I let this particular inmate out to walk a very small locked tier or corridor in front of the cells, he became agitated and kicked an asbestos wrapped heating pipe bending it and I watched that pipe spray steam for quite a long time. Of course at the time, asbestos wasn't a big deal. I don't work in the hole anymore, three years was all I could take. But I still work in the main building with the general population. I tell people I work in the enchanted kingdom and I'm late so I better get going.

[Pagar]

Good Morning to All!
I agree with Publius, we don't want it to be close. One of the things I worry about is absentee ballots, IMO, there is a lot of room for fraud there, and it is much harder to catch and prove than dirty tricks in the election booths.

[glasater]

because I fear that if, on Nov. 4th, the outcome is at all in doubt, the street agitator's network of community projects, Code Pinkers, and Acorn affiliates, spread throughout the country, and organized in the ways of the Chicago machine, will make a Hugo Chavez election look free and open in comparison.

Posted by: Publius | September 07, 2008 at 01:12 AM

I just have this vision--despite M. Simon's assurances--of Washington State--2004 and the governor's race times fifty for this years general election.

[hit and run]

JMH:
The campaign Obama is describing is the campaign he thought McCain would be running. It's the campaign he prepared for, and he's reduced to pretending that's what he's up against, because it never occurred to anyone that he'd need a Plan B.

I agree. But I think his Plan B was to run against the McCain campaign he thought McCain would run whether or not McCain ran it. He set up his entire campaign around hope and change and unity and ending cynicism. He thought he would have enough voters convinced that he was beyond reproach and that he would have a media unwilling to challenge anything he said and utterly willing to take down McCain and whoever was his runningmate.

That was the risk of Palin. The media and the left certainly proved willing to step up their game for Obama. They simply have proven unable to make a difference. That was the reward of Palin. The media and the left actually have made the opposite difference than intended -- they have upped both the attention of voters to her and upped the sympathy factor toward her. Which now has put her in a position to speak directly to the voters, without the media filter.

Not that the media, being fed by the lowest elements in the left won't stop trying, and not that they won't be able to have an effect -- which is why work like Charlie's is so damned important.

It will get worse before it gets better. But the worse it gets, the higher the risk/reward ratio gets, and as long Palin is allowed to speak over the media, the reward should be great.

(sorry, probably need to go back and edit...but gotta feed the kiddos before church. can't be late for the snake handling! ssssssssss)

[M. Simon]

glasater,

Same rules we had in 2004 general.

If it is not close they can't cheat.

Our goal has to be to run up the score to 60% or more.

[M. Simon]

Sarah needs to do an interview with WGN - Milt Roseburg.

Simon

[M. Simon]

Sarah needs to do an interview with WGN - Milt Roseburg.

Simon

[Captain Hate]

Watching David Axelrod on FNS gives me some valuable insight into why the Obonics campaign has been such an unmitigated disaster.

[glasater]

Our goal has to be to run up the score to 60% or more

Sure hope you're right M. Simon. I was too busy during that election working/watching the voter rolls at "voting central" in our county. If I'd been watching Drudge or tv I know I would have had a heart attack for sure:-)

[Jane]

I'm watching Obama on Stephanopolous and he really sounds pretty dumb, he's flubbing all over the place. I cant's decide if it's coming over like that to everyone. Anyone else watching?

Oh and good morning. Hannah was really loud last night.

[Jane]

Obama's foreign policy experience: "I hired Joe Biden".

[Jane]

You voted with democrats '96% of the time - so who is more likely to split with their party.

That's not the issue. The issue is Bush.

I think Steph is doing a pretty good job and Obama is bobbing and weaving like a buoy.

[Jane]

How dare they concentrate on winning the war on Iraq when I want to talk about my superior judgment in not voting to go in when I wasn't in the senate.

[centralcal]

From the UK Guardian:

"In an age when politics is choreographed, voters watch out for the moments when the public-relations facade breaks down and venom pours through the cracks. Their judgment is rarely favourable when it does. Barack Obama knows it. All last week, he was warning American liberals to stay away from the Palin family. He understands better than his supporters that it is not a politician's enemies who lose elections, but his friends."

The venom pouring through the cracks comes from the liberal media. The "friends" are, likewise, the liberal media. I thing Sarah should continue to talk over them and around them, straight to the public.

The media is busy right now setting traps, conjuring up gotchas and half-truths. Sarah is a hunter. All she has to do is let the media fall into their own traps, while she stalks after the votes that count - those of the American people.

[Danube of Thought]

Sunday Ras: Dead even at 48 apiece.

[Danube of Thought]

What the hell--even if she wanted to ban the books, she wouldn't have the votes in Congress to do it.

[Captain Hate]

DOT: I share your glee on that pos Gadahn being blasted to Hell; in fact I hope Ace opens a thread on it so I can *really* let loose.

[SWarren]

Geez,I hate David Brooks. He is sooo stuck on his opposition to Palin. He just said he's been inundated with responses from people who just don't like Palin "They're calling her "trailer trash"(his exact words, with that stupid grin on his face).

[Pagar]

It seems like I'm seeing CAC comments on all the different threads, so I'm putting this here. I hope it's news:

"Thanks to the diligent efforts of a 3d year law student in Chicago who filed a Freedom of Information Act request with UIC, Global Labor can reveal tonight that the alleged “donor” who was contacted by UIC and who tried to block Dr. Kurtz’ access to the CAC records was Ken Rolling, former Executive Director of the CAC and a former staff member of the Woods Fund in the 1980s when the Woods Fund provided financial support to the Developing Communities Project which was then headed up by Barack Obama.

Thus, someone with a 20 year history with Senator Obama was tipped off in advance and in secret by a public University about the interest of a political opponent of the Senator in these public records."

We have already had the experience of Sandy
Berger to demonstrate just how far people will go to protect Democrat political leaders. Why give them more opportunities?

[SWarren]

Yes Jane, I saw Obama stumbling to clarify himself again. He really is pathetic.

[PeterUK]

"They're calling her "trailer trash"(his exact words, with that stupid grin on his face)."

That will clinch the Clinton vote.

[DrJ]

Pagar,

I saw that too, and it makes sense that Rolling would be behind it. Also, the CAC web site has been updated to include the CPEF files. Information here.

[clarice]

Thanks. If I'm not mistaken Global Labor earlier surmised it must have been Rollings.

[DrJ]

Clarice,

The quote up-thread was from the most recent posting at globallabor.

[Mustang0302]

"They're calling her "trailer trash"(his exact words, with that stupid grin on his face)."

If "they" really wanted to turn conservatives against her, they'd call her a "community organizer."

[M. Simon]

Charlie,

I've stolen your discussion with baked and posted it Half Baked.

A Classic! Which 'minds, I'll be cross posting it at Classical Values a little later today.

[M. Simon]

I was reading in another thread that if Palin wins they are going to park the trailer on the Whitehouse lawn.

[Soylent Red]

Ah that's a good line of attack for people who don't want to be seen as elitists.

Outstanding strategery and judgment.