Here are a few selections across the spectrum, beginning with Sam Donaldson on ABC News:

ABC News

Over on MSNBC, TODAY’s Meredith Vieira talks to Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s economic policy adviser, about the economic stimulus plan.

MSNBC

And on Fox Business Network, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, discusses why the stimulus bill was a missed opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to achieve bipartisan support.

Fox Business Network

And finally, Sen. John McCain was interviewed by Fox News this morning concerning Gregg’s withdrawal and the stimulus bill.

McCain on Fox

The Associated Press gave us a few details concerning the new bill this morning.

The 1,071 page measure — eight inches thick — was posted on an overburdened congressional Web site late Thursday, giving lawmakers just a few overnight hours to read it before debate resumed in both the House and Senate Friday morning. Just on Tuesday, the House voted unanimously to recommend that lawmakers and the public have at least 48 hours to read the legislation before a vote.

The plan, freshly estimated at $787 billion by the Congressional Budget Office, combines $281 billion in tax cuts with $308 billion in outlays funded by the appropriations committees and about $198 billion in spending for benefit programs such as unemployment assistance, $250 payments or millions of people receiving Social Security benefits, and extra money for states to help with the Medicaid health program for the poor and disabled. Obama’s “Making Work Pay” tax cut would be scaled back from $500 for most workers to $400, with couples getting $800 instead of $1,000.

So now we’ve heard from the left, the right, and in between.  And all of these serve to raise even more questions for taxpayers at this point.

Sound off – what are your personal thoughts about how the new stimulus/spending plan will help you in your life, your job, and your home?

UPDATE:  According to C-Span, the final vote in the House today was as follows:

Democrats:  246 yea, 7 nay, 1 voted present, and 1 not voting

Republicans:  0 yea, 176 nay, 1 not voting

Bill passed 246-176.  On to the Senate for a vote now. 

Gary Peters, (DEM): 184,098 votes
Joe Knollenberg, (REP): 150,574 votes
Jack Kevorkian, (NPA): 9,047 votes
Adam Goodman, (LIB): 4,937 votes
Douglas Campbell, (GRN): 4,800 votes

Jack Kevorkian’s run for Congress was a symbolic win, however.

Kevorkian, a former felon with the notorious nickname “Doctor of Death,” was without any Party affiliation or backing, severely limited funds, and without previous political accolades to his name. Joe Knollenberg was running as the incumbent, and the Democratic candidate Gary Peters was Michigan’s former state senator and lottery commissioner. Peters’s win, in many ways, was part of the wave that swept through Oakland, where Barack Obama posted a 16-point lead over Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

That Kevorkian collected 2.5% of the votes, compared to the Libertarian and The Green Party candidates, who each received 1.4%, speaks volumes to his cause.

In Milwaukee, home to United States first breweries (which to this day include Miller), restaurants, bars and pubs promoted election night with their classical pitches. For instance, you could venture to the Palomino, a pub that buys your first drink as long as you come in with your “I voted” sticker. The pub boasted constant election coverage, loud arguing and “tons of sexy leftists.”

Mugshotz in the suburb of West Allis had a more conservative base, but was still part of the fray. It offered its customers a free drink with the “I voted sticker.” The bartender Mary poured cocktails and beers alike to people as they came into the bar, all glued to the big-screen coverage of the Election results.

The invitations were quite diverse in their pitch and presentation. The Ale House hosted their regular swing dancing for customers in conjunction with election-style promotions. You could get a free pint of beer in an establishment that boasted to its customers, “No hanging chads here…JUST VOTE and keep your conscience clear!” Men and women danced to the 1940s and 50s, while glancing up at the big screen coverage of 2008.

But in the end, Wisconsin went blue, and the drinking specials appeared to mirror the political turn. You could travel to Riverwest’s Art Bar on 722 E. Burleigh Street to watch the election coverage and “gulp down a free shot every time a state turns blue.” And at the end of the night, you could fill your stomach with a free cheeseburger (or veggie burger) at Bella’s Bay View with the “I Voted” sticker.

It was a political pub crawl through Milwaukee and people were out in large numbers. This was perhaps the one night in decades that a FIB (the infamous Wisconsinite’s acronym for Illinois people) was greeted with open arms throughout the state. Wisconsin ended up going blue that night– with over 56% voting for Obama. And while the state went blue that night, it would not be a shock to hear that a great many people woke up with some “blue” hangovers.

This commentary was written with help from John Laczkowski, a native of Milwaukee

What brought about Proposition 8? To answer this, we must turn back a few months to May 15, 2008, when the California Supreme Court voted 4-3 in favor of striking down Proposition 22 and other statues that limited the legal qualification of marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman. The California Supreme Court declared these statues were in violation of the equal protection clause under the California Constitution. Shortly thereafter on June 17, 2008, same-sex marriage became legally recognized in the state of California. This decision has provoked heated debate throughout the different districts of California, and has led to the current fight over Proposition 8.

Proposition 8 has not only displayed the ferocity of opinions surrounding the issue of same-sex marriage in the United States, but also the worldwide recognition of California’s influence over global social, economic, and legal areas. By the end of last week, donations for and against Proposition 8 totaled over $57 million, surpassing donations for any candidate or issue in the upcoming California election. What makes the donations even more important is that they come from all 50 U.S states and 17 different countries.

According to the San Francisco NBC News Network, October 25, 2008:

That would be a record nationally for a ballot initiative based on a social rather than economic issue, campaign finance experts say. It also eclipses the combined total of $33 million spent in the 24 states where similar measures have been put to voters since 2004.

If approved by California voters, Proposition 8 would overturn a state Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriages by changing the state constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman.

Campaign committees formed to respectively back and battle the amendment were close in fundraising as of Oct. 23, AP’s analysis found. Supporters have raised at least $27.7 million, while opponents have taken in $29.2 million, closing a fundraising gap that had them $10 million behind at the beginning of the month.

If you think that all Californians are in support of same-sex marriage, think again. On February 12, 2004 when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city clerks to issue same-sex marriage certificates, they were only short lived. The California Supreme Court ruled against the mayor’s decision and ended up voiding all of the certificates. In recent years there have been repeated attempts at passing same-sex marriage bills in the California Legislature, all without success. In 2005 and 2007, the bill passed the legislature, only to be vetoed by Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Californians themselves are divided over Proposition 8, and this ambivalence has spared no one. Californian clergy are split over the issue, and Mormons are torn between their views and that of the LDS Church.

Proposition 8 is also a speaking point for the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have rejected Proposition 8, calling the act divisive and discriminatory. This stance puts Obama at odds with his prior anti-federalist position on the marriage. John McCain and Sarah Palin both publicly support Proposition 8. One July 2nd, 2008, McCain first came out in support of the ban, explaining:

I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions.

McCain’s position is a step beyond his anti-federalist stance on same-sex marriage, and perhaps is more value-driven than juridical in nature. While the etymology of marriage comes from a specific Judeo-Christian heritage that has been discriminatory toward non-heterosexual relationships, the United States has yet to make a concerted decision on how this word should apply in the contemporary context. If both the California Supreme Court and Californians ends up supporting same-sex marriages, neither federalists nor anti-federalists will have much to say against the law.

In the end, California’s decision may very well decide the future direction of same-sex marriages for the country.

*It should be noted that in addition to Proposition 8, the California ballot contains initiatives on abortion, alternative energy, infrastructure, prison reform, and health care.

The gloves have come off and many constituents are coming out swinging– often through hate politics. One could argue that hate politics can yield positive results. The heated competition impassions people as well as engenders in them more concern for their country. Towing this line a bit further, we could speculate that as the coffee and smoke talks cater more toward presidential politics and passions rise, we might find more voters at the booths on November 4. However, the detrimental effects to hate politics out weight the positive elements.

In the end, engaging in hate politics is engaging in slandering the image of a future president of the United States. In addition — and more importantly — as people become more fired up over the candidates, their likelihood to vote may coincide with a decreased ability to make intelligent choices. In short: hate politics leads people to make mistakes.

Among the psychological studies on the anger and its relationship to cognitive processes, Kerstin Perbant’s work (University of Frankfurt) is but one of many that finds people’s abilities to recall past events and apply logic are diminished when unexpectedly provoked to anger. None of this is startling new to us. When we are angry, we make mistakes. Perhaps the last subject matter that deserves confusion and difficulty to apply logic is in choosing the next president of the United States of America.

*NOTE- Images below are extremely offensive. Viewer discretion is advised*

The images above are but a few examples of the character attacks ensuing– hate politics at its best, from constituents of both Parties. People engaged in this discourse seek to conflate identities, rob people of their humanity, and spread either likewise sentiments or shocking appall. Whether your are appalled or in agreement with the images, your emotions are elevated– unexpectedly.

Some Republicans and conservatives are turning to inflammatory language and character assassinations (aka swift-boating) on Barack Obama. Attempts have been made to equate Obama with terrorism – even Osama bin Laden, socialism, and anything else that would discredit him. Likewise Democrats and liberals have attacked Sarah Palin with sexist epithets, which hold no substantive values. It should not be long before we find attacks on John McCain for his age (ageism).

The key here is substance. So far, neither campaign is engaging heavily in this– and some of their constituents are doing no better.

Charles Babington of the Associated Press writes, October 6, 2008:

Brookings Institution political scientist Thomas E. Mann said he had felt for months that McCain “would eventually have to try to undermine Obama as an acceptable choice for president and commander in chief.” Key issues, he said, including “an economy in turmoil, an unpopular war and a politically discredited president are working powerfully against McCain and the Republican Party in general.”

Obama, meanwhile, has learned the lessons of Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. Those Democrats lost presidential elections after hesitating to counter hard-hitting and factually dubious attacks on their character and judgment. The shorthand terms for those attacks — “Willie Horton” and “Swiftboating” — have become a call-to-arms for Democratic activists who vow always to return fire with fire.

“We don’t throw the first punch, but we’ll throw the last,” Obama said Monday on Tom Joyner’s syndicated radio show.

Several Democrats said on Sunday talk shows that Obama’s campaign would revisit McCain’s long-ago involvement in the thrift scandal if the personal attacks on him continued. Within hours, the Obama campaign released a memo and Web video doing just that.

Obama and McCain have hit each other at personal levels before. But the vitriol increased dramatically Saturday, when Palin repeatedly raised Obama’s relationship with former 1960s radical Bill Ayers.

Obama, she said, was “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Ayers helped found the violent Weather Underground group, whose members were blamed for several bombings when Obama was 8. Obama has denounced Ayers’ radical views and activities.

The two men live near each other in Chicago, and once worked on the same charity board. Ayers hosted a small, meet-the-candidate event for Obama in 1995, at the start of his political career, but multiple news accounts have said they are not close. The campaign called Palin’s remarks outrageous and grossly exaggerated.

A 13-minute Web video Obama’s campaign released Monday revisits McCain’s ties to Charles Keating, a former friend, campaign contributor and savings and loan owner who was convicted of securities fraud in 1991.

As a senator, McCain participated in two meetings with banking regulators on Keating’s behalf. He became one of the “Keating Five” senators investigated by the Senate ethics committee. The panel cited McCain for a lesser role than others, but criticized his “poor judgment.”

McCain has since called his involvement with Keating “the worst mistake of my life.”

McCain and Obama say they are dredging up Ayers and Keating because the episodes shed light on each other’s current judgment — and because the other campaign is on the attack, though a McCain aide said the GOP campaign wanted to change the subject from the failing economy.

A few months ago, both candidates promised something better.

A week after introducing the character attacks, the McCain campaign officially abandoned their character attacks of Obama. Part of this was undoubtedly due to the lack of productivity. A Pew Research Study issued on October 15, 2008, showed that public opinion of Obama had not diminished, but had instead, grown slightly since the introduction of the character attacks. Nonetheless, the McCain campaign has continued their character attacks.

Sarah Jacob of NDTV.com writes, October 20, 2008:

John McCain and the Republican party is stepping up their character attacks on Barack Obama through television ads, the mail and now on the phone through what are called ‘Robo Calls’. The calls are part of a $70 million Republican campaign to get undecided supporters to vote for them.

The ‘Robo call’ is an automated message from the McCain campaign ‘Audio up Hello’.

“Hello. I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the US Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans,” the automated message says.

Character assassinations seek to strip candidates of their humanity (whether it be fatherhood, motherhood) in order to impair peoples’ ability to relate to them. Many of these recent attacks are coming from evangelical groups. Whether you are a liberal or a conservative, a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, the effects of engaging in hate crimes will be more harmful than good. Hate politics is painting an image of either a future U.S president who is “in bed with domestic terrorists and Osama bin Laden,” or a U.S president who is “in line with economic scandals,” with a highly insulted and debased vice president. And while we’re shooting off racial or sexist epithets, people’s anger and frustration rise– leading them to a more cloudy and unintelligent state. An excellent state to be in when they are at the voting booths, choosing their presidential selection.

The world is watching– and it remembers.

On October 23, 2008, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe sent out a mass email request for donations, applying the now-traditional method of displaying condemnation for negative ads:

The Republican National Committee is distributing a mail piece that says “Terrorists” on the front and opens to a big picture of Barack saying “Not Who You Think He Is.”

John McCain — who promised to run a respectful campaign — said that he was “absolutely” proud of it.
Will you take a look at the mailing and make a donation of $25 or more to push back?

Will you fight back with a donation?

We have 12 days to make sure John McCain doesn’t win the White House through scare tactics.
Give this campaign the resources we need to fight back in the final push:

https://donate.barackobama.com/mailing

Thanks,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

While it is important for the Obama campaign to condemn negative attack ads such as the recently approved by the McCain campaign, they need to be more careful about their choice of words.

In seeking out donations, Plouffe explained that McCain should not win the White House through “scare tactics.” Because of this utterly debased use of scare tactics, McCain might have a chance of winning, and this is the reason to donate money now. Unfortunately, Plouffe is engaged in a similar method of scare tactics– telling their constituents that McCain might win through dirty means unless they donate now.

Neither Party is playing by the rules of ethical conduct. Depicting Obama as a terrorist is at best erroneous racial profiling, at worst- racist. And in the case of the Obama campaign, they are seeking to make a profit over this event. Yes, one way of deterring negative campaigning is through the pocketbook. This is an effective and ingenious device in today’s political capitalism. But the purpose for giving should not be out of fear– especially considering the context.

On October 7 in New Mexico, a man screamed “Terrorist!” in reference to Barack Obama at a a McCain rally. On October 9 in a Republican rally in Pennsylvania, a woman yelled, “He’s a damn liar! Get him. He’s bad for our country.” On October 9 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, people shouted “Nobama” and “Socialist” at the mention of the Democratic presidential nominee.

McCain has been trailing Obama in the polls since the economic meltdown began (characterized by a cry for a $700 billion dollar rescue mission for Wall Street and one of the largest bank failures since the Great Depression with Washington Mutual). Real Clear Politics has Obama with a 7.2% lead in national polls, a margin that has widened in the last two weeks. Candidates cannot control their surrogates, and they most certainly cannot control their supporters. Unfortunately, McCain’s most recent energies have been spent trying to minimize the blowback of his ill-tempered supporters, many of whom have turned to character attacks and old slogans of defamation in order to express themselves.

If you don’t want to take my word at it, take McCain’s at a town hall in Lakeville, Minnesota. According to Philip Elliott and Beth Fouhy of the Associated Press, October 10, 2008:

The anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is acting to tamp it down. McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt switch from raising questions about Barack Obama’s character, he described the Democrat as a “decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.”

A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some GOP events this week as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag against Obama. Some in the audience are making it personal, against the Democrat. Shouts of “traitor,” “terrorist,” “treason,” “liar,” and even “off with his head” have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin rallies, and gone unchallenged by them.

McCain changed his tone Friday when supporters at a town hall pressed him to be rougher on Obama. A voter said, “The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight.” Another said Obama would lead the U.S. into socialism. Another said he did not want his unborn child raised in a country led by Obama.

“If you want a fight, we will fight,” McCain said. “But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments.” When people booed, he cut them off.

“I don’t mean that has to reduce your ferocity,” he said. “I just mean to say you have to be respectful.”

Both McCain and Obama have been judged by politicians across the spectrum as decent, respectful choices for their respective Parties. While Obama and McCain have pledged to keep their contest about policies and issues, McCain supporters are pushing McCain to join them in ad hominen attacks.

“I don’t trust Obama,” a woman said. “I have read about him. He’s an Arab.”

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

“No, ma’am. He’s a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about.”

McCain’s refusal to defame Obama has also put him at odds with his running mate, Sarah Palin. According to the Sunday Times, he has become alarmed at Palin’s furious attacks against Barack Obama, in which cries of “terrorist” and “kill him” have accompanied the tirades by the governor of Alaska against the Democratic nominee at Republican rallies.

Bill Bishop of Slate.com chalks up the anger and mounting irrationalism as typical psychological behavior.

Social psychologists have conducted scores of these “group polarization” experiments since the ’60s, and they all come to the same finding: Like-minded people in a group grow more extreme in the way they are like-minded.

Homogeneity creates extremity—or, in the news of the day, a McCain rally.

Bishop’s answer is to have mixed rallies- a heterogenous crowd of liberals and conservatives. While this might work in a lab, or a line for ice cream, it is a far cry from feasible in the political rally circuit.

According to the Sunday Times, McCain’s long-serving chief of staff Mark Salter has told campaign insiders that he would prefer his boss, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, to suffer an “honourable defeat” rather than conduct a campaign that would be out of character – and likely to lose him the election. This might be the case.

As the days inch closer to election time, McCain will either have to step up his rhetoric for defending Obama against character attacks, or step down and join the defamation train. Either way, it spells trouble for his campaign– and unfortunately, he has only his supporters to blame.

If you are one of those people still wading through the nightmarish amount of articles and videos of the two candidates trying to make some decisions, take your time. It’s an important one, and you still have a handful of weeks to make the decision. In the meantime, here are some pointers:

1. EARLY BIRD SPECIAL. Watch some of the early primary debates that host both John McCain and Barack Obama. Full videos of these debates can be found at YouDecide2008.com. In both the Republican and Democratic primary debates, both John McCain and Barack Obama were not the front-runners, and thus had more flexibility when it came to offering their views.

2. RESUME MATERIAL. Each candidate will try to dazzle you with different aspects of their life and accomplishments. While these are pertinent, it is more germane to look over each of the candidates’ voting records. Unlike Governors, the best way to assess Obama and McCain is through their own legislation and decisions over others’ legislation. Both Barack Obama and John McCain are senators, and each have over 10 years of service as congressmen. For quick look at Barack Obama’s legislative stances, visit OntheIssues-Obama. For a quick look at John McCain’s, visit OntheIssues-McCain.

3. BI-POLAR DISORDER. Be wary of any information that is framed in a highly emotional manner. Issues tend to become emotional for people, but this is not necessary. Special interest groups tend to play up emotions in order to scare voters toward one candidate or another. Examples of these will surface in short television ads as the election date gets closer. If you get hit with a bolt of emotion, remind yourself that fear is not the best method of selecting someone to lead our country. The best way to carefully and adequately traverse the ocean of articles is to keep a clear head.

4. BEWARE OF INFOTAINMENT. Carefully avoid TV, newspaper or Internet ads that seek to denigrate either candidate. This goes for political organizations as well as radio hosts, such as MoveOn.org, Air America, and Rush Limbaugh. Look more for information that explains and clarifies a candidates position. Most negative ads tend to distend or fabricate the opponent’s platform. If you are unsure about a rumor, check them out with organizations that are vested in bi-partisan vetting, such as FactCheck.org.

5. AVOID THE YEAH-BUT PEOPLE. “Yeah-But” people come in all colors and all shapes– and often like to knock on your door close to election time. If you have any contrary position to theirs, you’ll inevitably hear a “yeah-but.” Assess a friend or colleague’s position before listening to their political advice. If s/he appears unable to praise both candidates on different issues, chances are you are speaking to a jaded individual who might pass along information, but in a lop-sided manner. If you wish to listen to “Yeah-But” people, listen to them in a room in which there are “Yeah-Buts” who support the opposite candidate. One excellent location for this on the Internet is YouDecide2008.com, which has both liberal and conservative commentators.

Both candidates see the value in going beyond the typical politicking that usually engulfs the country near election time. Perhaps one of the turning points in the Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s career was when he delivered his speech “The Audacity of Hope” at the Democratic National Convention in July, 2004. In what has become one of his now famous slogans, he argued that the United States is not a grouping of “red” states and “blue” states, but rather “united” states. This idea is also strongly supported by the Republican candidate John McCain, whose notorious maverick status allows him to cut through partisan lines. What both of these candidates are arguing for– and desiring to be seen as– are people above the political fray. Can the candidates’ constituents strive for the same? Unfortunately no, and this proves to be the same for pundits and journalists alike. The closer we get to election, the harder is will be to find non-partisan or objective-leaning reporting.

But do not lose heart! In the end, what is most important is to vote. It can be a hassle, and for some, overwhelming, but it is also an incredibly empowering experience. If the last two elections have not shown already, a few votes does make difference.

November 4th is just around the corner, so make sure you mark your calendar– and if you are not sure you can be at your voting location, sign up to vote absentee in your respective state. Until then, happy hunting.

Likewise, as Barack Obama had to deal with his affiliations with Pastor Jeremiah Wright, we now find Sarah Palin and the Republicans having to deal with questionable church affiliations from the Democrats. One could counter here that Republican candidates have had their share of fiery and scandalous pastors, and I have written as much in a past commentary on John McCain’s ties to politically controversial Christian pastors. However, we have a new direction with Sarah Palin’s affiliation with her hometown Wasila Assembly of God, a church she claims to have grown up in.

Palin’s role in the church has not simply been an attendant, but an active leader, where she fused political and religious motives in her climb to the Governorship. This controversial step might electrify conservative evangelical Christians, but could alienate a large voting block.

Wasila Assembly of God is one of thousands of Assembly of God churches in the United States. The Assembly of God is the largest Pentecostal domination with 57 million adherents, and hosts over 280,000 churches in over 200 countries.

Palin’s controversial blurring of Church and State was already present during her term as mayor of Wasila. After Palin and her church raised concerns over certain books at the public library, one dealing explicitly with homosexuality, Palin as mayor asked the head librarian how the librarian would feel if asked to remove some books from the collection. The head librarian replied that it was not acceptable. Shortly thereafter, the librarian was fired, only to be reinstated after a public uproar. The librarian eventually left, citing problems working with Palin:

Palin’s role in the potential book banning is thin, and nondescript, and moreover never led to an actual ban. It does raise into question Palin’s vision of civic duty, i.e., how much of her own faith should she allow into her political life. Ordinarily a non-Protestant candidate would come under fire for this, such as John F. Kennedy and John Kerry for being Catholic, or most recently with Mitt Romney for his Mormon beliefs. But it is not Palin’s Pentecostal background that provides a troubling mix of Church and State inclinations, but rather her acts that merge politicking and proselytizing together.

An excellent example of this is found in Palin’s speech to the Wasila Assembly of God’s Master’s Commission students this past June. Wasila’s Master’s Commission students dedicate 9 months to proselytize and become “24/7 ministry students“. In Palin’s speech to these students, she inserted political, moral, and Christian rhetoric to a captivated group of prospective voters (Master’s Commission students are between the ages of 18-25). The first of two clips is below, the second is here.

In earlier critiques concerning Jeremiah Wright, there were two issues that repeatedly surfaced: 1) Obama was affiliated with Pastor Wright, who brought allegedly non-religious topics to the sermon (such as 9/11, the war in Iraq, racism) and; 2) Obama was passively present during some of Pastor’s Wright’s fiery and controversial sermons. In both cases, Obama was not faulted for the actions, but rather the relationship he had to the person doing the actions. Sarah Palin’s case is much more stark. What we find here is Palin’s actions, not her pastor’s, that become highly questionable. However, let’s get beyond the stage of shallow comparisons and look at something much more controversial to our popular democracy. Palin used her church for politicking, but more importantly, used political platforms to proselytize.

Palin’s views on drilling in Alaska becomes a holy mission from God, and something to pray for. During her speech, she explains to these soon-to-be ministry students:

What I need to do is strike a deal with you guys as you go out throughout Alaska. I can do my part in doing things like working really really hard to get a natural gas pipeline, about a 30 billion dollar project that is going to create a lothttp://www.wasillaag.org/ of jobs for Alaskans and we’re going to have a lot of energy flowing through here. And pray about that also, I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies in getting that gas line built, so pray for that. But I can do my job there in developing our natural resources and doing things like getting the roads paved and making sure our troopers have their cop cars and their uniforms and their guns, and making sure our public schools are funded, but really all of that stuff doesn’t do any good if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God. And that is going to be your job, as I am going to be doing my job, let’s strike this deal, your job is going to be going out there, reaching the people, herding people, throughout Alaska, and we can work together to make sure God’s will is done here.
*bold added for emphasis*

Palin mixed politics, economics, and God into her pitch for an Alaskan pipeline– ordinarily an odd and questionable combination for a pastor, rabbi, or imam. But this was not coming from a religious figure, but rather Alaska’s Governor, in a church, to evangelical voters. Perhaps this is the key to focus on: evangelical voters. What better way to galvanize a large following and amass loyal and passionate followers, but to intertwine your political platform with Christian evangelicalism? Whether Palin was manipulating the students or not is inconsequential to the worldview she was espousing.

Palin’s evangelical politics manifested when she spoke on the war in Iraq, when she called soldier’s missions a task from God:

(Track) is going to be deployed to Iraq in September, pray for military men and women who are striving to do what is right also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God, that is what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God’s plan, so bless them with your prayers of protection over our soldiers.

And speaking of Track also, he just turned 19, and when he turned 18, right before he enlisted, he had to get his first tattoo. And I was like, “nyah, I don’t think that’s really cool son,” until he showed me what it was and I thought, “Oh, he did something right.” ‘Cause on his cap he has a big old Jesus Fish.”
*bold added for emphasis*

The question here is not whether you believe in Palin’s views, but rather do you believe in her politics? This issue is compounded when juxtaposing Palin’s comments in church to those during a recent interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson. In the interview, Palin seems to be backing away from these comments, posturing herself more as a secular politician. Unfortunately, she is misrepresenting her worldview:

GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, “Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.” Are we fighting a holy war?

PALIN: You know, I don’t know if that was my exact quote.

GIBSON: Exact words.

PALIN: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln’s words when he said — first, he suggested never presume to know what God’s will is, and I would never presume to know God’s will or to speak God’s words. But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that’s a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God’s side. That’s what that comment was all about, Charlie.

GIBSON: I take your point about Lincoln’s words, but you went on and said, “There is a plan and it is God’s plan.”

PALIN: I believe that there is a plan for this world and that plan for this world is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country to be able to live and be protected with inalienable rights that I believe are God-given, Charlie, and I believe that those are the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That, in my world view, is a grand — the grand plan.

GIBSON: But then are you sending your son on a task that is from God?

PALIN: I don’t know if the task is from God, Charlie. What I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision he has made, what he decided to do and serving for the right reasons and serving something greater than himself and not choosing a real easy path where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer.

We are in the stage of ‘repainting images’ and Palin is trying to give herself a secular makeover. Both McCain and Obama argue that their vice presidents are qualified to serve as president of the United States. Regardless of which Palin image prevails, the question remains: in this new age of politics, is there room for an evangelical president?

Politics is a realm of words, gestures, and representations. There are no rules, no ethics, and no overseeing body that regulates the veracity or legality of its actions. In many ways, politics exists in a laissez faire (French for “allow to act”) battlefield. What is laissez faire politics, you ask? The predominant goal in laissez faire politics is to undercut the opposing candidate at any cost, and to recast the desired in any light that is most favorable. And this laissez faire politics is currently underway in the current 2008 presidential election. While existent in both Democratic and Republican camps, it is heavily being touted by the Republicans in recent weeks.

One striking example is the current winds of change; most U.S citizens want change in Washington– more so than ever before. The Obama campaign won the Democratic Primary on this platform- a drastic change in policy and actions compared to the current administration. Throughout the Republican Primary candidates were scrambling to address change as well. Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and John McCain grasped the most attention due to their ability to cast themselves as candidates for change, while remaining supportive of the incumbent Party. In the end, John McCain’s decision to run as a War candidate that is against special interest groups in Washington won him the Republican nomination. As such, McCain had one foot in the ‘change’, and the second foot in the status quo. But after winning the Republican Primary, the McCain campaign realized they needed to challenge the Democrats, who stood as the Change Ticket. To do so required a recasting of John McCain, and what I will term as misdirection for the general public. This was not a first for many people working on the McCain campaign, who have worked in the Bush adminstration (such as the recent addition of Greg Jenkins, who now oversees the stagecraft of the McCain campaign).

In 2004, there was another president who wanted to depict himself as the War candidate that was against special interest groups: George W. Bush. That year the U.S was invested in a contentious war in Iraq, suffering bouts of problems with unemployment and deflation, and a highly unpopular president. To make matters worse, the Democratics had nominated John Kerry, a Vietnam Vet with a strong legislative history in the U.S Senate. The possibility of President George W. Bush becoming re-elected looekd grim. In the 2006 independent documentary So Goes the Nation, James Stern and Adam Del Deo follow Republican and Democratic Party efforts in the state of Ohio. The premise: what happens in Ohio will reflect the overall effect of the country.

This premise was proven correct in 2004; George Bush won in Ohio and, correspondingly, his re-election. But he did not win through policy debates, intellectual prowess, or sheer strength of character. In the end, it was the political methods that cost John Kerry the White House, and allowed Bush his second term. In the documentary reputable workers for both the RNC and DNC talk about the savvy and intelligent moves by the Bush campaign. The Republican Party was able to depict John Kerry as a ‘flip flopper’ and paint this caricature in such a bad light, that Bush’s unpopular moves and decisions were ancillary to it. To demonstrate this tactic, the documentary cuts to a scene in which Bush states that people may not like what he has to say, but at least people know where he stands.

As the clip from the documentary shows, it’s rhetoric that undercut Kerry and sold Bush. When you think about it, there was no substance to it. Bush did not argue why his policies were stronger, he did not talk about his experience being superior. It was a classic case of schoolyard talkdown: you can’t trust this kid, but you can trust me.

According to Real Clear Politics, Barack Obama has held a slight lead over McCain in national polls for the past couple months. It was clear to the McCain campaign that they needed to strengthen his standing in battleground states like Colorado, Ohio and Florida. The Hail Mary move turned out to be his VP pick, Governor Sarah Palin from Alaska. The strategy was simple: strengthen the image of a “change” ticket, appeal to the conservative base, and misdirect the public’s attention. The last tactic has been the most recent tactic found in the media.

People had been focusing on McCain’s rejection of a troubling economy, his pro-war stance, and– in a very ageist light, his eldery state. The McCain campaign’s goal was to reorient everyone’s attention to the young Sarah Palin. To point, it was not Palin’s experience that has benefited McCain the most, but the misdirection she has inadvertently caused (note, Palin has been kept from being interviewed by most of the media since her nomination aside from a short clip in People magazine and a currently divided delay from Oprah). While conservatives salivate over Palin’s Christian fundamentalist values, and Republicans drum up sexist charges against the media, and the media continues to muse about her credentials– whether in sexist or non-sexist ways– the attention has turned away from McCain vs. Obama.

Christian fundamentals are no longer thiking about the “maverick” McCain of old, fiscal conservatives are not thinking about economic issues as topics such as hunting, sexism, and passport remarks fly about. But when the dust settles and the elections have finished, the president will either be John McCain or Barack Obama. The McCain campaign was not able to get people to look at the McCain image, so they came up with something better– have people look at a VP image. Viva la Rove.

The question is actually anachronistic, as Elizabeth Dole is still active as a Senator, running for re-election in North Carolina. But after serving as a Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Transportation, Sen. Dole’s experience would not help in recasting the McCain Campaign as youthful (Dole is 72 years old as well).

The Republican Party is not short of experienced female politicians. In the Senate there is Kay Bailey Hutchinson, the most senior female Republican senator from Texas, or Olympia Snowe, serving her second term in the Senate for Maine. Hutchinson is 65 years old and Snowe is 61 years old, but young enough to be among the The White House Project’s 8 female presidential picks of ‘08. Both Hutchinson and Snowe would have reinforced the moderate image in the McCain ticket. Hutchinson has consistetly refused to outlaw abortion and has advocated gun control. Snowe is also a moderate, most recently known for her actions in the Gang of 14 that forged a compromise between Republicans and Democrats.

But in this race of identity politics, one of the heavy criticisms by pundits and myself has been the candidates’ lack of executive experience. Neither Joe Biden, Barack Obama, or John McCain have served in an executive position. Fortunately, there are a few experienced female Republican Governors as well. Gov. Linda Lingle of Hawaii and M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut are both enjoying their second terms in office. But neither of them possessed what the McCain campaign was looking for, namely a youthful, ardent, yet staunchly conservative image for the Republican Party. So who could fill this position?

The McCain campaign will say it the answer lies in Sarah Palin, the newly minted Governor of Alaska. After serving as a mayor for Wasilla city, a small town of 6,000 people in Alaska (1992-1996), Palin beat out the Republican incumbent to become Alaska’s first female governor 18 months ago.

At issue with Palin’s nomination is her voter-attraction rating, which has its pluses and minuses. In respects to policies, she is an attractive choice for the disgruntled conservatives who feel McCain is too much of a maverick, and in the realm of identity politics she can appeal to a younger generation and disgruntled women, many of whom are still reeling from Hillary Clinton’s loss.

Yet, in naming Palin, McCain has removed some of the power and force behind his own candidacy. As a 72 year old Presidential candidate, McCain is the oldest to seek the office of the presidency, making Sarah Palin a more than possible replacement. McCain’s open endorsement of Palin for presidency removes his ability to criticize Obama’s lack of experience (who has spent ten years in the Illinois Senate and four years in the U.S senate).

According to Dan Balz of the Washington Post on August 29, 2008:

One Republican strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid view, said in an e-mail, “I would rather be arguing with conservatives about abortion than with the Democrats about a lack of experience on our own ticket.”

“She really destroys the ‘not ready’ mantra,” another strategist noted.

And in reviewing Palin’s credentials, her policies as well as experience may turn off a wide variety of voters. Among Palin’s more conservative views is being a strong supporter of:

* teaching Creationism in schools.

* the Pro-Life agenda

* Drilling for oil and use of fossil fuels (see her rejection of McCain’s stance)

- She is also firmly against Man-Made Global Warming (she sued the U.S Department of Interior for placing the polar bear down as an endangered species)

Palin is a fresh face for an old campaign that was suffering the challenge of a new and youthful Democratic opposition (in fact, you can see a fashion image of her in the February 2008 edition of Vogue magazine). And at 44 years old, Palin is older than previous notable Vice Presidents such as Richard Nixon at 40 years old or Teddy Roosevelt, who was 42 years old (the youngest Vice President was John Breckinridge, who was 36 years old).

In respects to legislation, Palin mirrors John McCain in ethics reform, working as Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (2003-2004) and filing official complaints against the Alaskan Republican Party Chair Randy Ruedrich and former Alaskan Attorney General Gregg Renkes. Both officials resigned due in a large part to Palin’s disclosure of their misconduct. She has also tangled with some of the big oil companies, raising oil revenues for her home state.

But it is not her political experience that makes Palin the choice among choices for the McCain campaign. It is her image. Both young and dedicated to ethics reform, Palin also embodies many of the principles of the Republican Party. Palin has never divorce, having married her high school sweetheart, and embraced her five pregnancies, the last being a boy born with Down’s syndrome in in April of this year. The only dent to her familial armor is the recent scandal involving Palin getting her ex-brother-in-law fired.

In the end, it will come down to policies vs. identity politics. Which one will trump the other, remains to be seen.

In a MSNBC Democratic presidential debate on October 30, 2007, Senator Joe Biden argued Giuliani was overemphasizing his role and the significance of his work during 9/11 for his presidential bid. In his typically colorful manner, Biden charged:

And the irony is, Rudy Giuliani, probably the most underqualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency, is here talking about any of the people here. Rudy Giuliani… I mean, think about it! Rudy Giuliani. There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There’s nothing else! There’s nothing else! And I mean this sincerely. He’s genuinely not qualified to be president.

Biden’s comments were not off mark. Giuliani had overextended himself by relying too heavily on one public act (which in itself contains a myriad of individual actions). Giuliani had milked his work during 9/11 too much, and he had nothing else to maintain his momentum.

Giuliani exits stage right.

McCain enters, stage left.

John McCain was behind in the Republican primary polls at the beginning of December, 2007. Rudy Giuliani was the frontrunner, followed by Gov. Mitt Romney and an increasingly popular surprise from Gov. Mike Huckabee. However, after trailing for almost a year behind his fellow presidential contenders, McCain found new political footing in his War Persona, particularly in his adamant support of a U.S troop surge in Iraq that he had maintained since its inception.

It was shortly about this time that important U.S officials found that the 2007 troop surge was effectively mitigating the violence in Iraq. In January, 2008 the Bush administration acknowledged that key instrument in the increased development in Iraq was due to the U.S troop surge in January, 2007.

McCain’s support for this military tactic won him over political converts and catapulted him into the seat of Republican presumptive nominee. Since winning the Republican nomination, McCain has argued that he will engage in policy debates, not character attacks with Barack Obama. The most distinctive difference in policy between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama is with the U.S war in Iraq.

One of McCain’s strategies is stressing his support for the 2007 troop surge, a tactic that worked for him during the Republican primary. However, the effectiveness of this ploy has not produced similar effects. McCain’s decision to place most of his political capital behind the surge and his position has proved to be as destructive as beneficial in recent months.

For instance,

McCain confuses Iraq’s borders with Iran’s borders:

McCain confuses Al Qaeda with Iranian extremists:

McCain confuses the timeline for the troop surge:

McCain’s missteps have not gone unnoticed by the Obama campaign, which has chosen to criticize him for this. Arguably, at this point McCain’s stance on the troop surge is as helpful as it is detrimental to his campaign.

Perhaps the biggest blowback to McCain’s Iraq platform was the recent Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki endorsement of Barack Obama’s position on Iraq. The motives behind Maliki’s request for U.S troops to leave Iraq by 2010 are unclear: he could be betting on Obama to win the election; then again, he could be responding to increasing pressure by Iraq rival politicians who share the same sentiments, or he is simply voicing the wants of his people.

While Maliki’s endorsement could come from a plethora of motives, there is a bevy of data that shows the vast Iraqi majority supporting Maliki’s feelings. Noam Chomsky wrote two years ago in January, 2006:

Elections, if taken seriously, mean you pay some attention to the will of the population. The crucial question for an invading army is: “Do they want us to be here?”

There is no lack of information about the answer. One important source is a poll for the British Ministry of Defence this past August, carried out by Iraqi university researchers and leaked to the British Press. It found that 82 per cent are “strongly opposed” to the presence of coalition troops and less than 1 per cent believe they are responsible for any improvement in security.

Unlike Rudy Giuliani, John McCain has many strengths and important national contributions to bring to the presidential circuit. Unfortunately, McCain has not taken full advantage of them. Instead, the two large legs of McCain’s platform are the troop surge and his support of the Bush administration’s stance on Iraq. In many ways, he has overplayed his stance on the surge, and his consistent gaffes about Iraq might cost him the moderates. Perhaps even more destructive would be if Prime Minister Maliki continues to openly support Barack Obama over John McCain. One could fault the media for spins, or international agents for their efforts, but in the end, this is the house that McCain built.

“It’s much ado about nothing,” I heard myself say.

Perhaps the most dangerous thing is to make nothing into something- to impose meaning on the meaningless, because it is never a whimsical act. Very much related to this is the axiom that knowledge is power and the production of knowledge is power making. I am not the first to say this and will most certainly not be the last. Yet this incredibly important concept, which George Orville articulates so poignantly in his 1950s novel 1984, has become ever more important today as the Internet and media feed larger consumer bases larger than ever before.

If print capitalism transformed the world in the late 1800s, what has the Internet, Satellite and Cable T.V done? Certainly technologies have improved medicine, transportation, luxuries, but it has also enhanced the production and dissemination of information. Information, or as many call it, Infotainment, is the commodity on the global exchange these days. You’ll find transnational corporations involved in media affairs in almost all 195 countries around the world.

But what does this have to do with the presidential race? Aside from being the longest primary race in history, we now have one of the largest and most expansive media productions along with it. Regardless of the network, the job– nay– the imperative of each news show is to make money for its advertisers. They need to do this, and do this through the form of delivering information. These shows continue to feast on the Democratic and Republican candidates for president, well after the close of the primaries. VP conjectures have appeared on radio, T.V and print news for over a month.

Now where else should our attention be? If a journalist’s job is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, then would we not see different horizons than Obama’s or McCain’s podium. Perhaps more attention on the government’s and key agents of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Pakistan (to name a few), but then of course include those dealing with the catastrophes with food and violence in Somalia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Mongolia and so on. But then, one might say, this is international affairs.

Our domestic press still covers the current U.S President’s work and actions; however, there is much less attention on them, which arguably is not a good thing, especially when our government has less than a 30% approval rating (for both Legislative and Executive Branch). Currently we have had quite a few important Supreme Court decisions made (and many more pending). Congress have passed bills on quite a few topics in the last few months, significant economic fluctuations in major domestic airlines, banks and the drastic changes in real estate markets have occurred. But while problems with education, water shortages and severe infrastructural damage across the country may press on, many people have their eye on verbal sparring of two candidates, their surrogates, and the pundits who preside over this politically glutinous theater.

I am not calling for the complete dismissal of Senators Obama and McCain’s actions; rather, more awareness of the growing belly of the media and the content and quality of the reports. For while I am interested to hear McCain and Obama’s opinions on Iran, this should take a backseat in time and quality to the actual events concerning Iran (and the Middle East). Part of the glory of capitalism is the power located in the hands (and eyes) of the consumers. In the end, choosing what to consume for information may be just as important as what we choose to consume for food.

Engaged in official conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S troops have faced difficult terrain and challenging conditions, the least of which Al Qaeda. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges for U.S soldiers is maintaining the necessary support of local Afghans and Iraqis. The push for local support and help is related to another problem in Islamic countries: Education.

In war-torn and drug-infested Afghanistan, one of the most undetected but devastating casualties is local access to education. The Taliban, interested in maintaining control over the population, destroyed many schools prior to and during the U.S invasion. The Pakistani earthquake in 2005, which took the lives of over 140,000 people, also destroyed schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The destruction of these schools are important to consider when assessing Afghanistan’s economy and its climate for Islamic extremism. It is now a general agreement among scholars that richer countries have less internal conflicts than poorer countries. In this respect, education is a crucial element in improving a country’s economy and reducing an individual’s designs for violence. When looking at education, there is also the role of women in Islamic societies to take into account. For many male Muslims in places like Afghanistan, one important requirement before joining a radical movement or suicide movement is receiving the blessings of their mothers. Not surprisingly, Muslim women are found to be less likely to offer their blessings if they are educated. These two facts– education’s role in improving an economy and women’s roles in condoning men to commit violence– may be the reasons that the Taliban and other Islamic extremists have targeted and destroyed schools, specifically ones opened to girls.

Greg Mortenson has been fighting a different battle in both Pakistan and Afghanistan than U.S troops: A battle to preserve local rights to education. After serving in the United States army and receiving the Army Recommendation Medal, Mortenson founded Pennies for Peace and the Central Asia Institute. He joined civilian life to take on the goal of building locals schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, schools specifically for girls. His work has led to the building of over 61 schools and providing education to over 25,000 people. For more information on work, one can check out the recent New York Times’ best seller he wrote, Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson’s work and influence has not gone unnoticed by the U.S and NATO forces. Just recently, military outfits in Afghanistan have shifted their work from combat to community assistance- particularly in education.

With what appears to be a clear link between raising education and reducing violence and religious extremism, it comes as a shock to find that recently the United States’ Fulbright award, the most prestigious and generous education awards to international students, was canceled for U.S-bound Palestinians. The reason: Israel refused to grant the students access to international visas.

Ethan Bronner of the New York Times reports, May 29, 2008:

The State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted permission for the students to leave Gaza.

Israel’s restriction is in keeping with its policy of isolating this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas.

The United States consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been “redirected” because of concern that if the students were forced to remain in Gaza the grant money would go to waste. A letter was sent by e-mail to the students Thursday telling them of the cancellation.

Abdulrahman Abdullah, one of the seven Gazans who received the letter, was in shock.

“If we are talking about peace and mutual understanding, it means investing in people who will later contribute to Palestinian society,” he said. “I am against Hamas. Their acts and policies are wrong. Israel talks about a Palestinian state. But who will build that state if we can get no training?”

Often the U.S’s military budget is compared to other important domestic and international endeavors. With a daily budget of 1.5 billion dollars, the U.S Pentagon might find itself more efficient and productive directing its efforts toward reconstructing and educating societies, rather than arming them. Although the United States is appearing to shift some of its focus from combat to education, there is much more emphasis, money and attention needed to improving education in areas like the Middle East and South Asia. And with the current presidential election on issues such as the U.S war in Iraq, we can only hope that the politicians take heed.

Take for instance reports linking McCain to Reverend Jerry Falwell. Like Jeremiah Wright, Jerry Falwell blamed the United States as well for 9/11; however, instead of blaming Whites, he blamed the ACLU, abortionists, feminists, gays, and others for the attack (so much for the theory that a bunch of people from a transnational organization called Al Qaeda did it).

Then there is the more recent controversy surrounding Pastor John Hagee endorsement of John McCain. Hagee has called the Roman Catholic Church the Great Whore, and blamed New Orlean’s support of gays and the removal of Jews from the Gaza Strip for Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans (so much for blaming inept politicians for neglecting to improve New Orlean’s Levee or react prudently).

Although McCain denies it, Pastor Hagee insists that John McCain sought out his endorsement.

The more recent scandal involves Pastor Ron Parsley, who believes the United States was founded in order to rid the world of the “false religion, Islam.” David Corn of MotherJones reports, May 8, 2008:

During a 2005 sermon, a fundamentalist pastor whom Senator John McCain has praised and campaigned with called Islam “the greatest religious enemy of our civilization and the world,” claiming that the historic mission of America is to see “this false religion destroyed.” In this taped sermon, currently sold by his megachurch, the Reverend Rod Parsley reiterates and amplifies harsh and derogatory comments about Islam he made in his book, Silent No More, published the same year he delivered these remarks. Meanwhile, McCain has stuck to his stance of not criticizing Parsley, an important political ally in a crucial swing state.

Parsely’s divisive and inflammatory language is captured in a video from the same article:

Now, what can we make of these political alliances?

Barack Obama sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for over 20 years, had his two children baptized, and was married by Pastor Jeremiah Wright. This certainly looks like a very personal and long-term relationship, but it also is an apolitical relationship. Obama’s relationship with Wright was in the church, not in politics, and when Wright’s views became politicized, Obama was quick to publicly denounce Wright’s inflammatory and divisive words.

While John McCain never had a long and personal relationship with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, or Ron Parsely, he has received their endorsements, a clear political connection. Furthermore, he has not publicly denounced many of their words, unlike Barack Obama.

If we take a step back, we can clearly see that John McCain’s alliances with these men are more for political support than shared ideologies. Prior to the presidential election in 2000, McCain attacked Christian fundamentalists like Falwell and Robertson for their views and positions. So what can we make of this?

McCain might not personally agree with these men, but he needs their support. The question is how far does their support go, and how far will McCain go to secure this support? These are important questions to ask.

We can also see that the Jeremiah Wright scandal was political propaganda, or at least overblown in its magnitude, in an attempt to discredit Barack Obama. There are fiery and inflammatory pastors aplenty between these two candidates. Religious leaders do not define candidates, they define voting blocks, and thus reflect important pockets of demographics within the Republican and Democratic infrastructures.

We can also consider politics from an economic standpoint of supply and demand. As long as fundamentalists supply a significant and collective voting block in either Party, they stand to have leverage in presidential politics and policies. In the end, it is the U.S voters who determine the political leverage in an election.

If you look at recent presidential political calenders, successful campaigns needed more than 10 weeks for success. Take for instance the choosing of Jimmy Carter during the Democratic National Convention of 1976, which occurred on July 12-15 in New York. In 1976, the presidential election was on November 2nd. This gave Jimmy Carter over fourteen weeks to prepare his national campaign against the incumbent Republican, Gerald Ford. These fourteen weeks were instrumental for Carter to invent himself as the anti-Nixon, moral leader that the country desperately needed.

However, just four years later, Carter was faced with only ten weeks to build a campaign against the new contender, Republican nominee Ronald Reagan. Reagan had clearly captured the Republican nomination before the Republican National Convention in Detroit, Michigan, which officially declared him the winner in July. Contrary to this, Jimmy Carter had to fend off a vicious internal rivalry led by Ted Kennedy, that lasted until the Democratic National Convention on August 11-14, 1980 in New York. Reagan of course won, and there are a multitude of reasons for this, but the absolute pummeling that Carter suffered (he lost electorally 489 to 49 votes) suggests that more time and a more unified base could have helped him.

Now, it appeared that the Democrats had learned their lesson, for in 1992 they scheduled an early Democratic National Convention on July 13-16 in New York. This gave the Democratic contender Bill Clinton fourteen weeks to develop his national campaign against the incumbent George Bush. However, in 1996 the Democratic National Convention met on August 26-29 in Chicago. This time line would have given the Democratic incumbent Bill Clinton only eight weeks to prepare his national campaign, but luckily he had only token opposition in Lyndon LaRouche. Unlike Carter’s difficult battle with Ted Kennedy, Clinton sailed on to recapture the nomination, and his second term in office. Clinton did not have to wait until the Democratic National Convention to build his national campaign, and had no fractured base to heal.

I can continue on looking at how the political calender helps determine presidential candidates every four years. In each scenario, two very large influences is the internal political climate– is it a hotly contested primary, like Carter versus Kennedy, or lukewarm, like Clinton versus LaRouche?– and the duration in which the presidential nominee can plan his/her national campaign.

In 2008, the Democratic Party- in their infinite wisdom- chose a late date: August 25-28 in Denver Colorado. Democrats from around the country will meet to officially decide the Democratic nominee for president. The Republican National Convention is September 1-4, 2008 in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. This deadline would give each nominee between seven to eight weeks to prepare their national campaigns. There is, of course, one important difference at this point: The Republicans have known who their nominee is for the past several months.

If Hillary Clinton decides to push her campaign into the Democratic National Convention on August 25, this will give Democrats only eight weeks to try and convince independent and swing voters– and only these same eight weeks to mend the internal wounds, as the Presidential Election is on November 4, 2008.

It would be a political suicide for Democrats to let their decision last until the Convention, but I wouldn’t put it past them. When it comes to strategy and political processes, the Democratic Party is severely lacking. Howard Dean is fighting against time and poor planning at this point, and the Democratic base continues to fray. As the Democratic primary continues, I cannot help but see the irony of the situation. Lack of foresight and political planning cost the Democrats the election in 2004. Now, the same issues are coming to rear their heads in the current political calender. Superdelegates, anyone?

Believe it or not, race is a fairly debated and misunderstood word. In fact, many journalists, writers, and pundits shy away from critically discussing how race operates within our society. We use words all the time that escape critical meaning (e.g., religion, sex, politics); however, in respects to race, the lack of a critical examination actually empowers prejudices that follow from racial categories. For the purposes of this reflection, race describes a socio-historical process that exists in every society. The “socio” is important to note here, since race is not a biological or “scientific” means of describing people; rather, it is a way of justifying inequalities of power within a society.

Now, you may argue with me and quote all the necessary people as far back as Charles Darwin in order to explain that race is biologically constructed. You may state that African Americans quintessentially have biological differences from White European Americans and that certain proclivities for diseases and illnesses are attributed by race. I see no reason to argue against the assertion that specific groups have biological similarities. But we do not need the word race to distinguish these groups. We have a wonderful term already to describe social and biological differences: ethnicity. Ethnicity, for all its purposes, describes a group’s shared language, religious tradition, geography, or other communal attributes. Here I must concede that ethnicity is a constructed term as well. But we need to group people and things together in order to better understand life. This is natural. However, race does something different than just group people together.

Racial categories fluctuate with social trends. Take for instance in the late 1800s when Italians and Irish were considered “Black” according to the U.S census. They were outsiders and vilified because of this racial identity. As Irish and Italians became “White” in the twentieth century, we can clearly see how U.S conceptions of race as category is socially fabricated.

But who was doing the vilification in the first place? There is always an inside group in a society, a group that retains privileges (and with it, power). This group constructs a racial identity in and against those they see as different. Whiteness was born from White European Americans distinguishing themselves from other immigrants. Generally the group with the most power in a society becomes the normative and escapes critical identity descriptions.

One very mundane and operative example of this occurs around me all the time. When I meet people for the first time and their skin color is not “white,” my impulse is to find out where they are from– as if they are not from the United States. A person may have been born in Atlanta, Georgia, or may be a third generation U.S citizen from Chicago, Illinois, but their non-White skin color prompt questioning (whereas a friend of mine from Bosnia would not). It is this normativity of Whiteness that is a facade and works again to reinscribe legitimacy an power in Whiteness.

I can cite the power of racial inequalities in our legal system, business world, and sociological examinations until this commentary becomes an encyclopedia of examples. One need only look at the last twenty years and notice that African Americans are the sole group that has not experienced economic growth, to suggest that there is something structural at play here. Sometimes I get comments about the incredibly disproportionate amount of African Americans in our prison system, which in many ways is a modern way of enslavement (there is quite a lot of forced labor in those segregated camps). I would simply point to the statistics found in any society around the world: Where there is extreme poverty, there is also more crime. And poverty, the ugly and vicious cycle of economic inequality, is the handmaiden to race. The situation is of course much more complex than this, but there are larger more global factors we must first consider before getting into particularistic characteristics.

What makes race so powerful is that it we unconsciously apply it. When I sit down to watch a television show and all the actors are White, I do not think this is out of the ordinary. Why not? Whiteness is the norm. However, if we had a television show with all African Americans, or all Asian Americans actors, we would instantly see a racial homogeneity. Whiteness is invisible. White males are seen by prosecutors and defense attorneys as the unbiased observers in a jury selection (and are thus the least likely to be removed of any group of color).

Another more recent legal example of this comes from the famous Democratic grilling of Clarence Thomas during the review for his Supreme Court appointment. In Minnow’s ‘Stripped Down Like a Runner or Enriched by Experience: Bias and Impartiality of Judges andJurors’ (1992), Minnow discusses how White Congressmen demanded that Thomas explain how he could replace Thurgood Marshall’s position and be representative of the African American community) And then, in the next breath, they demanded to know how Thomas could remain impartial to White America. When Samuel Alito and John Roberts faced Congressional questioning a few years later, there was no questioning about their Whiteness, or more specifically, how they can represent the White community and still be impartial to the other people of color. The reason: There was the unspoken belief that Whiteness was normal, unbiased, and unproblematic.

It is not solely Whites who exhibit this internalized and invisible form of inequal treatment. African Americans and other people of color contribute as well (for a study of the neural signaling involved, see Patricia Devine’s work). The internal psychological workings of race has been studied by many scholars, the most current is the Project Implicit at Harvard University. Perhaps the most intense and destructive forms of racial identity are found in children. African American girls and boys see White attributes as irresistibly desirable– and this instills an internal level of self-denial and self-loathing for one’s “Blackness.” Take for instance the study done by Kiri Davis, a high school student, who wanted to see how things have changed since the 1960s. In the 1960s psychologist Stanley Milgram found that African American girls desired White dolls over Black dolls and disliked African American physical characteristics. In 2007, Davis attempted to find out if this had changed or not in over 40 years. Below is the results of her investigation.

I will continue to reflect on race and how it impacts presidential politics in Part II of “The Impact of Race on the Democratic Primary.”

It is uncertain how FOX News will respond to politics after the Bush administration. This fledgling news station of twelve years has enjoyed much of its prosperity and ratings through its coverage and promotion of the current Republican executive branch. In many ways, FOX News offers what most news did not: a conservative talking point on domestic and foreign issues. However, on a more deeper level, they capitalized on commercialized news more so than any news station in U.S history.

If one examines carefully the journalistic values of FOX News, they will find that there is less promotion and advocacy for conservative issues, than Republican issues. The distinction here is in terms of political fluidity. The Republican Party’s platform has changed dramatically in the past eight years, whereas traditional conservative values of small government and laissez faire economics remain the same. This point is more fully developed in commentaries by Conservative Girl, who regularly writes in the Commentary section for YouDecide2008.com.

Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” has become the dynamic liberal equivalent to FOX News, although it only broadcasts 2.5 hours a week. Recently The Daily Show took on FOX News directly, raising critical questions and displaying FOX’s coverage of the Bush and Clinton presidencies, FOX New’s overwhelming bias.

Certainly there are biases from other news networks, but the intensity present in FOX News is unparalleled. This bias is not toward conservatism, it is toward an administration. In a country where the media has historically challenged the government and become a behind-the-scenes check-and-balance, this development carries with it worrisome implications. Conservative news coverage should be present in the U.S media– but a blanket check for an administration, arguably, should not.

Update on May 8, 2008

Once again, the Daily Show in its unique in-and-outside-the-media position, gave severe and specific critiques of FOX News coverage, showing multiple clips of how poorly they covered the Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. After critiquing different networks such as CNN for their poor coverage, Jon Stewart turns to FOX, 4.5 minutes into the clip:

Again, pretty striking footage for what is supposed to be general and important national political coverage.

The Myth
The story is often told that neo-conservatives are losing the country to liberals. One of the reasons for this is the liberal bias rampant in academics. People such as David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes founded groups as early as the 1990s such as the Middle East Forum, the Students for Academic Freedom, Campus Watch, and many others in an effort to ‘curb’ this encroaching liberalism and call out professors who are manipulating information in the classroom. Their fear, or advertised fear, is that this one-party representation in academics is ruining the democratic system. There is very little, if any, information supporting this claim.

The Rebuttals
U.S professors are more liberal than conservative and I would not dispute the argument that the majority vote Democratic. This political bias does affect professors’ perspectives and executions of classroom material. As such, it is understandable that neo-conservatives are concerned about the power professors wield in and out of the classroom. Professors tailor their own lectures, write articles, and are seen as embodiments of knowledge. But will this lead to an eventual conversion of the U.S educated class to liberalism? Statistics suggest otherwise.

According to the March 27, 2008 article “Are Liberal College Professors a Problem?”:

“A study that will appear soon in the journal PS: Political Science & Politics accepts the first part of the critique of academe and says that it’s true that the professoriate leans left,” the IHE report continues. “But the study — notably by one Republican professor and one Democratic professor — finds no evidence of indoctrination. Despite students being educated by liberal professors, their politics change only marginally in their undergraduate years, and that deflates the idea that cadres of tenured radicals are somehow corrupting America’s youth — or scaring them into adopting new political views.”

In many ways this finding mirrors conventional wisdom. Professors have historically been liberal in the United States, but this continual liberal influence did not lead to a reduction of conservatism. If anything, the events during and following the Reagan Era suggest a growth in conservative values and adherents. Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, shares in this skepticism. He also feels that people like Horowitz and Pipes exaggerate the actual impact professors have on U.S society. Cole inverts the neo-conservative stance on academics to show the unhealthy imbalance conservatives are having in the U.S society through business and military connections.

According to Cole in “Are Professors too Liberal?” on October 14, 2002:

For instance, Corporate Executive Officers of major corporations are vastly more powerful and influential than are mere college teachers. And yet, it has long been known that CEOs are heavily Republican in their voting patterns. Shall we make a law that half of all persons chosen CEOs of corporations must be registered Democrats, and must give their campaign donations to that party?

Or, let us take the officers in our military services, who have grown increasingly rightwing in the past thirty years. Polling data show that in 1976 only one third of military officers said they were Republicans. By 1996 two-thirds of officers identified with the GOP, and only ten percent were Democrats. This development is truly worrisome. Would President Bush have been so successful in pushing his joint chiefs of staff to put away their objections to an Iraq campaign last summer if he knew two thirds of his officers had voted against him? Did not the open contempt many in the armed services expressed for Bill Clinton weaken our democracy?

Cole goes on to point out in the same article,

By the mid-1990s they [conservative think tanks] outspent their liberal counterparts by five to one, and were mentioned almost eight times as often in newspapers, radio and television transcripts..

Conservative think tanks do not hire liberal scholars and do not produce liberal reports. They often publish their own books, with no double-blind refereeing or other quality controls. The studies they produce concerning social issues are driven by partisan politics and are often sloppy (failing to incorporate a control group, for instance). They can be enormously influential. Ronald Reagan adopted two-thirds of the proposals put forward by the Heritage Foundation in its “Mandate for Leadership.” Why does Horowitz not propose that half of the influential and best-funded think tanks always be liberal in orientation? Surely this is an imbalance that needs to be addressed?

Cole’s points here are important to consider, especially in the realm of publishing. Academics face rigorous hurdles when they publish. Journal articles traditionally take over a year just to consider, where they undergo a double-blind reviewing process. Even in humanities and social science journals where opinions and subjectivity is more relevant, articles are published for their critical data and argument enriches a discourse, not their political leanings. This is not the case for most conservative think-tanks, which ordinarily cite each other in a web of self-legitimacy.

Liberal Academics Part and Parcel with Democracy
Some of the most powerful theoretical frameworks in academics to date come from the work of Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. Psychological and neo-Marxist analyses offer some of the most cogent and forceful arguments throughout the disciplines. In this respect, it is no surprise that most academics lean to the left. The strongest social theories encourage liberal views and ideas. This phenomenon is global. If you examine countries around the world, their universities are the strongest bastions of democratic ideals. While a sizable amount of student movements have been socialist, they are always aimed against dictatorships and demand power to the people, one of the main principles that prompted our U.S Constitution.

Students were at the front of the movement against the Chinese regime at Tienanmen Square, China in 1989. In South Africa, students led a revolt against the apartheid, and was one of the first and most powerful movements in South Africa to date (incidentally, our famous conservative President Reagan rejected Congress’s request to denounce South Africa’s Apartheid. Congress eventually overturned his veto, but this did not prevent Reagan from labeling Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress a terrorist organization). In another example, students gathered around Thailand’s Thammasat University to protest the dictatorship and demand a democracy in 1973, which they got for three years (and have been, to date, arguably the longest democratic period in Thailand).

Neo-conservatives rightly point out the imbalance of political perspectives in college classrooms, but this imbalance has not slighted the conservative agenda. Big business and military opinion hold more power, and helped to create a healthy conservative following that was present until the recent Republican administration. Though you may disagree with liberal perspectives, consider the legacy of academic liberalism in democratic countries. Academic liberalism is a testament to a democratic countries’ intellectual freedoms. The removal of such would only suggest a healthy and productive totalitarianism. For a wonderful illustration of this, visit North Korea.

As McCain took the lead in the Republican race, the liberal rhetoric about him changed dramatically. The soft and often complimentary language used to describe the 71 year-old Senator from Arizona disappeared and was replaced by harsh and fast comparisons between John McCain and the current political pariah, President Bush. Since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, liberal pundits have taken to converting McCain into a neo-Bush, a “Bush the II,” or other unappealing epithets with the knowledge that this would hurt his popular support. Take for instance Air America’s Ed Schultz, who just recently called John McCain a “warmonger’ in a North Dakota speech to Obama supporters. His view was not shared by Barack Obama, and his campaign was quick to distance itself from Schultz’s comments.

FoxNews.com

“John McCain is not a warmonger and should not be described as such,” Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday. She added, “He’s a supporter of a war that Senator Obama believes should have never been authorized and never been waged.”

Obama’s attempt to distance himself from Schultz’s comments does not erase the message, nor will it stem the growing trend for liberal talk show hosts, pundits, and writers to depict McCain as an unsavory, war-hungry, and vicious conservative who will eat our country’s poor and disadvantaged for breakfast. This need to polarize McCain is beginning to take root in many liberals’ rhetoric, as is the the need to polarize Obama in many conservatives’ rhetoric. Becoming the unspoken, yet statistical Democratic nominee, conservatives characterize Barack Obama as well in unhealthy and derogatory ways. Not too long ago conservative talk show host Bill Cunningham attempted to subtlety promote Obama’s association with Islam to McCain supporters. Similar to the Obama’s rejection, McCain rejected the Cunningham’s rhetoric.

Even though Obama and McCain do not share their Parties’ tendency and gory appetite for character destruction, the tradition to polarize the two candidates will continue. In a recent interview with CNN, Schultz defended his position, stating that the difference between him and Cunningham was that Cunningham’s language was personal whereas his was about policy. What Schultz fails to note is that his language, like Cunningham’s is incendiary. A talk show host like Cunningham or Schultz can spend their time building their case without raising the rhetoric. As already discussed in our commentary section, the case to make for Obama being a Muslim is slim to none (slim if you follow with John’s commentary, none if you follow Michael Jerryson’s commentary).

Here is the CNN interview with Ed Schultz on April 7, 2008:

Schultz’s points on McCain’s position with Iraq, Iran, and Russia do merit investigation, but hardly substantiate the title of ‘warmonger,’ especially for a candidate who has critiqued the current administration for the candor and methods of war, and his strong rejection of torture. Warmonger in its most general of all contexts means “a person who advocates, endorses, or tries to precipitate war.” (www.dictionary.com) While McCain is endorsing the Iraq war, Clinton and Obama have endorsed the wars as well, such as in Afghanistan (thereby fitting the description as well). I can continue down this road, but the point I am trying to make is that one could just as easily defend Cunningham for simply uttering Obama’s full name as defend Schultz for labeling McCain a warmonger. But how does this elevate our discussion about the presidential candidates and their qualifications?

Rush Limbaugh had praised Barack Obama in previous months, defending him against the Clintons and calling him the new John F. Kennedy, a once-in-a-lifetime figure. He is now backpedaling fast. There are many worthy pundits who have depicted McCain as the ‘conservative’ among conservatives (take Paul Krugman’s “McCain is Not a Moderate” for example), and Obama as the ‘liberal’ among liberals (like the National Journal’s ranking). But in the end, these are two three-dimensional candidates with personal values and views. We can either reject the traditional media’s spin and look on them and their policies critically, or embrace these polarizing discourses and read one-sided commentaries. I would suspect those who want a united country would prefer the former. Time will tell.