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To win your state for Obama: New York Times Editorial on McCain/Palin:
How to write letters supporting Obama/Biden, to every editorial page
editor in your state; the list of names and phone numbers are in
Editor and Publisher, in most libraries/AP tears apart GOP claims!
I strongly want to encourage members of this group to do this. If you
want
to pick up an area, let's say 20 papers to concentrate on, go for
it....we
could coordinate all of the logistics of this (not of course what you
would
be writing-that is up to you and your originality) through on going
emails.
My concern is that rural America not go overwhelmingly into McCain
Electoral
Vote.
What if a win in Texas or in another state we usually concede could
offset a
loss, let's say in Ohio?
I want to encourage every member to use a book called EDITOR AND
PUBLISHER,
which will contain the name and phone number of every editorial page
editor
in the state of Texas, to write short, intelligent letters to the
editor on
any aspect of the 4 candidates involved (at this point, Sarah Palin is
still
within limits!), and we might swing this around in your state. I know
Texans
read a lot of newspapers, and sometimes the little local weeklies and
monthlies and bi monthlies have avid readership who might take longer
to
keep the paper around if your letter to the editor appears in it.If
you all
don't try, at least to use Editor and Publisher as I indicated, just
throw
in the towl. I wish everyone would give Texans a little more credit
for
intelligence than to vote for these 2 Red Goons!
I use both the reference book (found in most libraries) and the
online
forms, but I prefer the book, because it contains phone numbers and
names of
editorial page editors, and speaking as an editor myself, I can tell
you
point blank that your odds of getting it published go up by 1000% if
you
phone ahead and discuss it with someone, a real person, in detail, if
their
time permits.
There is plenty of material in just that New York Times to base an
original
letter on. Usually 200-300 words says enough, but a conversation on
the
phone in advance with the editorial page editor can move it into a
commentary or oped length, if they are short of copy, and that is
600-1000
words.
I am speaking from personal experience. I have only been to Austin
once, but
in 1979 did a press conference in the Speaker's Conference Room in
the
Capitol and with some advance work, and a little luck connecting to a
grizzled great old lady with red hair, a correspondent I recall named
Barabara, who had worked for LBJ's radio station since the 1940's, it
was a great success and I was on 7 TV newscasts and 350 stations in
West
Texas, on the Longhorn Network, talking about how 9 out of the 11
routes for
Nuclear Waste to Carlsbad's WIPP project would come through Texas.
It fired the entire state up over night as to the nuclear wastes
issue.
Suddenly, it came home to Texas as to what this would mean....
No great success story, sorry to saw. The US Department of Energy
built WIPP
anyway, but of course, the press conference achieved alot.
I have been mulling about how letters to the editor, by the thousands,
could
start showing up, and this would bowl over the R's. They would be
real
letters, from the heart and mind, and I certainly feel at this time
that
Sarah Palin is within bounds, but there are so many far more vital
and
pressing issues, we should avoid turning this Presidential Election
into a
giant issue of the National Enquirer.
(See September 2 editorial on Palin in the NY Times, quoted in full
below:
from Stephen Fox, Founder, New Millennium Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM and
Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News
Post from Stephen Fox's Blog:
Candidate McCain's Big Decision (New York Times Editorial, September
2: no
one has stated it more clearly; please forward this widely to
family,friends, and colleagues!)
By Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News - Sep 3rd,
2008
[http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stephenfox/gG5tS5]
__________________________________________________________
More often than not, the role of a vice president is a minor one,
unless
some tragedy occurs. But a presidential nominee's choice of a running
mate
is vitally important. It is his first executive decision and offers
an
important insight into how that nominee would lead the nation.
If John McCain wants voters to conclude, as he argues, that he has
more
independence and experience and better judgment than Barack Obama, he
made a
bad start by choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
Mr. McCain's supporters are valiantly trying to argue that the
selection
was a bold stroke that shows their candidate is a risk-taking maverick
who -
we can believe - will change Washington. (Mr. Obama's call for change
-
now "the change we need" - has become all the rage in St. Paul.)
To us, it says the opposite. Mr. McCain's snap choice of Ms. Palin
reflects his impulsive streak: a wild play that he made after
conservative
activists warned him that he would face an all-out revolt in the party
if he
chose who he really wanted - Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
Why Mr. McCain would want to pander to right-wing activists - who
helped
George W. Bush kill off his candidacy in the 2000 primaries in a
particularly ugly way - is baffling. Frankly, they have no place to
go. Mr.
McCain would have a lot more success demonstrating his independence,
and his
courage, if he stood up to them the way he did in 2000.
As far as we can tell, Mr. McCain and his aides did almost no due
diligence before choosing Ms. Palin, raising serious questions about
his
management skills. The fact that Ms. Palin's 17-year-old daughter is
pregnant is irrelevant to her candidacy. There are, however, very
serious
questions about her political past and her ideology.
If Mr. McCain wanted to break with his party's past and choose the
Republicans' first female vice presidential candidate, there are a
number of
politicians out there with far greater experience and stature than
Ms.
Palin, who has been in Alaska's Statehouse for less than two years.
Before she was elected governor, she was mayor of a tiny Anchorage
suburb, where her greatest accomplishment was raising the sales tax to
build
a hockey rink. According to Time magazine, she also sought to have
books
banned from the local library and threatened to fire the librarian.
For Mr. McCain to go on claiming that Mr. Obama has too little
experience to be president after almost four years in the United
States
Senate is laughable now that he has announced that someone with no
national
or foreign policy experience is qualified to replace him, if
necessary.
Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who has been
one
of Mr. McCain's most loyal friends, said Tuesday that he was certain
that
Ms. Palin would take the right positions on issues like Iraq,
Russia's
invasion of Georgia and Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. That seemed
based
largely on his repeated assertion that Ms. Palin would be tended by
Mr.
McCain's foreign policy advisers. That was not much of an
endorsement.
Some of the things Ms. Palin has had to say in the recent past
about
foreign policy are especially worrisome. In a speech last June to her
former
church in Wasilla, Ms. Palin said the war in Iraq was "a task that is
from
God." Mr. Bush made similar claims as he rejected all sound mortal
advice on
how to conduct the war.
Mr. McCain, Mr. Graham and others also claim that Ms. Palin is a
fearless reformer who is committed to fighting waste, fraud and
earmarks.
Ms. Palin did show courage taking on some of the Alaska Republican
Party's
most sleazy politicians. But she also was an eager recipient of
earmarked
money as a mayor and governor.
Mayor Palin gathered up $27 million in subsidies from Washington,
$15
million of it for a railroad from her town to the ski resort hometown
of
Senator Ted Stevens, now under indictment for failing to report
gifts.
The Republicans are presenting Ms. Palin as a crusader against Mr.
Stevens's infamous "Bridge to Nowhere." The record says otherwise;
she
initially supported Mr. Stevens's boondoggle, diverting the money to
other
projects when the bridge became a political disaster. In her speech to
the
Wasilla Assembly of God in June, Ms. Palin said it was "God's will"
that the
federal government contribute to a $30 billion gas pipeline she wants
built
in Alaska.
Mr. McCain will make his acceptance speech on Thursday, and Ms.
Palin
will speak on Wednesday. Those two appearances will go a long way to
forming
voters' views of this Republican ticket.
As Senator Graham noted, Mr. McCain has to reach out beyond the
party's
loyal base. "We're going to have to win this thing," he said. "This is
not
our race to lose."
Mr. McCain's hurdles are substantial. To start, he has to overcome
Mr.
Bush's record of failures. (The president addressed the convention
Tuesday
night and now, McCain strategists fervently hope, will retire quietly
to the
Rose Garden.) That record includes the disastrous war in Iraq, a
ballooning
deficit, the mortgage crisis - and the list goes on.
To address those many problems, this country needs a leader with
sound
judgment and strong leadership skills. Choosing Ms. Palin raises
serious
questions about Mr. McCain's qualifications.
_______________________________________________
Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention
[posted at http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stephenfox/gG5rYf]
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer
Wed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican
supporters held
back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack
Obama and
flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some
cases,
the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.
Some examples:
PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful
spending ... and
championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I
told
the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled
to
Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27
million.
In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million
in
special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in
the
nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million
bridge
from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that
opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a
"bridge to
nowhere."
PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But
listening
to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored
two
memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state
senate."
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama
does
have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass
legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of
weapons
of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons
stockpiles. The
legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would
be to
also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a
respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the
leader
on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial
profiling by
police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death
penalty
cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform
legislation.
PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise
income
taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the
death
tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the
American
people by hundreds of billions of dollars."
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the
Brookings
Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan
would
increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5
percent by
2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes
across all
income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income
taxpayers by 3
percent, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers
and
the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for
minimum-
wage workers and higher credits for larger families.
He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on
the
wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes
above
$250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that
make
more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.
MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20
percent
of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of
the
nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope
we can
keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is
somehow
comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he
said
in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is
governor of a
state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's
no
more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he
was
governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary
power
is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska
Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain
could
as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.
MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has
been
in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary
responsibilities," he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units,
that
authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military
service.
When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example,
they
assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to
the
Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units
have
a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard
organizations.
FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for
mayor
of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the
United
States."
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's
election, and
got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden
dropped
out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes
in 23
states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during
the
2008 presidential primaries.
FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right —
change
from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a
prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw
out
the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a
conservative
Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last
year,
Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have
Democrats have
been in charge of the House and Senate.
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