Friday Campaign 2008 Excerpts

"Hot-button election: How the internet drives the US campaign"--Financial Times (UK):

For Mr Obama to win, his team will have to out-smart and out-hustle a technologically sophisticated Republican ground game that has got the better of the Democrats in the past two presidential elections. As it heads for a showdown against a resurgent John McCain, the Obama campaign is betting heavily on its ability to muster an army of volunteers to knock on doors and make phone calls to swing voters in battleground states.

"‘Jim Crawford’ Republicans"--Jonathan Alter (Newsweek):

It was a mainstay of Jim Crow segregation: for 100 years after the Civil War, Southern white Democrats kept eligible blacks from voting with poll taxes, literacy tests and property requirements. Starting in the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court declared these assaults on the heart of American democracy unconstitutional.

Now, with the help of a 2008 Supreme Court decision, Crawford vs. Marion County (Indiana) Election Board, white Republicans in some areas will keep eligible blacks from voting by requiring driver's licenses. Not only is this new-fangled discrimination constitutional, it's spreading.

"Analysis: McCain's claims skirt facts, test voters"--AP via TPM:

The "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into doublespeak.

"Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin: The American Idol candidate"--(Chicago Sun-Times):

She's the "American Idol" candidate. Consider. What defines an "American Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned near the real thing. There's a reason "American Idol" gets such high ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could be >me up there on that show!

"Belittling Palin?"(FactCheck.org):

The McCain-Palin campaign has released a new TV ad that distorts quotes from the Obama campaign. It takes words out of context to make it sound as though the Democratic ticket is belittling Palin.