Thoughts on the 2008 election: Can we have a do over?

Maybe, this time around we will have a primary instead of a convention to select the Republican Senate candidate, so that idiot Jim Gilmore doesn’t get nominated.

The Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) went out of their way to piss off Tom Davis by doing a convention — which would mean his NOVA Congressional district would have less representation in a convention compared to a primary — and it helped to cost them a Senate seat.

While Tom Davis might not have won, it wouldn’t have been a crushing 30% defeat. It would also have helped whoever the Republican Presidential candidate would have been (more on that later). The Republicans would have probably have held on to the 11th Congressional District too. Instead, now, we have that complete idiot Gerry Connolly (D) in Congress now. Bravo.

Now, that the certified loser Jim Gilmore has lost yet again, does that mean he will finally retire from politics? Or will he do the Alan Keyes thing and pop up anytime he has a chance to screw something up?

As for the Presidential nominee: Of all the bloody people that could have been picked during the early primaries, conventions, and caucuses; those people chose John Freakin’ McCain.

The guy is hated by many so conservatives and the party identification of the exit polls showed that. The only reasons that some conservatives showed up at all was due to Sarah Palin. But like most Vice Presidential nominees, it usually isn’t enough for them to accomplish whatever his/her reason for being picked was (making the base happy, trying to pick-up his/her home state, etc.)

Those early conventioneers and primary voters could have chosen Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, or Rudy Giuliani. Sure, those candidates had their weakness — Thompson’s age, Romney’s Mormonism, or Giuliani’s less than stellar reputation with the social cons — but they would have done a hell of a lot better than McCain.

Those early voters chose McCain because he was “the most electable candidate”.

Good to see that worked out well.

And Ace of Spades HQ has a great post about McCain’s problems:

There is no “McCainism” as there was a “Bushism” or “Reaganism.” Those men offered fairly clear visions (well, Reagan particularly so). Not McCain. Everything with him is just his personal gut, principle-free, just an instinct, an impulse, which often takes him in wildly contradictory places (but he’s always haughty about the moral superiority of his decisions).

For example, he’s pro-drilling… but not in ANWR. Um, why? He’s forever undercutting himself with unexplained hedges and caveats.

He’s pro-business… Kinda. Except when he’s making his distaste for anyone working in the private sector “for profit not patriotism” so glaringly evident.

He wants to lower taxes. Sorta. Sometimes. Maybe. In election years.

We must regard Obama as suspect because of his association with the terrorist Bill Ayers… but it’s racist to mention his membership in Jeremiah Wright’s Church of Hate.

This leads to a paralysis among his campaign staff. Everyone knew, pretty much, the Idea of Reagan. They could act independently with confidence that they were advancing Reagan’s goals.

No one could do that with McCain.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

The Big Lie: Secret Service: No one yelled “kill him!” at McCain-Palin rally.

From the Times Leader:

The agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in Scranton said allegations that someone yelled “kill him” when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned during Tuesday’s Sarah Palin rally are unfounded.

The Scranton Times-Tribune first reported the alleged incident on its Web site Tuesday and then again in its print edition Wednesday. The first story, written by reporter David Singleton, appeared with allegations that while congressional candidate Chris Hackett was addressing the crowd and mentioned Oabama’s name a man in the audience shouted “kill him.”

News organizations including ABC, The Associated Press, The Washington Monthly and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann reported the claim, with most attributing the allegations to the Times-Tribune story.

Agent Bill Slavoski said he was in the audience, along with an undisclosed number of additional secret service agents and other law enforcement officers and not one heard the comment.

“I was baffled,” he said after reading the report in Wednesday’s Times-Tribune.

He said the agency conducted an investigation Wednesday, after seeing the story, and could not find one person to corroborate the allegation other than Singleton.

Slavoski said more than 20 non-security agents were interviewed Wednesday, from news media to ordinary citizens in attendance at the rally for the Republican vice presidential candidate held at the Riverfront Sports Complex. He said Singleton was the only one to say he heard someone yell “kill him.”

H/t: Michelle Malkin

The Final Debate (thank God!): Live hate-blogging at 8:45 p.m.

Top post until after the debate. Scroll down for newer stuff.

I would much rather watch the Dodgers lose but, whatever, I’ll watch the debate so you guys can read my drivel.

Other live blogs:

And I officially declare Obama will be the winner of this election.

From Times Online out of the United Kingdom:

With his electoral prospects fading by the day, Senator John McCain has fallen out with his vice-presidential running mate about the direction of his White House campaign…

Mark Salter, McCain’s long-serving chief of staff, is understood to have 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.

Palin, 44, has led the character attacks on Obama in the belief that McCain may be throwing away the election and her chance of becoming vice-president. Her supporters think that if the Republican ticket loses on November 4, she should run for president in 2012…

A McCain official confirmed that there was dissension in the campaign. “There is always going to be a debate about the costs and benefits of any strategy,” he said.

H/t: Ace of Spades HQ, Hot Air

“We’re Screwed ’08” and why I am seriously considering not voting for McCain (or anyone).

The “We’re Screwed ’08” is Michelle Malkin’s view on this election.

I kinda like the tagline from the first Alien vs. Predator film: “Whoever wins… We lose.”

A commenter on The right-wing liberal posted the following on an optimistically written post about Tuesday’s debate:

Thank God you have a somewhat calm and collected take on this. If I read many more “we’re doomed, doomed I say!!” blog posts by conservatives I’m going to start slapping people (with a baseball bat).

Well, threat of a baseball bat or not, we are doomed.

We have both Presidential candidates supporting a $700,000,000,000 bailout of banks that were ineptly ran. Those banks chose to give loans to people that had no ability to repay them. That $700,000,000,000 adds an additional $2,292.31 of debt to every American. Anyone have $2,292.31 that they are willing to pony up to give to banks that were ran by idiots (those idiots were making a mint too with their golden parachutes) and had bad business practices?

Now, we have the Republican candidate stating he’s going to spend $300,000,000,000 to bail people out of variable-rate mortgages that those people chose to agree to. McCain’s plan would give the Treasury Department the power to lower the principal and fix the interest rate on people’s mortgages. These people agreed to variable-rate mortgages when you have some of the lowest fixed interest rates over the last couple years since 1972. That $300,000,000,000 would add another $982.42 to every American’s debt. Pay through the nose please.

Hell, he essentially stole the idea from Biden who mentioned it during the Veep debate. Obama/Biden want to give United States Bankruptcy Courts the power to lower the principal and interest rates on mortgages.

And McCain had the gall to state he was considering appointing a campaign advisor and buddy (Meg Whitman) as Secretary of Treasury. That worked real well for Bush and Michael Brown over at FEMA.

Ham Sandwich is looking more and more promising as a candidate as this goes along.

I have a feeling that it’s only going to get worse from here on out.

Besides the whole bailout thing, we have the genius Mav[erick] stating that after the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan the Taliban came back in.

Uh, the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989.

The Taliban didn’t exist until September 1994 and didn’t take control of the country until 1996.

Isn’t McCain supposed to be an expert on foreign policy?

You had Obama stating the following on foreign policy: invade Pakistan, embargo Iran, pullout out of Iraq, and occupy Darfur.

Did McCain press Obama on any of that? No, of course not. In fact, you had McCain stating intervention in Lebanon was a bad thing while bombing, invading, and occupying Yugoslavia (especially Serbia) needed to be done.

Let me get this straight: Muslim terrorists in Lebanon holding CIA officers hostage = not a threat. Dictator in Yugoslavia (Serbia) with no means to effect the United States = threat.

I would just like to thank all the geniuses that voted for McCain over Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney in the early primaries.

You guys got us in this mess and frankly, you can get us out because I’m finished with it.

A snoozefest, definitely.

I asked the following question about the debate in the title of my live blog post: A debate for the ages or a snoozefest?

Well, we got our answer.

As Matt “threat to democracy” Drudge notes: “B O R I N G”

Michelle Malkin: “Zzzzzzzz”

I think I will just copy and paste the stuff from this live blog for the next live blog. No one will notice the difference probably.

A debate for the ages or a snoozefest?: The second Presidential debate; live hate-blogging starting at 8:45 p.m.

This is the top post until after the debate. Scroll down for the newer stuff.

The cool thing about this software is that you, my precious readers (all three of you), don’t have to bother refreshing the page every minute just to read my inane ramblings.

Other live blogs:

Presidential debate drinking game.

I wished I had come up with this. From Michelle Malkin’s blog:

A reader proposes the first drinking game suggestion:

Michelle, how about a college-style drinking game tonight – where everyone takes a drink whenever Obama says “Bush” – in his laughably ridiculous ongoing effort to link McCain to Bush.

If you’re looking to get inebriated quickly, start drinking every time Obama says “Uh.”

Or every time McCain touts bipartisanship.

And no, I didn’t watch the Presidential debate. I had no desire to get in a yelling contest with the television that late in the night.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll do a live hate-blog next time.

Is Obama’s campaign “off track”?

Subject of e-mail sent to his supporters (no, I’m not a supporter): “Get the conversation back on track”.

Obama’s campaign, of course, blames that big, evil John McCain.

I guess McCain has been going around stealing Obama’s milk money or something.

Now, I ask you: Whose campaign is “off track”?

What campaign has their blogger buddies going around stating that the opponent’s Vice Presidential pick faked her pregnancy to cover up for her daughter?

What campaign has their buddies in the media attacking the VP pick using those oh-so-greatly-fact-checked claims by the same bloggers?

What campaign is mocking his opponent because his opponent has difficulty using a computer due to torture suffered while serving his country in the United States Navy?

Why, hot damn, that would be Barack Obama’s campaign!

Is this election over?

No, far from it.

In fact, there’s probably a dozen or so October/November surprises left, but Obama’s campaign can’t stay on message and that’s a problem for them.