Please Go Vote on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

FactCheck.org

Closing Arguments: McCain

McCain and Palin close their campaign with a new set of dubious character attacks.

Summary
In the final week, the McCain-Palin campaign unleashed some all-new misleading character attacks on Obama:

• McCain strained to tie Obama to a Palestinian professor whose views on Israel are quite different from Obama’s.
• McCain and Palin both distorted a seven-and-a-half-year-old radio interview with Obama concerning the court system and civil rights.
• McCain and the GOP ran ads claiming Obama’s military budget would mean huge job cuts in Virginia, despite Obama’s proposal to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps – and McCain’s own calls for ending wasteful weapons programs.

Closing Arguments: Obama

With the finish line in sight, Obama serves up familiar, pie-in-the-sky promises.

Summary
In the last few days, Obama has wrapped up his pitch to the electorate with some misleading claims we’ve heard before:

• He continued to ask voters to believe he can pay for every dime of an ambitious health care plan and other spending proposals while cutting taxes for all but the most affluent. Budget experts say that’s unlikely.
• He also kept up the drumbeat on a promise to end “tax breaks for sending jobs overseas,” as though that could do much to keep jobs at home. Experts say it can’t.

A License to Kill – October 28, 2008

A new anti-Obama group runs a bunk-filled ad implying he’d give a driver’s license to Mohammed Atta.

Summary

An upstart group calling itself the “National Republican Trust PAC” mixes a pile of false claims and the image of 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta to create one of the sleaziest false TV ads of the campaign.

• The spot falsely claims Obama has a “plan” to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. In fact, Obama has said quite specifically, “I am not proposing that that’s what we do.”
• The ad implies such licenses would enable terrorist attacks. In fact, Atta wouldn’t have needed one to carry out his attacks.
• It claims that Obama’s health care plan will apply to illegal immigrants. But Obama has stated quite clearly that his plan “does not” cover illegal immigrants.
• The ad falsely claims that Obama’s plan “gives illegals Social Security benefits,” which is also flatly untrue.

Analysis

Despite its name, the National Republican Trust has no formal connection to the Republican Party. It is an independent group with ties to the conservative Web site Newsmax. It sprang into being barely a month ago and has reported spending more than $900,000 to attack Obama through e-mail messages and, now, TV ads.

Its TV spot first showed up on the air in Columbus, Ohio, Oct. 26, and it has also received considerable circulation on the Web. It attempts to link Sen. Barack Obama to the 9/11 hijackers. The link? A spurious claim that Obama plans to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. NRT PAC, which is headed by a former writer for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Insight magazine, says it plans to air the ad in other swing states.

They give you some historical context by noting with a (R) for Bush or (D) for Kerry who the newspaper endorsed in the 2004 Presidential election.

Currently on the list are 41 newspapers that endorsed George W. Bush in 2004 that now are endorsing Obama and 4 newspapers that endorsed John Kerry and are now endorsing John McCain.

Spin and hype were apparent, once again, at the third and final debate between McCain and Obama:

* McCain claimed the liberal group ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history … maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” In fact, a Republican prosecutor said of the first and biggest ACORN fraud case: “[T]his scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.” He said $8-an-hour workers turned in made-up voter registration forms rather than doing what ACORN paid them to do.

* McCain said “Joe the plumber” faced “much higher taxes” under Obama’s tax plan and would pay a fine under Obama’s health care plan if he failed to provide coverage for his workers. But Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher would pay higher taxes only if the business he says he wants to buy puts his income over $200,000 a year, and his small business would be exempt from Obama’s requirement to provide coverage for workers.

* Obama repeated a dubious claim that his health care plan will cut the average family’s premiums by $2,500 a year. Experts have found that figure to be overly optimistic.

And much much more.

So, in the meantime I will be posting mostly links to things I find interesting regarding the Presidential campaign and the upcoming election.  These are the kinds of links I usually read and then write about in depth when i have time.

McCain and Obama contradicted each other repeatedly during their first debate, and each volunteered some factual misstatements as well. Here’s how we sort them out:

• Obama said McCain adviser Henry Kissinger backs talks with Iran “without preconditions,” but McCain disputed that. In fact, Kissinger did recently call for “high level” talks with Iran starting at the secretary of state level and said, “I do not believe that we can make conditions.” After the debate the McCain campaign issued a statement quoting Kissinger as saying he didn’t favor presidential talks with Iran.

• Obama denied voting for a bill that called for increased taxes on “people” making as little as $42,000 a year, as McCain accused him of doing. McCain was right, though only for single taxpayers. A married couple would have had to make $83,000 to be affected by the vote, and anyway no such increase is in Obama’s tax plan.

• McCain and Obama contradicted each other on what Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen said about troop withdrawals. Mullen said a time line for withdrawal could be “very dangerous” but was not talking specifically about “Obama’s plan,” as McCain maintained.

• McCain tripped up on one of his signature issues – special appropriation “earmarks.” He said they had “tripled in the last five years,” when in fact they have decreased sharply.

• Obama claimed Iraq “has” a $79 billion surplus. It once was projected to be as high as that. It’s now down to less than $60 billion.

• McCain repeated his overstated claim that the U.S. pays $700 billion a year for oil to hostile nations. Imports are running at about $536 billion this year, and a third of it comes from Canada, Mexico and the U.K.

• Obama said 95 percent of “the American people” would see a tax cut under his proposal. The actual figure is 81 percent of households.

• Obama mischaracterized an aspect of McCain’s health care plan, saying “employers” would be taxed on the value of health benefits provided to workers. Employers wouldn’t, but the workers would. McCain also would grant workers up to a $5,000 tax credit per family to cover health insurance.
• McCain misrepresented Obama’s plan by claiming he’d be “handing the health care system over to the federal government.” Obama would expand some government programs but would allow people to keep their current plans or chose from private ones, as well.

• McCain claimed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had drafted a letter of resignation from the Army to be sent in case the 1944 D-Day landing at Normandy turned out to be a failure. Ike prepared a letter taking responsibility, but he didn’t mention resigning.

For full details, as well as other dubious claims and statements, please read the full Analysis at FactCheck.org.

Given that we would never have had the odious George W. Bush in the White House in the first place if it wasn’t for your blow jobs, Bill, it seems obvious that you owe it to the people of this country, and especially to the parents whose kids died in the Iraq War that Gore would never have started, and to all the parents whose kids would be killed in the WarFest that would be a McCain/Palin — sorry, Palin/McCain — administration to do everything in your power to get Barack Obama elected.

But that’s not what you’re doing, Bill, and it’s not going unnoticed. We see your rage, Bill, it’s too huge to hide. We see that — as Chris Rock so brilliantly pointed out — it pains you to even speak Obama’s name. We see you petulantly rooting against him even as you go through the motions of doing the barest minimum on his behalf to avoid being blamed if he loses.

Read the rest at Paul Slansky: A Note to Bill Clinton

I know the norm is to refer to a candidates rise in popularity after their convention as a ‘postconvention bump’ but I prefer to give credit where credit is due and it was clearly Sarah Palin being lifted from relative national obscurity to the VP spot that is responsible for McCain’s improvement in the polls.  Sadly, for McCain, it does not appear to be a sustainable phenomenon so the campaign is working hard to lock in votes via absentee ballots while Republican energy levels are still high.

After the initial scramble and general freak out following Governor Palin’s selection, the Obama campaign and their supporters seem to have found their bearings and are now bringing focus back to the issues and the lies coming from the McCain campaign.  When Karl Rove thinks your ads fail on a truth test, you have to worry.  I suspect that worry is why McCain has put this much effort into wrapping up absentee voters despite the problems Florida experienced in 2000.

Does anyone know how hard it is for someone to revoke a mailed absentee ballot and vote on election day if something changes a voters mind between the time the mailed their absentee ballot and election day?

Friends,

The polls are tightening across the nation, and one thing is clear: this year’s presidential election will be one of the closest in history. We know that John McCain and Sarah Palin will change Washington, but before they reform our nation’s capital, you have to send them there first.

Now more than ever, your vote is critical. And there’s no better way to vote than by voting early, or with an absentee ballot. Voting early, or with an absentee ballot, is the best way to avoid the long line on Election Day and get your vote counted. Many states allow you to vote early by requesting an absentee ballot through the mail. Please visit www.JohnMcCain.com/AB for more details on early voting and absentee ballot requests in your state.

Your support is extremely important to electing John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin in November, and your vote will matter. I’m encouraging you to visit our website and either register to vote or sign up for early voting or an absentee ballot. Your vote will make all the difference in November.

Thanks for your support and for your vote!

Rick Davis
Campaign Manager

The McCain campaign has finally responded to the Sciencedebate2008 questionnaire. His responses, alongside Obama’s responses from two weeks ago, are now online at The Questions and Answers, a Side by Side Comparison.

Washington (September 15, 2008) – Entering the debate on several contentious science issues, John McCain today answered the “14 top science questions facing America,” according to ScienceDebate2008.com, the group leading an effort to make science issues a larger part of the election. His answers join those of Barack Obama, who answered the same questions two weeks ago.

“Most of America’s major unsolved challenges revolve around these 14 questions. To move America forward, the next president needs a substantive plan for tackling them going in, and voters deserve to know what that plan is,” said Shawn Otto, CEO of the initiative. “We’re pleased that Senator McCain has provided voters with that plan.”

The top 14 questions address energy policy, national security, economics in a science-driven global economy, climate change, education, health care, ocean health, biosecurity, clean water, space, stem cells, scientific integrity, genetics, and research.

The 14 questions were developed from over 3,400 questions submitted by more than 38,500 signers of the ScienceDebate2008 initiative. The questionnaire is a joint effort led by ScienceDebate2008, with Scientists and Engineers for America, AAAS, the National Academies, the Council on Competitiveness, and several other organizations, together representing over 125 million Americans.

“I have a broad and cohesive vision for the future of American innovation,” said Senator McCain. “My policies will provide broad pools of capital, low taxes and incentives for research in America, a commitment to a skilled and educated workforce, and a dedication to opening markets around the globe.”

“Ensuring that the U.S. continues to lead the world in science and technology will be a central priority for my administration,” said Senator Obama. “Our talent for innovation is still the envy of the world, but we face unprecedented challenges that demand new approaches.”

Recent national polls have shown that 85% of voters would like the see the candidates debate these challenges, and the majority of voters are much more likely to vote for a candidate that has a plan for tackling these issues.

“We are grateful for both Senators’ detailed responses,” said Matthew Chapman, president of the initiative. “Now we hope the candidates will want to discuss their differences. Science Debate 2008 and its partners once again extend an invitation to both candidates to attend a televised forum where these vital issues can be discussed in front of a broader audience.”

ScienceDebate2008.com is a citizens initiative started by six individuals whose signers now include nearly every major American science organization, the presidents of nearly every major American university, and dozens of Nobel laureates and top American CEOs. For more information, to see a list of the signers, or to see detailed results of the national polls, please visit http://www.sciencedebate2008.com.

The redesign and relaunch are made possible through a grant from the Verizon Foundation, which will highlight The Living Room Candidate on Thinkfinity.org, Verizon’s free comprehensive program and online portal that provides more than 55,000 educational resources for teachers, parents, students and afterschool programs.

Among the new features of this election cycle’s Living Room Candidate are:

• Ongoing tracking of John McCain and Barack Obama commercials and third-party advocacy and independent commercials as they come out
• Access to both official, broadcast commercials and web video/third party commercials from a single timeline interface
• Commentaries on the Museum’s selection of the top campaign commercials of all time
• Annotated playlists of commercials, past and present, selected by noted political consultants, cultural critics, scholars, and media celebrities, including John Dickerson (chief political correspondent, Slate) and Leslie Savan (author of The Sponsored Life)
• A function that enables site visitors to create their own playlists of commercials
• Activities that allow visitors to explore the decision-making process of ad design and production
• Upgraded classroom tools for students and educators

The Living Room Candidate demonstrates how advertising techniques and styles have evolved over the years, even as basic strategy has remained the same. The exhibition includes such landmark ads as the groundbreaking “Eisenhower Answers America” spots of 1952, the notorious “daisy girl” ad from Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 campaign, Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” ads from 1984, and the controversial attack ads run by George Bush’s 1988 campaign. Site visitors may also see how the strategies and techniques of persuasion have been played out more recently in third-party and web ads, such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and MoveOn commercials from the 2004 election.

It’s our way of bringing you shorter posts on the latest political bunk. We’ll continue to publish articles, special reports and vidcasts at our Webby Award-winning site, www.FactCheck.org.

But now you can also stop by The Wire, Wire.FactCheck.org, for brief reports on who’s recycling old, misleading claims in new, misleading ways or for the latest on discredited chain e-mails that are circulating with new (and equally bogus) references. And when the candidates try to distill complicated issues into deceptive sound bites, we’ll be here with context.

We may post when we notice a particularly noteworthy debunking that’s been done by another organization. We can’t predict all that you’ll find on The Wire, but we think it’ll be worth watching. It’s everything you love about FactCheck.org.

The FactCheck Wire. Faster than the speed of spin.

FactCheck.org

The two reports were summed up this was:

FactCheck.org checked the accuracy of McCain’s speech accepting the Republican nomination and noted the following:

• McCain claimed that Obama’s health care plan would “force small businesses to cut jobs” and would put “a bureaucrat … between you and your doctor.” In fact, the plan exempts small businesses, and those who have insurance now could keep the coverage they have.
• McCain attacked Obama for voting for “corporate welfare” for oil companies. In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels.
• McCain said oil imports send “$700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much.” But the U.S. is on track to import a total of only $536 billion worth of oil at current prices, and close to a third of that comes from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
• He promised to increase use of “wind, tide [and] solar” energy, though his actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy. He has said elsewhere that renewable sources won’t produce as much as people think.
• He called for “reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs,” but as in the past failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce.
• He said Obama would “close” markets to trade. In fact, Obama, though he once said he wanted to “renegotiate” the North American Free Trade Agreement, now says he simply wants to try to strengthen environmental and labor provisions in it.

The full analysis is available at FactChecking McCain.

Hat Tip to MoveOn.org for starting the list.

Who is Sarah Palin? Here’s some basic background:

• She was elected Alaska’s governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.
• Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.
• She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000.
• Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.
• She’s doesn’t think humans are the cause of climate change.
• She’s solidly in line with John McCain’s “Big Oil first” energy policy. She’s pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won’t be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.
• How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.
• She is under investigation for misuser of power in the firing of an Alaska state official – costing the state of Alaska $100,000.
• Like in many traditional marriages, when Palin agreed to become John McCain’s runningmate she gave up her prior existence and her domain name.  Yesterday palinforgovernor.com was her gubernatorial campaign site.  Today it points to johnmccain.com.

I am far from the only one to use www.wordle.net to do this.  This preformed Custom Google Search will show you pages of them.

There has been constant coverage of a few Clinton supporters who are upset that she lost – thats understandable – but if you listen to the news you get the impression that these people are eager to go out and support John McCain. McCain’s platform is so far from what Clinton stood for in the primary season that you have to question what these few, but vocal, Clinton supporters wanted out of this election.

Were they voting for an X chromosome instead of the political positions held by Clinton? I really don’t want to think that is the case, but it may well be true for a small group of people. I was keeping count on the NPR coverage that I was able to listen to during my commute and the number of women that were interviewed on this issue outnumbered the men by at least ten to one. And even then, the overwhelming of these Hillary button wearign delegates said that when push comes to shove in November, they will be supporting Obama over McCain.

Eric Alterman wrote a nice column in The Nation that really sums up the problems with the media coverage of this overblown idea of a split within the Democratic Party. He exposes the echo-chamber effect driving this phenomenon as journalists use each other as ‘sources’.

The following is a small except of Media Gone Mad. It’s worth reading the entire article if you have time.

…

The dead horse of supposed dead-end Hillary supporters is flogged into a pulp by the authors. They begin on a note that had me hopeful: “Neither Sen. Barack Obama nor Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has any possible sane, rational reason for wanting tensions to continue.”

How true–but then the authors take a 180-degree turn toward insanity. Take a look at whom they cite when it comes to evidence of this supposed disunity: other journalists. There’s John F. Harris of The Politico, the AP’s Scott Lindlaw, Susan Page of USA Today, Patrick Healy of the New York Times, Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post, Geoff Earle and Maggie Haberman of the New York Post. Each offers evidence that is either purely editorial and unsourced, or sourced anonymously. For example, Harris: “For the next two days, a convention that belongs to Obama will be dominated by the same two people who dominated the Democratic Party for the last generation and who have come to Denver in much different roles than they wanted”; Page: “Clinton-watching has become the mesmerizing sideshow of the Democratic National Convention that will nominate Barack Obama”; Kornblut: “Obama’s decision to pass her over [for Vice President] remains central to the ongoing story of their strained relationship. It has also contributed to what associates say has been a difficult emotional period for the former first lady in the two months since ending her bid.”

It’s all “associates say,” or “some Clinton delegates,” or “an official familiar with conversations,” or “one adviser.” Can we actually get some names and positions, so that we can judge the (dubious) veracity of a Clinton-Obama war? Mostly, all we have are the mealy-mouthed assertions from other journalists–”Clinton, if sour, is pouting passively,” write Earle and Haberman. That means, Hillary is acting normal, but we’re pretending that maybe she’s mad on the inside.

The only non-journalist voices expressing anything close to a sense of disunity belong to Mary Boergers, a Maryland delegate who wants to cast a vote for Clinton; L. Douglas Wilder, the mayor of Richmond, Virginia (“The question is, are the Clintons ready?”), and Leon Panetta (“Sometimes dealing with the Clintons is like dealing with Brett Favre”). Wilder and Panetta’s comments are somewhat obtuse, and then there’s one delegate. This is what The Note describes as “the rivalry for the ages”?

…

Read the rest at Media Gone Mad

Thats no surprise that he is surprised. He is so entrenched in a party that would do ANYTHING to keep the presidency even if it was a bad idea in the long term the way an Obama/Clinton ticket would be.

Having watched the Republican primary debates, I know that Romney, McCain, and Guilliani would all do anything and say anything that they believe would help them win in November. The idea that a politician like Obama would not take the easy path and pick a running mate just because her selection would placate a block of voters is simply foreign to them.

This whole thing – well known Republicans camping out in Denver at the DNC to grab media attention – seems really creepy to me.  I knew it was coming.  The PR Newswire for Journalists releases over the last week or two have included many press releases about RNC events in Denver and press events revolving around Republican celebrities.

I’ve been watching closely, and I haven’t seen a similar barrage of press releases from Democratic groups that plan to make appearances in Minneapolis at the Republican National Convention.

Romney exploits Democratic tensions

By Andrew Ward in Denver
Published: August 26 2008 23:14 | Last updated: August 26 2008 23:14

Mitt Romney on Tuesday sought to exploit lingering tensions between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as he entered enemy territory to launch a fierce attack on the Democrats.

The former Massachusetts governor, who is among the favourites for the Republican vice-presidential nomination, said he was surprised Mr Obama had not picked Mrs Clinton as running mate.

Speaking to reporters on the fringe of the Democratic convention in Denver, Mr Romney said an Obama-Clinton ticket would have posed the biggest threat to the Republicans and predicted her absence would alienate Clinton supporters.

Recent polls have shown up to 30 per cent of Clinton supporters plan to vote for John McCain, the Republican candidate, or stay at home.

Mr Romney said Mr Obama’s attempt to add foreign policy heft by picking Joe Biden as running mate would backfire when voters learned more about the Delaware senator’s views.

“His record of being wrong on foreign policy is as long as his number of years in foreign policy,” he said, citing Mr Biden’s opposition to the cold war arms build-up against the Soviet Union, the first Gulf war and the surge strategy in Iraq.

Mr Romney said the presence of two senators on the Democratic ticket undermined Mr Obama’s promise to change Washington, drawing a contrast with Mr McCain’s years of military service before entering politics.

He declined to comment on his own vice-presidential prospects but highlighted his experience outside Washington both as governor and in business.

He said Mr Obama miscalculated last week by attacking Mr McCain for owning several homes and dismissed suggestions that the issue could hurt his own vice-presidential chances.

Mr Romney, a wealthy former private equity executive, said he owned three homes – “one less than John Kerry” – but predicted voters would reject Democratic efforts to stoke the “politics of envy”.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

I normally wouldn’t have clicked an ad like that, but having just written in the BC political forums about my disappointment in the McCain campaigns focus on everything except John McCain I decided that an invitation to “Learn More About John McCain” was worth accepting.  The link in the ad – after passing through Google’s click tracking system – points to http://www.johnmccain.com/videolanding/biden1.htm?sid=google&t=obama-biden.

As much as I dislike websites that send you into a video immediately I let it play out.  Twice. Interestingly, it didn’t tell anything about McCain directly.

The video featured Hillary Clinton,

Barack Obama,

Antoin Rezko, (Be sure to check out The RNC’s Secret Rezko Connection where we learn that Rezko, while an Obama supporter, also donated thousands of dollars to George W. Bush during the 2000 and 2004 elections.)

and Joseph Biden.

You have to sit through the whole ad and listen to the McCain campaign try to spin everything that Clinton or Biden said about Obama throughout the Primary season before you finally get to learn about McCain.  At the very end you see this:

John McCain’s disembodied head shows up to tell you that he is John McCain and he approved the message.

To be fair, you can click on past the video to get to the McCain website proper – to the homepage with the somewhat creepy URL of http://www.johnmccain.com/HomeLogged.aspx.

At first I was annoyed that once again, learning about McCain has come to mean learning about everyone involved in this campaign except for John McCain.  After I thouht about it, I realize that inadvertently, the campaign had done as promised and if people are paying attention they will indeed learn a lot about McCain.

The lesson to be learned is that John McCain, having sat out eight votes for subsidies for the wind farms he features in so many ads, has nothing new to offer Americans.  He has allowed his campaign staff to build an entirely negative campaign around the tearing down ideas that even his own donors and supporters say are good idea.

The McCain campaign tried to make obama look like a fool for suggesting that Americans should maintain the proper air pressure levels in their car tires to conserve fuel.  They did their very best to make it appear that making sure car tire inflation levels are right is his entire energy policy.  Most Americans I know, including many of my Republican friends, shook their heads and wondered exactly how stupid the McCain camp thinks Americans are.

While McCain’s campaign was deriding Obama’s suggestion, one of the American Petroleum Institute’s websites – EnergyTomorrow.org includes Obama’s tip to improve gas mileage in the prominent #2 spot on their list of ways to save fuel.

Home > Oil & Gas 101 > Tips for Living > Fuel Saving Tips

These simple facts can help you save fuel and get more miles out of each tank of gas:

1. Have your car tuned regularly. An engine tune-up can improve car fuel economy by an average of 1 mile per gallon.
2. Keep your tires properly inflated. Underinflated tires can decrease fuel economy by up to 1 mile per gallon.

Continued here…

So, instead of coming up with his own suggestions to help Americans conserve gasoline and save money today, the McCain campaign offered supporters Obama tire pressure gauges as a joke and kept beating the offshore drilling drums.

That pretty much sums up the McCain campaign so far.  They don’t have anything useful to say about their candidate so they spend all their time and money talking about Barack Obama right down to buying Google ads to try to interject themselves into conversations on blogs.

I answered there but decided to put my answer here as well since I took the time to think about it.  I know there are things I should have included and I may well add to the list but for now this is a good start.

I just want a leader who knows the difference between fact and opinion.

I want a leader who can give proper weighting to the opinions of scientists who have spent their adult lives working for the US government or for international research bodies to help understand the complex world around us when comparing their opinions with those scientists working for industry organizations funded by groups like the American Petroleum Institute.

I want a leader who – when confronted with complex foreign relations issues involving the US and other countries – realizes that ignoring those countries is not an option.

I want a leader who realizes deficit spending does actually matter.

I want a leader who understands that if we are going to gamble on the future by spending money we don’t have we should put that money towards things that will help the nation. Spending money on subsidies for wind and tidal and solar power is not morally or economically equivalent to spending money on the invasion and occupation of another country.

I want a leader that understands that the American people are grown-ups and can decide for themselves who to marry and that the government has no more moral authority in this matter now than it did back when interracial couples were denied the right to marry.

I want a leader who truly respects the fact that there are many people of faith in the USA and that there are many atheists as well and that the government can best serve both kinds of people by staying out of the religion business.

Biden Background

A quick Biden primer…

Senator Joe Biden is a (pro-choice) Catholic with strong working-class roots in his hometown of Scranton, PA. He’s got impeccable foreign policy credentials, having served several terms as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. During the Presidential primary, he often said he knows many foreign leaders by their first names — “not because I’m important, but I’ve been there a long time.” And Biden co-wrote the Violence Against Women Act, which created official support structures for victims of domestic violence and criminalized their batterers.

He was first elected to the Senate at age 29 (he’s now 65). But before he even took office, his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident, leaving him the single father of two young sons. He married his current wife — Jill, a teacher — several years later, and they had another daughter.

Biden is an able and often funny debater with a reputation for verbosity (though he assured NBC’s Brian Williams during an April 2007 primary debate that he is capable of verbal discipline). He also has an occasional tendency to stick his foot in his mouth. The gaffe we’ve already been reminded of several times this morning was his 2007 comment that Barack Obama is “the first mainstream African-American [to run for President] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Obama accepted an immediate apology for the inelegant remarks and went on to defend Biden’s civil rights record during the Des Moines Register debate in December, saying, “I have absolutely no doubt about what is in his heart and the commitment that he’s made with respect to racial equality in this country.”

You can read more about Biden’s life and times in this profile, courtesy of NPR’s Jennifer Ludden.