Cast in all black and white the piece attempts to show Obama’s connection to the governor because Obama helped with Blagojevich’s campaign in 2006. I wonder if the guilt-by-association trick will work better this time around than during the election. But this case is certainly an even more bizarre attempt at a connection – what kind of headline do the Republicans hope to make:
OBAMA HELPED FELLOW STATE DEMOCRAT TO CAMPAIGN FOR REELECTION

Pretty unimpressive stuff.

Mccain is distancing himself from the attack ad (aren’t those over?!) – perhaps uncoincidentally during an interview when he said he might not support a Palin presidential bid. The whole venomous attack thing is something that has hurt Mccain several times. Bush used it on him in 2000 and his own attempts to play those hands might have cost him this past election.

Which makes me rather wonder what the RNC is up to on this. What will de-legitimizing and incoming president during a time of grave crisis do for them? Is it just a reflexive blow from punchers that have trained to hard to miss a small opening?

I would like to see some good analysis on this folks.

A friendly rivalry emerged between this group and the rest of the bar. However, as the night wore on, it became clear who would be victorious. At that moment, I decided to go up to the small group, and talk about why they supported McCain, and what they hoped to see during an Obama presidency.

One person from the group was willing to be interviewed. His name was Brendan, and he was an Iraq War veteran who served in the army.

Here are this thoughts:

The future of the Republican party

Disagreeing with Obama’s withdrawal timeline for Iraq

What steps can Obama take to improve the economy?

Thoughts on universal healthcare

McCain vs. Madonna: Gray Ambition

Barack Roll

McCain Green Screen – ‘Super McCain Bros’

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BARACK

And we can’t forget Ralph Nader

I’m not sure which stereotype is more obnoxious and simplistic. But what really bothers me is the notion of the East Coast as un-American. It’s been a couple years since my high school civics class, but wasn’t this country founded by a certain 13 colonies, most of which were located in the Northeast!? Wasn’t it the Northeastern beliefs in religious tolerance, just taxation and federalism that helped form the bedrock of our American values? I know Palin is probably skeptical of that Charles Darwin character, but even she should be able to see how her own belief system evolved from our American Garden of Eden.

So, Sarah Palin, hate on us all you want, but just don’t forget where you come from. I know this must be hard for you, and a little like when Luke Skywalker discovered Darth Vader was really his father, but I promise we are all not that bad. In fact, you might find we actually have a lot in common. Many of us are quite religious and hate big government bureaucracy.

I would even be willing to drive you around our beautiful environs for a weekend. I think once you see the fall foliage and rustic quaintness of our New England towns you might even begin to like us a little. Heck, I bet I could get you to start drinking cappuccinos.

Just make sure you get in touch with me at least a week before you come. I wouldn’t want our trip to conflict with my monthly key party, vegan potluck or Noam Chomsky book club meeting.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

But according to a recent Gallup poll if calamity falls on election day Sarah won’t be able to blame Jewish grandparents. As it turns out younger Jews are more likely to vote Mccain with only 19% of Jews over 55 planning to vote Republican as compared with 29% of Jews 18 to 34 hailing Pailin.

Don't blame the Bubbys! Younger Jews are more likely to be conservative.

And if you’ve spent any time in the Jewish community lately this will ring true. Younger Jews feel less attachment to the left-leaning  and progressive sentiments that were carried in by their refugees grandparents and great-grantparents who came fleeing oppression. As a more fully assimilated demographic, younger Jews do not have as strong an identification with the underdogs and have greater ideological lattitude to pick a political philosophy for reasons beyond their Jewishness.

The Zeides aren't the Jews stealing the vote.

Sen. John McCain has been heavily criticized for his seething tone and vicious attacks against Sen. Barack Obama. According to a New York Times/CBS News Poll, McCain’s attempts at tarnishing the Obama campaign with negative ads and reiterating Obama’s ties with formerly FBI labeled terrorist Bill Ayers, has backfired, leading to McCain’s decline in national polls.

With only weeks before the November 4th election, I hit the streets of Times Square with a recorder and a camera. Here is what a few of the people I talked to had to say.

What are your thoughts about the recent attacks?

They are not wearing klan hoods. They are not waving confederate flags. Besides the smirking hatred on their face, there is nothing to distinguish them from any other Americans.

And yet…

“My friends shouldn’t have to pay for their own rape kits,” says a protester.

“She should die!” yells a McCain supporter. “She should pay double!” another one chimes in.

Who are these people? Who are these brave defenders of America that curse higher education and call for the death of anyone who has a different opinion? The days of public lynchings are over in this country but has the national character changed?

Who is on this sidewalk to nowhere, this procession of naked lepers that sneer and curse at their neighbors, decrying them with horrible names, oblivious to their own flaking skin and rotting organs? Who are these destitute minds who have the capacity for critical thinking but choose at all costs not to employ it?

One of the most fearful realizations of my life was that these people are Americans. They are part of the collective will of our nation. And they don’t want me.

These people voted for the Bush administration twice. These people called the Patriot Act a good move. These people wield the universal response to any policy criticism: “you communist faggot.”

We are used to blaming the manipulators in power – the scheming politicians, the faulty mass-media. In doing so, we forget to look at the thousands of sidewalks to nowhere scattered throughout the United States of America, where people like in that video, are crying out for blood.

I know Lee Hernandez recently addressed the issue of a Republican in journalism school, and now we can put some numbers to his complaints. For the purposes of the mini-experiment, I emailed all of the students in the 2008 class.

First, we’ll calculate the responses, viewing them as a microcosm of the field of journalism as a whole  (I know this isn’t totally scientific, but let’s just accept it as such for now). Then we can address the issue of media bias. Just for the record, a 2005 study by UCLA (scientific and all!) concluded that media bias exists and is a pervasive issue. Duh, but it’s always good to have some support.

57 students responded to my questions. Of those 57, a whopping 47 – that’s 82 percent – of those support Obama/Biden over McCain/Palin. Of the others, five are unsure, 2 are leaning towards McCain/Palin, and 1 is a definite McCain/Palin supporter.

Admittedly, this poll of mine is not totally (to underexaggerate) scientific – it reflects only some students in one graduating class, in one school, in one location in the US (NY, to be exact). So maybe it’s just the J-School that’s overwhelmingly liberal. Or maybe it’s just our class.  Or maybe it’s just these 57 students.

Or maybe – and this is my inclination – it’s reflective of a larger problem within journalism.

Steve Boriss addressed media bias in a post about Tim Russert’s opinion of media bias in his blog, The Future of News. Boriss quoted Russert, who said, “If someone suggested there was an anti-black bias, an anti-gay bias, an anti-American bias, we’d sit up and say, ‘Let’s talk about this, let’s tackle it.’ Well, if there’s a liberal bias or a cultural bias we have to sit up and tackle it and discuss it. We have got to be open to these things.’”

While I appreciate the sentiment of tackling and discussing, I’m not sure it’s an effective way to end media bias on a political scale. In classes and lectures in the J-School, students and professors have pointed to specific news organizations that are known to be politically biased liberally or conservatively. So far, nothing reporters have done has significantly increased public trust in the media’s unbiasdness in the political arena.

In his blog Buzz Machine, Jeff Jarvis addressed this issue, concluding that bias is real, and journalists just need to practice transparency. Basically, let your audience know what your bias is, because everyone has biases and opinions of some sort, and those biases will affect your reporting. And even if you truly believe that you are the rare journalist who can totally and completely separate your personal opinions from your reporting, your audience doesn’t believe that. So you’re already missing some of their trust.

This, I believe, is the best way to go. All of us come from different political, economical, and sociological backgrounds. By saying up front what we are and what we believe – reporting with our biases, and not trying to report in spite of them or without admitting that they exist – maybe we can regain public trust.

I’ll start: I’m a Republican. I’m an Orthodox Jew. I support Israel’s right to exist. I don’t support gay marriage or gun control or government interference.

Who’s next?

Debaters: Sen. Barack Obama (D), right, looks at Sen. John McCain as he makes a point Friday during the first US presidential debate, at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss. (Jim Bourg/AP)

In the first presidential debate before November’s election, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain battled it out over ways to handle the economic crises, government spending, national security and foreign policy.  I caught up with four people, asking what they thought of the Obama-McCain Debate.  Here are their thoughts.

George Lawrence, 43 is from Brooklyn.  He holds down two jobs, supports Obama and will be voting for the first time this November.

Laresha Franks, 24 is a student and second-time voter in a presidential election.  She’s an Obama supporter.

Antonio Thompson, 25 is a grant writer and musician.  He is a democrat voting for the second time.

Amber Morse, 25 is a social worker from California.  This November, she will cast her 2nd presidential election vote for Obama.

What are your thoughts?

Clearly, health coverage is something I’m watching out for this election, and since we’re instructed to remain journalistic and objective in our blogging, I will provide some snippets from McCain’s campaign website alongside some stats from the New York Times, that I find, shall I say…interesting, and I’ll allow you, kind readers, to do all of the opinion writing. Enjoy!

First, stats from the Times’ 9/25 article on Health Care Costs

And as people are paying more, they are finding the higher expense less affordable. In the study by the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change, based on its national survey of households, nearly one of every five families had problems paying medical bills last year. More than half of these families said they borrowed money to pay these expenses, and nearly 20 percent of those having difficulty said they contemplated declaring personal bankruptcy as a result of their medical bills.

The study estimates that 57 million Americans live in families struggling with medical bills, and 43 million of those have insurance coverage. “It’s hitting both the insured and the uninsured, and it’s hitting middle-class families,” said Karen Davis, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research organization that financed the study.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/business/25health.html

And now, a look at “John McCain’s Vision for Health Care Reform.”

John McCain Will Reform Health Care Making It Easier For Individuals And Families To Obtain Insurance. An important part of his plan is to use competition [my italics]to improve the quality of health insurance with greater variety to match people’s needs, lower prices, and portability. Families should be able to purchase [my italics] health insurance nationwide, across state lines. http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ba2f1c-c03f-4ac2-8cd5-5cf2edb527cf.htm

Of course this is just one part of his complete proposal, which I encourage you to view in its entirety, but I feel like it is a good piece to discuss. And so, the teacher in me will provide some points to consider in the form of discussion questions, below, that may guide your comments:

1. If individuals are responsible for purchasing their own health plans, how will McCain’s administration be able to guarantee health coverage for all Americans?

2. What changes will be made within existing plans to ensure that Americans who do have health insurance don’t get crushed by medical bills? (see Times excerpt) Maybe your eyes are better than mine; I couldn’t find that point addressed on his site.