WataugaWatch

It's the First Day of Spring, so what could be more appropriate for the season than hearing Michelle Obama announce that she's digging up the White House lawn for a vegetable garden!

We likes us some veggie symbolism!

It'll help keep the president grounded. Get it? Grounded.

And no greater training for government than seeding, weeding, thinning, transplanting, pruning, harvesting, composting. What could be apter for focusing the presidential mind?

Plus you get to eat the proceeds.

We applaud.

Labels: Barack Obama, gardening, Michelle Obama

"Dear Friend,
The choice America will face in November is very clear"

...it begins. How clear? The Senator will leave no easy, knee-jerk stereotype unused: "liberal" vs. "conservative" are tossed around precisely 21 words into the letter.

And those prejudices are supposed to kick me into a generous mood? Senator McCain is asking ME for money, while ringing the Pavlovian bell of "liberal liberal liberal"? Either (1) his campaign is REALLY hurting or (2) his campaign is really inept, wasting postage on the likes of me. But we digress.

On page 2 of this 4-page screed (and why can't candidates for national office be succinct and waste less paper?) we wade into the deep weeds of manipulation:

"And I am running so that every person in this country, now and in generations to come, will know the same sublime honor that has been the treasure of my life: to be proud to be an American."

Senator, I know you somehow couldn't resist this cheap shot aimed at Michelle Obama, but one thing I've learned through adversity: my pride in being American is tied to our Constitution and to our history, not to the success or failure of any one pandering candidate for the presidency nor to any particular president. I was a proud American when Eisenhower was president; I was a proud American when Nixon was president, when Reagan was president, and when George W. Bush ascended the throne. My pride in being an American had nothing much to do with the personalities and policies of presidents with whom I disagreed fundamentally, nor with presidents I admired and supported neither. Apparently, I'm not supposed to be sublimely proud unless you, John McCain, get to the Oval Office.

The rest of the letter devolves into lies and threats, warnings of dire consequences in 2009. We quote directly:

Senator Obama will surrender to Al Qaeda
Senator Obama will increase the size of the federal government
Senator Obama will raise your taxes
Senator Obama will offer a big government solution to health care coverage
Senator Obama will appoint to the federal bench judges [who are LIBERALS]

And oh, by the way, "I am ready to deliver real reform and lasting change, not just slogans." Which is why I want to make sure you know that Obama is a weak, Muslim-loving, pussy LIBERAL!

Uh-huh.

Well, good luck with your campaign, Senator, and rest assured that insofar as I believe any of your pitch, my check is in the mail.

Labels: John McCain, Michelle Obama

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner polling for NARAL Pro-Choice America of 1,788 likely November voters (1,000 representative likely voters plus oversamples of 424 likely-voting Republican women and 364 likely-voting Independent women) shows that (among other things) many women have no idea of John McCain's hard-line on women's rights and that when they learn how anti-choice he is they are much more likely to vote for Obama.

The poll was done in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. With McCain's record on abortion exposed, "Obama gains 6 points overall, with his lead in [these] battleground states expanding from a net 2 points (47-45 percent) to a net 13 points (53-40 percent)."

This will be called "push-polling," especially by people who don't like the results. But the bad push-polling we've all heard about is the kind wherein the poller asks the person answering the phone, "If you knew that John McCain fathered a black child, would you be more or less likely to vote for him?" That was used against McCain in South Carolina by George W. Bush in 2000. At least this poll presented correct information about McCain's consistent position on abortion.

This comes out on the same day that Cindy McCain decides to make a big issue out of Michelle Obama's patriotism. We have a lot of questions about Cindy McCain too, even more since she decided to put her own sterling character in the scales next to Michelle Obama.

What do you suppose Cindy McCain would say -- or do -- if some government flunky told her that her pregnant-out-of-marriage teenage daughter could not have an abortion. She'd do what rich, determined, privileged women always did. While still maintaining the unmitigated snootiness to question other people's patriotism.

Labels: abortion rights, Barack Obama, Cindy McCain, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner research, John McCain, Michelle Obama