Arkansas Blog

Hot of the Presses: The latest NBC-WSJ polls shows Hillary's poll numbers taking a dive after the Reverend Wright "controversy." Obama remains relatively in tact. From MSNBC:

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As expected, one of the two major Democratic candidates saw a downturn in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, but it's not the candidate that you think. Hillary Clinton is sporting the lowest personal ratings of the campaign. Moreover, her 37 percent positive rating is the lowest the NBC/WSJ poll has recorded since March 2001, two months after she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.
[...]
On that issue specifically, 32 percent of voters overall said Obama "sufficiently addressed the issue," while 26 percent of folks believe he needs to address the Wright controversy further; 31 percent did not see the speech or had no opinion.

Interestingly, of those voters who said they saw the speech, 47 percent said Obama sufficiently addressed the Wright issue while 37 percent said he needs to address it further. Among whites, 45 percent were satisfied with Obama's explanation, 38 percent were not. Among blacks, 67 percent said the speech was sufficient, while 25 percent want him to address it further.

Overall, 55 percent of voters told us that they were "disturbed" by the videos of Wright that circulated so widely on cable TV and the Internet.

As for the damage this controversy did or didn't do to Obama, it's a mixed bag. Yes, Obama saw some of his numbers go down slightly among certain voting groups, most notably Republicans. But he's still much more competitive with independent voters when matched up against John McCain than Hillary Clinton is. And he still sports a net-positive personal rating of 49-32, which is down only slightly from two weeks ago, when it was 51-28. Again, the biggest shift in those negative numbers were among Republicans.
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Link in name.

Link in name, for real.

This campaign season is a real knee-slapper.

Its about like going to a used car lot that has three salesmen. One sits quietly on the side watching while the other two Crain Team crew-cut, overweight loudmouthed, slobbering wannabes boisterously posture, spout meaningless platitudes, make unbelievable claims, put the rush on the customers and are so loud and obnoxious that you want to just tell them to shut the f*** up and stay off the TV.

In the end, you get to choose between the quiet, relatively well-mannered guy and the bedraggled, beatup, sweaty survivor of the lie-fest.

I thought it was the Republicans that knew how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

"Sunk costs are irrelevant to decision making."

That was an important lesson taught in my MBA program.

What has been spent (lives, money, property) has no bearing on a decision what to do next.

If it was taught at Harvard to W. it obviously did not take. Monday he was going on about if we did not stay in Iraq (for McCain's 100 years?) those who had died would have died in vain. What he should be looking at is where we are now and what various choices are going to cost us in the future. The lives that have been lost in this war, which we should never have been in, do not justify getting more of our service members killed. The only justification would be that continuing the war will produce a better result for America and the world (I don't see how it could) than bringing it to an end.

These ideas are well expressed in other words in a letter from Bill Austin on the letters page of Tuesday's DOG.

Don't give up hope Don Key. We got faith in the GOP and its record.

The title to the photo is four more years of . . . lies as a policy, and ice berg the size of Connecticutt breaking off Antartica (due to freak global cooling), the next stage of the 100 year war ramping up, a failed economy and a politician who admits he has no clues about how to fix it, an inability to see the civil war growing under his nose and a politician who reversed ever stance he ever had to get the nomination . . . how can the CCCRR's ever snatch defeat from that record and victories.

FOUR MORE YEARS OF BUSH LITE!

FULL METAL PANTSUIT!!

/click name

McCain's Iraq Prognostication

"Because I know that as successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women."" [CNN, 9/24/02]

"But the point is that, one, we will win this conflict. We will win it easily." [MSNBC, 1/22/03]

"We're not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we're not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies." [CNN, 9/29/02]

"There's not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shias. So I think they can probably get along." [MSNBC, 4/23/03]

Four more years of the same astute GOP leadership and grasp of reality and delusions!

Dear Vic, Mike and Mark. This is Larry the Cable Guy and I've got just one question in regard to Gary Barket, "What Are Y'all Thinking?

Gov. I know you get to fly private, but Vic and Mark, don't you get to go thru TSA security at the airport like the rest of us rednecks? Or do you have a FastPass? Now Vic, I know you come home to see Betsy and the little one on a fairly frequent basis.

It seems like every time I travel, I end up in St. Louis sitting in the Concourse Area next to a Mountain Man with a ten inch beard, reading a Playboy, and over the intercom I hear Mr. Goof, please report to TSA screening. Now, I must say that I am the passenger wearing a Navy suit, white pinpoint dress shirt with cuff links, Navy/Gray rep tie and black cap toe shoes. And I have reminded myself to leave my little black Swiss knife and my nail clippers in the jewelry box before I make this trip.

Now, What Are Ya Thinking?

And, I have made a mental note that when I fetch all of my Ghurka luggage from the Attic for my next trip, open up the three compartments, underwear/socks in one, shoes in another, dop kit in the third. And by the way, no Gillette razor but an electric shaver. Another Navy suit/white shirt and Navy rep tie. Now,I'm really working. And we have someone with heat and ammo in a suit bag?

Now , What Are Ya Thinking?

Sorry, Vic, Mike and Mark, you will let every Arkansan go through hoops when trying to fly, but you help out a Securities Attorney when he's packing heat. No votes from me in the future.

What Are Ya Thinking?

I'm thinking how cool it might be to actually be a Times staffer and get to write about things for a paycheck, but that's just me.

I'm also thinking how great it would be to consume an ice cold slice of Cave City watermelon on a hot August day... spring is aching in my bones and I am ready for the warm weather.

G.W.BUSH drops two more times Stingy with soldiers, stingy with pardons, likes druggies !!

AP) President Bush pardoned 15 people Tuesday and commuted the prison sentence of another. Bush has been stingy about handing out such reprieves. With about nine months left in his administration, he has granted 157 pardons. That's less than half as many as Presidents Clinton or Reagan issued during their time in office. Both were two-term presidents.

Most of those on Bush's most recent pardon list were convicted of white-collar or drug offenses.

List of pardons on name

We have how many more months of this? Your angst is wasted. White men are going to divide and conquer. At least it won't be a democrat or republican sweep of the white house, congress and senate like Bush's first term.

I noticed the banner ad for Richard and Linda Thompson. Their son, Teddy Thompson, has a couple of cds out, one of which is all country standards. Awesome voice. I gave my daughter his cd of break up songs and the boyfriend was history the following day.