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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (430139)	10/25/2008 3:28:29 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573433

You are a big fan of Palin's 'executive' experience but the more we hear about Palin's governance the more it appears that Palin is no different than the rest of the chronies for which Alaska has become infamous. What you seem to ignore is that all experience is not good. AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids By JUSTIN PRITCHARD and GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Gov. Sarah Palin's signature accomplishment — a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 — emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows. Beginning at the Republican National Convention in August, the McCain-Palin ticket has touted the pipeline as an example of how it would help America achieve energy independence. "We're building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline, which is North America's largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever, to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets," Palin said during the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate. Despite Palin's boast of a smart and fair bidding process, the AP found that her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited the winner, TransCanada Corp. And contrary to the ballyhoo, there's no guarantee the pipeline will ever be built; at a minimum, any project is years away, as TransCanada must first overcome major financial and regulatory hurdles. In interviews and a review of records, the AP found: _Instead of creating a process that would attract many potential builders, Palin slanted the terms away from an important group — the global energy giants that own the rights to the gas. _Despite promises and legal guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders, Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate, including TransCanada. _The leader of Palin's pipeline team had been a partner at a lobbying firm where she worked on behalf of a TransCanada subsidiary. Also, that woman's former business partner at the lobbying firm was TransCanada's lead private lobbyist on the pipeline deal, interacting with legislators in the weeks before the vote to grant TransCanada the contract. Plus, a former TransCanada executive served as an outside consultant to Palin's pipeline team. _Under a different set of rules four years earlier, TransCanada had offered to build the pipeline without a state subsidy; under Palin, the company could receive a maximum $500 million. "Governor Palin held firmly to her fundamental belief that Alaska could best serve Alaskans and the nation's interests by pursuing a competitive approach to building a natural gas pipeline," said McCain-Palin spokesman Taylor Griffin. "There was an open and transparent process that subjected the decision to extensive public scrutiny and due diligence." read more......... ap.google.com

To: i-node who wrote (430139)	10/25/2008 3:31:28 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1573433

"The McCain campaign didn't "run with the story"." Then, why did both McCain and Palin call Todd to offer support? I think they were ABOUT to run with the story, but the story was revealed as bogus so quickly, they were saved. I wish the MSM had held the truth long enough for the McSame dumbasses to turn Todd into the next victim of Obama.

To: i-node who wrote (430139)	10/25/2008 3:31:37 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1573433

>> The McCain campaign in PA was eager to run with the story and the communications director is accused by the police of embellishing the story. Those are the facts. The McCain campaign didn't "run with the story". Of course, they ran with the story. They didn't wait until the police completed their investigation......they immediately told the press that the 'B' stood for Barack; that it was a race crime; they had Palin and McCain call the woman as a show of support. It was race baiting at its worse. Its why the VP of Fox said they look like horse's asses.

To: i-node who wrote (430139)	10/25/2008 3:39:26 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1573433

McCain can't make attacks stick to Obama reuters.com Sat Oct 25, 2008 1:05am EDT By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent - Analysis WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican accusations against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama have come fast and thick, from palling around with terrorists to being a tax-loving socialist. But Obama has proven surprisingly adept at shrugging off rival John McCain's attacks and opinion polls show McCain is the one whose image has suffered from the negativity. "Obama has handled himself very calmly and in many ways has seemed steadier than McCain -- and McCain has really helped him create that impression," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. "He's tried a lot of things. Obama has done a good job of countering them." Obama's resiliency has surprised Republican strategists who entered the campaign for the November 4 election believing he was vulnerable to the sort of attacks that helped bring down recent Democratic candidates like John Kerry and Al Gore. Republican consultant Kevin Madden, an aide to Mitt Romney during his presidential run and to President George W. Bush in 2004, said Obama was helped by McCain's failure to settle on a clear line of attack. Bush hammered Kerry in 2004 as a "flip-flopper" for months until "about 40 days before the election, it kicked in," Madden said. Gore was relentlessly mocked in 2000 as an elitist who was out of step with mainstream America. McCain, a veteran Arizona senator, flipped quickly through similar attacks and many more in the months since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination in June, never settling on a theme. "The McCain campaign hit the reset button far too often," Madden said. "Obama emerged from the primaries with a lot of vulnerabilities but making those into liabilities required a very consistent focus that they never developed." During the summer, McCain mocked Obama as a political celebrity and elitist, criticized his shifting positions and made fun of his penchant for huge rallies and high-flying rhetoric. But Republican hopes that Obama, a first-term Illinois senator, could be painted as dangerously inexperienced were negated by McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, the nationally unknown first-term governor of Alaska, as his running mate. Efforts to portray Obama as too liberal, with a history of associations like his service on a Chicago community board with a former 1960s radical, failed to gain steam as the economic crisis deepened and Obama performed steadily in a series of debates. McCain's reaction to the financial crisis -- he initially called the fundamentals of the economy strong as it teetered then suspended his campaign to work on a bailout but resumed before it was completed -- diminished his criticisms of Obama. 'OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE MOMENT' "McCain at times has appeared out of touch with the moment," said Simon Rosenberg, head of the Democratic advocacy group NDN. "While Americans are worried about their economic survival, he was talking about a 1960s radical." Nevertheless, McCain and Palin have cranked up the attacks again in recent days, describing Obama as a socialist for his plans to raise taxes on the wealthy and reduce them for lower-income workers. They also have tried to link his campaign to allegations of voter registration fraud by the community group ACORN and painted him as risky after the weekend prediction by his running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, that Obama would face an international crisis in his first six months in office. McCain's campaign has sponsored automated calls in battleground states stressing Obama's links to Vietnam-era radical William Ayers. At least two Republican senators have asked for the calls to end. None of the attacks appears to have worked. A Pew poll Tuesday showed more voters now express doubt about McCain's judgment than Obama's and see McCain as less inspiring than Obama. A majority say McCain has been too personally critical of Obama.<b/> A Washington Post/ABC poll found majorities of undecided and persuadable voters do not believe Obama's past relationship with Ayers or his campaign's association with ACORN are legitimate election issues. The Pew poll gave Obama a 14-point lead nationally. Two other polls, by Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby and NBC News/Wall Street Journal, put Obama's lead at 10 points. Polls in many crucial states also give Obama an edge as McCain's path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House becomes increasingly difficult. Republican consultant Rich Galen said McCain had two chances to strike real blows at Obama -- after the successful Republican convention and after Obama's speech to an adoring crowd in Berlin made him look like he was chasing global celebrity. "They couldn't capitalize in either case and they let Obama off the ropes," Galen said. "I don't know that Obama was ever properly tested."