Ponderstorm My Brainstorm on Life & Politics

There is such an incredible level of bias in most mainstream news media coverage in favor of Barack Obama that even the Clintons complained about not getting a fair shake during the Democratic Primary. You know it must be way out of balance when the smooth-talking Bill Clinton, the darling of the 1990s, is thrown under the bus in favor of somebody even more smooth-talking.

Howard Kurtz reported (Oct. 22) on a new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism that showed that “media coverage of John McCain has been heavily unfavorable since the political conventions, more than three times as negative as the portrayal of Barack Obama.” In all, 57% of print and broadcast stories about John McCain were “decidedly negative” while only 14% were positive. Contrast that with Barack Obama’s coverage during that period: “36 percent of the stories clearly positive, 35 percent neutral or mixed and 29 percent negative.”

Kurtz continues:

The Wall Street meltdown appears to have been a turning point for both candidates. Thirty-four percent of the stories about Obama’s reaction to the crisis were positive, while 18 percent were negative. McCain’s coverage, though, went into a free fall after he initially declared that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” By the following week, more than half the stories about McCain were negative and only 11 percent positive, just as Obama’s coverage was turning positive by a margin of more than 5 to 1.

Kurtz’s concluding paragraph offers this statement:

While some will seize on these findings as evidence that the media are pro-Obama, the study says they actually contain “a strong suggestion that winning in politics begets winning coverage, thanks in part to the relentless tendency of the press to frame its coverage of national elections as running narratives about the relative position of the candidates in the polls . . .”

I will go a step further and state that many in the media are pro-Obama and clearly so. I feel that their pro-Obama enthusiasm carries over to the mechanics of polls and the interpretation of polling data.

Michael Barone wrote an intriguing article (Oct. 22) entitled “Are the Polls Accurate?” with a subtitle “Reading them right is more art than science.” Barone maintains that we can trust polls but “with qualifications.” He then points out several inherent imperfections in political polling that can cause under-representation for some candidates and over-representation for others. Sampling errors can be introduced by cell phone-only households, pollsters not calling back, and respondents refusing to answer questions. These factors can skew results. Also, it seems that during the Democratic Primary, some people didn’t want to admit they did not vote for the rock star-like Obama and so exit polling was higher than actual results.

That brings me to my final point in this article. Most people are probably familiar with the polls that show a large Obama lead over McCain; however, two polls (AP-Ipsos and AP-Gfk) released on October 22 suggest that the Presidential race is essentially tied with Obama at 44% and McCain at 43%. These polls showed that the race tightened after the third debate (which is something I predicted would happen).

Key takeaways from the AP-Ipsos poll are these: Read More…

Posted under Barack Obama, Campaign, John McCain

Article II of the United States Constitution presents the qualifications for the office of the Presidency. I quote in part:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

There are questions about the birth place of Barack Obama. His paternal grandmother reportedly claims she witnessed his birth in Kenya, while others, including Obama himself, claim he was born in Hawaii.

If he was born in Kenya then he would not be a natural born citizen (his father was Kenyan and his mother American so U.S. citizenship would not flow to him as a birthright). Needless to say, assuming he is Constitutionally qualified, Obama could clear up the controversy by simply submitting his birth certificate as John McCain did (McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone to a military family).

However, to this day, Obama has not submitted his birth certificate or any records proving his citizenship. He refuses to release any college records as well that would state his citizenship. That has prompted at least one lawsuit to prove he is Constitutionally eligible to be President. The video below (10 minutes 52 seconds) is the story of one such lawsuit from a life-long Democrat and attorney in Pennsylvania.

Barack Obama’s refusal to show that he meets the basic Constitutional requirements for holding the office of the Presidency troubles me. It is a legitimate Constitutional question that should be asked of every candidate.

John McCain’s birth has been analyzed at length by the mainstream media and bloggers (see Read More…

Posted under Barack Obama, Campaign, Video

Brian Perry wrote a well-reasoned article for today’s Madison County Journal entitled “Enemies Foreign and Domestic.” This editorial highlights his visit to the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC and provides a historical review of domestic and foreign terrorist attacks on the United States.

For the sake of a quick review, Perry noted domestic terrorist attacks that included those from anarchists, the Ku Klux Klan, the Weather Underground, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Timothy McVeigh. Foreign terrorists attacks included the pre-9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the USS Cole, multiple American embassies in Africa, and, of course, those on 9/11.

Perry elaborates on the museum’s exhibit of one particularly violent Klan member, the

Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Sam Bowers of Laurel, Mississippi. Bowers was suspected in hundreds of bombings and attacks. He orchestrated the fire-bombing that killed Vernon Dahmer and masterminded the killings of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney in Neshoba County. Time Magazine called Bowers “the most dangerous man ever to don a white hood.”

Perry also wrote about the museum’s exhibit featuring the Weather Underground. As Perry noted, the Weather Underground was described by the FBI as “a small, violent offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), created in the turbulent ’60s to promote social change.” This organization has once again been in the news due to Barack Obama’s recent associations with Weather Underground member William Ayers. Perry continues:

The Weather Underground claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks including bombings of the U.S. Capitol Building, the Pentagon, and the US State Department. In an article appearing in the New York Times on September 11, 2001, one of the organization’s founders, Bill Ayers, said “I don’t regret setting bombs” and looking back on their actions, “I feel we didn’t do enough.”

Senator Obama likes to claim that Ayers’ actions happened when he (Obama) was just eight years old. True. However, there is more to it than just Ayers’ past actions. To this day Ayers remains unrepentant and even expressed regret just a few years ago that they “didn’t do enough.” Perry writes: Read More…

Posted under Barack Obama, Campaign

I’m not a fan of radio shock jock Howard Stern; however, the audio clip below contains a segment from his show that is very telling about some American voters. It demonstrates, in part, how a radical liberal like Barack Obama could end up in the White House based largely on personality and cosmetic factors instead of weighty issues like policy and what is best for the country. It shows how personality ignorantly trumps policy in many people’s minds.

In this audio clip, Obama supporters were asked why they liked Obama and given several choices using John McCain’s policy positions (like support for the war in Iraq and being pro-life) and even listing Sarah Palin as Obama’s VP choice. The respondents unflinchingly endorsed the McCain positions and Sarah Palin as they espoused their support for Obama. Mind-boggling and depressing at the same time!

Note: Special thanks to Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters for this piece. In fairness, I’m sure you could find a similar group of lazy voters supporting McCain. Regardless of political party, this kind of ignorance should not be tolerated and is dangerous for our country. Think, people, think! We’re voting for a President, not a celebrity talking head.

Posted under Barack Obama, Campaign, Video

Last night during the 3rd Presidential debate we heard ‘Joe the Plumber’ (AKA Joe Wurzelbacher of Holland, OH) mentioned 26 times. It seems that his questions of Senator Obama’s tax policy struck a chord with many middle class Americans, especially once Obama stated that he wanted to “spread the wealth around” through tax policy.

Who is ‘Joe the Plumber’ and why has he become an American icon for Senator McCain so many middle class voters? Here is a brief introduction from Toledo, Ohio CBS reporter Jennifer Boresz:

Updated: CBS disabled embedding this video but you can watch it here.

Following the Presidential debate the following candid comments from Joe Wurzelbacher were recorded. Read More…

Posted under Campaign, Video