An American for Barney Smith not Smith Barney

Did you hear Barney Smith?

This is what is all about. We need a government that thinks of working people.
We need an America that is for Barney Smith not just Smith Barney.

I went to Lincoln Elementary School, Lincoln Junior High, and for one semester to Lincoln High School in Warren, Michigan. Our mascot? The "Abes." From the time I was in kindergarten, I loved what Abraham Lincoln stood for-freeing the slaves and saving the union. I loved the Gettysburg address. By third grade, I was ready to ask what I could do my for my country--thrilling at the speeches of President Kennedy.

It wasn't until I heard Barack Obama's 2004 at the Democratic Convention that I was that inspired again.

Tonight, is a big night for America.

Tonight is a big night for the Barney Smiths of America.

Ohio take note--McCain and cronies lobby against you

As McCain passes out tire gauges to mock Obama, his lobbyist laden cadre of advisors hope Ohioans don't gauge the pressure their policies have put on their prosperity. Republicans would offer that workers should just continually be retraining and moving to new parts of the country. Don't bother about government officials about actions they take that send American jobs overseas.

RealClear Politics covers a McCain townhall.

“Government is too big, he wants to grow it. Taxes are to high, he wants to raise them," McCain said. "Congress spends too much and he proposes more. We need more energy and he's against producing it. We're finally winning in Iraq, and he wants to forfeit."

McCain's criticism came before he was to travel to Wilmington to discuss possible job losses, as many as 8,000, from the proposed closure of a DHL shipping site, the result of a corporate merger aided by his campaign manager during his work as a lobbyist.

In 2003, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis lobbied Congress to accept a proposal by German-owned DHL to buy Airborne Express, which kept its domestic hub in Wilmington in southwest Ohio.

In announcing a restructuring plan in May, DHL said it planned to hire United Parcel Service to move some of its air packages, sending them through an airport in Louisville, Ky., and putting the Wilmington Air Park out of business.

Davis took a leave of absence from his lobbying practice to work for McCain, a self-styled reformer who asked his campaign staff to disclose all previous lobbying ties and make certain they were no longer registered as lobbyists or foreign agents.

The economy and job losses are important issues in Ohio, a critical swing state that gave President Bush the electoral votes needed for re-election in 2004.

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said Wednesday that Davis had not worked with DHL since 2005, long before DHL announced plans to move its work out of Wilmington. The companies merged in 2003.

At the time of the merger, no one anticipated an impact on jobs in Wilmington," Rogers said.

No one? Really?

Ever been around for a merger? Ever known anyone who didn’t know that jobs would be impacted by the merger.

Pay special attention the next part.

McCain, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, had a role in the deal, too. He urged then-Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens to abandon proposed legislation that would have prohibited foreign-owned carriers from flying U.S. military equipment or troops, which Airborne Express said was aimed at torpedoing its merger with DHL.

Rogers said McCain opposed the bill because it could have hurt the military's airlift capabilities in a time of war.

The DHL-Airborne deal ultimately went through, despite opposition from competitors UPS and FedEx, which argued that it would violate a ban on foreign control of domestic airlines. DHL is the U.S.-based shipping unit of German postal service Deutsche Post AG.

And McCain is going to try to make Obama look like a threat to American jobs?

If civility and competence bring celebrity--bring it on

Ann said in a comment today

Here's my problem - feel free to laugh if you want:I just don't love either candidate and see faults and problems with both sides. I suppose you could say I'm a concerned apathetic voter. Tell me in simplistic terms why Obama is the best choice...I want to believe! ;-) If McCain uses the internet "once a week,"I'm concerned. If Obama naively steps into Middle East issues, I'm concerned. If we keep going like we are now in America, I'm concerned.

I say, casting Obama as naïve is something his opponents like to say, but it hardly describes the way he approaches foreign policy. Naïve might be applied to the neo-conservatives who said the Iraq War would be a “cakewalk,” that we would be greeted as liberators, and that oil revenues would foot the bill.

Here’s a couple of links with some information that might flesh out your perceptions of him and his approach to foreign policy;

"The Obama Doctrine," The American Prospect, March 2008

“A cast of 300 advises Obama on foreign policy” From The New York Times, July 18, 2008

Obama’s inexperience may concern people, but I think what David Brooks, highly regarded conservative political analys rings true in his New York Times Op-Ed piece, "Calling Dr. Doom," on June 29, 2008,

But Obama is far from a lightweight, as Republicans will learn if he agrees to
do joint town meetings with McCain. McCain’s jabs that Obama is naïve will
backfire. In this climate, a candidate can’t define the other guy, only himself.
When McCain attacks Obama for being naïve, all voters see is McCain being sour
and negative.

More fundamentally, McCain’s problem is that his party is unfit to govern. As research from the Republican pollster David Winston has shown, any policy becomes less popular when people learn that Republicans are supporting it. If the G.O.P. sponsored the sunrise, voters would prefer gloom. Many Republicans are under the illusion that they are in trouble because they’ve betrayed their core principles. The sad truth is that if they’d been more conservative, they’d be even further behind.

Of course, Obama chose not to meet the McCain demand to follow him around to do townhalls, but the point is the same—the GOP has shown it is not fit to govern.

Obama will bring a team in that will look at government as a servant to civil society.

Look at what the Republicans have wrought under their watch in the EPA, the Justice Department, the CDC, the FDA, FEMA, just for starters. Obama, or whatever Democratic nominee they would have chosen will be better than allowing another Republican administration.
I am ready for change. What has convinced me is reading Obama’s books, listening to his speeches, and reading about his actual policy positions.

Read about his campaign and the way he runs it. Sounds like a leader to me.

I’ll write more when I have more time, but this is a start.

It's civility; it's competence. If these two bring celebrity--so be it!

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Who's dealing?
Who gives currency to the "Obama played the race card" with the comment about a face on the dollar bill?

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Progressive fun
Least I fall prey to the accusation of being a humorless liberal, I would like to note that my current favorite commercial is the one for Progressive Insurance where the fellow buys RV, motorcyle, and boat insurance much to his wife's "SURPRISE." I see it everyday and everyday, it leaves me laughing.

Furthermore, I want to put MSNBC on notice that if they broadcast the commercial about catheters one more time, I will not watch another minute of their news programming. So there.

Heaven forbid labor gets a new foothold

WalMart warns employees that if the Democrats win it may be easier for unions to organize and we all know how bad a union would for the largest group of employees in America.

Of all the things that has bothered me most over the past many years of Republican dominated government is the climate in which labor is treated as a liability. Employees of WalMart and other workers need to realize that the leadership of this country has created a tax climate in which the industrialization of America has gone to China, India, Mexico and other places. There is no commitment on the part of this genre of leadership that truly is concerned about the American worker. Contempt for unions and for working people is standard.

Not long ago I was in the home of a political conservative. At the dinner table he said it's too bad that the unions drove all of the good jobs overseas. Is it really the unions?

He said it's too bad the unions in America have ruined the US auto industry. Really? The unions?