I don’t think even God, Krampus, or even Karl Marx himself could have written a better script for the Democrats.  It looks like Obama may very well win in the biggest landslide as LBJ. The irony of this land slide is it will be a wasted one because Obama has no mandate. Like corporate friendly candidates before him, and Obama’s the most friendly of all, he will be forced to push forward business friendly reforms.

I know, I know, if you listen to the Neo Crybabies or McCain as of late you’d think we’ve just witnessed the second coming of Karl Marx.  No,  there is nothing radical about Obama’s tax plan. It is certainly without a doubt better than the Reagan and Bush 1’s tax increases in the 80’s. As I said earlier he is Clinton on steroids. Clinton looks you in the face and lies to you straight up, and you believe him. Obama looks you straight in the face and lies to you with a wink and a smile, and you just don’t care.

Don’t worry taxes will be fine, and the business community will be happy. They are not the ones we should be concerned with here. In the Senate Obama voted against an amendment to cap interest rates at 30%. He then offers an even higher 36% cap and uses it to campaign around the country that he’s getting tough with pay day loans. Obama’s rhetoric sounds like he’s for American jobs, even while his main economic adviser says job losses by NAFTA are simply a myth.  Obama single handedly bullies the Congressional Black Caucus into voting for the bail out, and then has the audacity to say the tax payer robbery will help homeowners.

The biggest crime of all is that in a democratic election year Obama’s put forward a health care plan that even Romney could love.  What we need is a health care system not a heavily, government subsidized, health care market. Obama’s health care plan is so before Sicko. The problem with the system is not so much the uninsured, as it is the insured or soon to be uninsured.  Obama could have run on a universal, single payer, type system run though the states like Medicare. If he had selected that route, right now, he’d have the mother of all mandates to do something big about health care.

My biggest frustration this election season is how many progressives simply sold out. In the end game, I can perfectly understand someone pulling out the “Obama is better than McCain” card.  In many scenarios that is probably true, but why show that card so early in the game. What was clear early on is Obama had the progressive vote tied up, and he did not have to earn one vote. The end result was he moved to the right of the supreme court on the death penalty, agreed with Bush on the Patriot Acts, FISA, and the Bush Doctrine, and was able to support the bailout bill for banks, even though, I have not met one person in favor of it, except for Mal of course. That one bailout (trust me more to come) cost more than seven years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, to the wet dream part. Progressives, and less so liberals, have told me I’d vote for the Green Party or Nader, but the cost is too high. They usually say something to the tune if folks like Mal had not voted for Nader in 2000 we’d have had Gore the Bore for the last eight years.  We’d very well have Lieberman instead of Obama at the top of the ticket, but they don’t want to talk about that.

This is a great year for progressives. They can be assured that Obama will win in a land slide, and also vote their conscience.  Why waste your vote on a sure thing, when you can express your progressive values in a candidate like Nader or McKinney.  This is a win – win situation. One the one hand you will have a president Obama in 2009, and a Tuesday you can leave the polls with your conscience intact.

Oh, so that’s what a debate looks like.

Yes, they had disagreements on health care, and some agreement on middle east policy. Amazingly, there were no jabs about each others age or terrorist connections. They did something not seen in American politics since the famous Gore Vidal / Buckley Debate, they discussed issues.

What became very clear is their is a host issues from foreign policy, civil liberties, as well as economic concerns in which the “far” right and left can gather around.  Baldwin, while certainly conservative by most folks standards, has come out so strongly against “free trade” he endorses tariffs on foreign goods.

I think they both were marvelous in putting the political bigotry of lessor evilism and wasted votes to rest.  What has the whole rationality of lessor evilism given us. Well, Obama has stood strong with Bush on every issue that defined the liberal opposition for the last eight years. Obama stands with Bush for an expanded American power in the middle east (just the locations changed), he stands with Bush on the Patriot Acts, he stand with Bush on FISA, he stands with Bush on the death penalty, he stands with Bush on bailing out banks and screwing home owners.  Yes liberals, you’ve played your cards well.

It looks like Word Press came out with a poll feature.  This will give me a chance to try it out.

Vice Presidential Candidate Matt Gonzalez was barred from the 2008 Vice Presidential Debate hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) on October 2nd, just as Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader was barred from the first Presidential CPD Debate on September 26th.

Corporate media is even tiring of the Obama / McCain circus.

Ralph will be on CNBC with John Harwood between 2 and 3 p.m. EST.

He will be on CNN with Rick Sanchez at 3:30 p.m. EST.

He will be on the NewsHour on PBS between 6 and 7 p.m. EST.

And he’ll be on Fox with Shepherd Smith at 7:30 p.m. EST.

There has been some of us on the outside looking in wondering how we could get the Commission on Presidential Debates to come tumbling down. What McCain showed us was a  all powerful, un-democratic, secretive, corporation is only as powerful as the duopoly that is its accomplice.

It sounds to me Obama was simply outfoxed by McCain. Obama wanted some joint venture to score some political points out of the current economic crisis and McCain upped the ante on him. I fully support McCain’s position on the debates although for very different reasons. As far as I’m concerned its time corporate America pays the piper.

Where I do think this game McCain is playing has some benefit is the Corporation on Presidential Debates outright ban on third parties. There is no reason candidates who have gotten on enough states to win the electoral college should be banned from the debates.  What McCain ought to do is take a clear principled stance that all candidates be included in the debates.  Its important to not only hear from Tweedledee and Tweedledum, but also Nader, McKinney, Baldwin, and Barr.

It seems to me this is definitely an envelope to push with the VP debate. The Constitution Party is the national equivalent of the Alaskan Independence Party that seems to scare the hell out of liberals. As Palin stated in that video to the Alaskan Independence Party,  competition is important for political parties too.

I call on the McCain / Palin team to make third party participation a stipulation for any and all 2008 presidential debates. Now that would be some change and reform I could support.

1. Which candidate opposed the snoop enabling FISA law and the immunity bailout for the telecom companies?
2. Which candidate called for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney for all of their crimes from the illegal war in Iraq to illegal wiretapping of unsuspecting Americas?
3. Which candidate opposed passage of the Patriot Act and calls for its repeal?
4. Which candidate opposes the death penalty?
5. Which candidate would work to repeal corporate personhood — and shift the power from the corporations back into the hands of the people?

This morning Peter Camejo, Nader’s 2004 running mate,  lost his battle with cancer.

Matt Gonzalez and Ralph Nader both spoke to Peter this week (Matt several times) and I’m sure discussed their shared work and what remains to do. Peter played a key role in the Peace & Freedom National Convention in August when he spoke to delegates and helped persuade them to back Nader/Gonzalez in the first round of voting. Please view his speech:

Peter Camejo has passed away but his life and words will continue.  Peter was writing his memoir and I am told only had 1/2 chapter left to write when he entered the hospital at the beginning of the week.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader held a campaign event at the Orpheum Theatre in Downtown Madison on September 5, 2008. Nader, was joined by this vice presidential candidate Matt Gonzalez.

Righty Blog:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, even if we’re in a recession next January, you come into office, you’ll still go through with your tax increases.

OBAMA: No, no, no, no, no, no. What I’ve said, George, is that, even if we’re still in a recession, I’m going to go through with my tax cuts. That’s my priority.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But not the increases?

OBAMA: I think we’ve got to take a look and see where the economy is. I mean, the economy is weak right now. The news with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I think, along with the unemployment numbers, indicates that we’re fragile.

It certainly seems like that doesn’t it. The liberals with no back bone keep telling us that McCain is another Bush term. It seems, however, every time I turn a round Obama is running back to the Bush record. There first was Iraq War waffling, then FISA supporting, and now Bush tax cut extending.

Note to spineless Democrats. Maybe you should take another page out of the Bush playbook and just pretend.

Just pretend you’ll vote for Nader. Just pretend you’ll vote for McKinney. Obama just might think you are a valued contituency and address your issues. It seems now the only folks he values are Republicans. Trust me, as the polls rise and rise for Nader, Obama will begin to take your issues with the seriousness they deserve.

Well, he didn’t exactly say that. It was more like when the Democrats use their political bigotry its a declaration of war on third parties and voters.  He also pointed out the irony of how on one hand he is irrelevant but on the other hand he is single handedly responsible for Democratic defeat in the last two election cycles.

Poor Mal. It was not enough for him to comment on my site, but he had to write posts on 4 other blogs. Who does he think he is, the second coming of Barrack Obama. Mal went to Daily Kos to declare war against The Proletariat. The Kossacks turned on him when they found out out he voted for Nader in the last two election cycles.

As I mentioned last night NBC 15 had a little blurb about the Nader Rally. I did notice their cameras last night, so I hope more reporting will be coming down the pipes soon. Tonight WKOW had a nice video of Ralph and the rally.

This morning the Wisconsin State Journal beat the Cap Times to the punch with a piece on Nader slashing the major parties. I thought Nick Heynen gave a nice overview of the nights speeches. My favorite quotes was,

There’s no such thing as taking votes away. It’s up to the voters to decide who they’re going to vote for. I think McCain is going to take votes away from Obama and Obama is going to take votes away from McCain.

People say, We don’t want to throw away our vote. We want to vote for winners. OK, go ahead. You’ve been voting for winners, and you’ve been losing.

Later this morning, Robert Chappell of the Capital Times, wrote a piece about the relationship between the two “progressive” events.  It was easy to tell from the piece which event Robert was at, and that he just pulled a few quotes from Nader folks to complete the story. I do give the Capital Times credit for stating Nader is the one who introduced Donahue to the vet who starred in the film. The Capital Times is dead to me. I took them off my Google page and filtered them out of my news sources.