I almost forgot! I have a graphic to go with one of the sections for this update!
Green Revolution on the Golden Gate
- Thread starter wilcoxchar
- Start date
Bookmark1995
Banned
This is a political map that seems almost like satire.
A wife of an adulterer.
Adderall in human form.
A holocaust denier
A quasi-libertarian.
And Gary Coleman possessed by Pat Robertson
A wife of an adulterer.
Adderall in human form.
A holocaust denier
A quasi-libertarian.
And Gary Coleman possessed by Pat Robertson
From Wikipedia:
"Pete McCloskey gave an address to the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) in 2000. When he ran in the 2006 Republican Party primary for congress, there was controversy over exactly what he said about the Holocaust at the event. According to the San Jose Mercury News McCloskey said at the time, "I don't know whether you are right or wrong about the Holocaust," and referred to the "so-called Holocaust". McCloskey replied that he has never questioned the existence of the Holocaust, and the 2000 quote referred to a debate over the number of people killed.[29] McCloskey said in an interview with the Contra Costa Times on January 18, 2006 that the IHR transcript of his speech was inaccurate.[30] Journalist Mark Hertsgaard of The Nation, in response to criticism of an article he wrote praising McCloskey's campaign against Pombo, stated that a tape he had viewed of McCloskey's speech to the IHR did not contain the "right or wrong" wording present in the transcript.[31]"
Kennedy4Ever
Banned
Well there you go, he was just misquoted by the media, and he even said himself that he did not deny the Holocaust happened. All he said was that he wasn’t sure about the exact statistical specifics of the number of victims. Again I wasn’t there, so I don’t know exactly why he said what he said or know what he was thinking or what he meant by it, but I think it’s really unfair for the media and others to always attack someone, such as him, as a ‘Holocaust Denier’ when he clearly wasn’t denying that the Holocaust happened. That’s just my opinion, but I’m NOT trying to put a ‘current politics’ spin on things in order to prevent this thread from being locked again!
Last edited:
Bookmark1995
Banned
Well there you go, he was just misquoted by the media, and he even said himself that he did not deny the Holocaust happened. All he said was that he wasn’t sure about the exact statistical specifics of the number of victims. Again I wasn’t there, so I don’t know exactly why he said what he said or know what he was thinking or what he meant by it, but I think it’s really unfair for the media and others to always attack someone, such as him, as a ‘Holocaust Denier’ when he clearly wasn’t denying that the Holocaust happened. That’s just my opinion, but I’m NOT trying to put a ‘current politics’ spin on things in order to prevent this thread from being locked again!
Well, he does take the side of Palestine. And while opposing Israel's actions is not inherently anti-Semitic, it is a debate that can inevitably lead to off-colored language.
Kennedy4Ever
Banned
Unfortunately, I agree, but it shouldn’t have to be the case, instead of throwing around names and labels like people do, it should be a civil, sincere, two sided debate, but alas, like you said such civil debates are hard to come by these days.
Had a bit of a writing slump, but I'm going to try to get the next update done this week. Two more updates til we get to the 2008 elections!
Footnotes to be added later today.
One Rincon Hill Opens In San Francisco
September 15, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - After four years of construction, one of the residential high rise towers at the One Rincon Hill site in SoMa has finally opened to residents. Standing alone at the top of the hill in the neighborhood adjoining the city’s Bay Bridge connection, the slender, newly completed South Tower rises out of the city to a height of 860 feet. This would already be an impressive and imposing height in itself for San Francisco - for comparison, the two towers of The Infinity, the other recently completed high rise development in Rincon Hill, both stand at under 500 feet. In fact, the 860 feet height makes the One Rincon Hill South Tower now the tallest building in the city, surpassing the Transamerica Pyramid by just seven feet. However, the skyscraper’s location makes it even more imposing in the city’s skyline. One Rincon Hill is being built at the apex of the hill that gives the surrounding neighborhood its name, adding yet another hundred feet to the tower’s total height above the bay.
The high rise residential building contains over 500 condo units, with the shorter North Tower expected to contain over 400. The One Rincon Hill development has been a part of the broader effort by the city to reduce pressure on rent and housing prices in San Francisco. Mayor Matt Gonzalez, speaking at the official opening of the tower, acclaimed the new skyscraper as a step forward in making housing more affordable for San Francisco residents. With The Infinity also recently completed and the Millennium Tower in the Transbay Development Area on Mission Street nearing completion and expected to open early next year, many expect the dire housing situation in the city to, if not reverse direction, at least see a less steep rise in prices in coming years.
The One Rincon Hill development is only the beginning of what appears to be an increasing change in the San Francisco skyline driven by a simple factor: a need for space. Along with other developments in the South of Market area, the county board is near approval of further zoning changes in the next phase of the Transbay Development Area. The proposed zoning changes would create opportunities for office or mixed residential and office development near the upcoming Transbay Transit Center on Mission Street, including a permission for an over 1,200 foot tall skyscraper on the Transit Center site to connect directly with the new terminal. Here Gonzalez has faced opposition from those on the board closest to him, mainly from District 6 supervisor Jane Kim, whose district includes the Rincon Hill neighborhood. Kim opposes such tall construction, but Gonzalez has reiterated that such construction is necessary to alleviate the housing and office space issues currently facing San Francisco. Indeed, not only does the city face a housing shortage, but an office shortage as well. Planners have estimated that San Francisco will need over 1.2 million square feet of additional office space over the next 25 years if the city wants to maintain its share of jobs in the Bay Area[1], and the subpar recovery from the dotcom bust over the last several years has not helped matters. Gonzalez has stated that after the elections in November in which a record county supervisor seats are up for election, he hopes to make a rejuvenated effort at tackling these issues. The mayor has already said that working toward repealing the Ellis Act in the city will be a priority, and reiterated that denser development would be a good thing for San Francisco.
The Rincon Hill towers will also feature a unique weather alert system. A beacon of LED floodlights at the top of the Rincon Hill skyscraper will show different colors every night to signal San Franciscans of the next day’s weather[2]. This type of signaling has been done in other cities such as Boston’s John Hancock Building, but this is the first of its kind in the Bay Area. The lights, which ring the tower’s south, east, and north sides so they will be viewable from the Bay Bridge and across the Bay, will light up in different colors depending on the forecast. Amber means no change in the forecast, red signifies a temperature rise or more than five degrees, blue a similar temperature drop, and green if there is a likely chance of rain. The developers of One Rincon Hill want the beacon to be another positive addition to the skyscrapers’ impact on the San Francisco skyline.
***
Tulchin Research Poll Shows MCcloskey At Eight Percent, Race Tied
September 19, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - With the presidential election campaign heating up, a surprising poll was released today from polling firm Tulchin Research that shows the Green Party candidate at his highest polling point so far in the campaign. The nationwide poll, conducted from September 11-14 as an internal poll released today by the Pete McCloskey campaign has McCloskey polling at 8 percent, while Clinton and Pataki are tied in the race at 43 percent each. These numbers show a marked jump for the Pete McCloskey campaign. The Green Party candidate has been polling steadily at roughly 5 percent among other recent polls.
The new Tulchin poll gives us a good dive into where much of the Green candidate’s support may be coming from. Predictably, as with many third party presidential candidates, the support for Pete McCloskey is largely coming from younger and more liberal voters. McCloskey garners an impressive 16 percent of voters aged 18-29 and about 13 percent of liberal voters, compared to just 6 percent of voters aged 45-64 and 9 percent of moderates, which tend to be the two largest voting blocs among age and political lean. McCloskey’s biggest support on the political spectrum comes from those who identify as independents with 13 percent of independents compared to just 10 percent of Democrats and only 4 percent of Republicans in the poll saying they will vote for McCloskey. However, one surprising aspect the poll reveals is the potential support for McCloskey coming from black voters. The Tulchin poll shows a very strong 11 percent of black voters supporting McCloskey, which would put him in second place among the category. Clinton is still polling with a vast majority of African-Americans at 75 percent, but Pataki is only polling with 9 percent of African-Americans.
The polling firm used for the campaign, Tulchin Research, is a new consulting and research firm on the scene founded earlier this year by veteran political data consultant Ben Tulchin[3]. While Tulchin’s firm has conducted several electoral polls throughout this campaign season for various candidates including for McCloskey’s campaign, this is the first national poll from Tulchin Research that has been released, which might lead some to discredit the poll. However, it does follow up on other recent state polls that have shown McCloskey and the Green Party doing rather well. The latest Field Poll in California showed Pete McCloskey at 9 percent in the state. Additionally, a Scott Rasmussen poll of Oregon had McCloskey at 14 percent there, McCloskey’s best result so far in any statewide poll. The Rasmussen poll also had Pataki ahead of Clinton by one point in Oregon, which may worry some Democrats. The presence of McCloskey in the race and his strong run as the Green candidate has led some Democratic commentators to voice concerns about another Nader effect swinging key states and giving the election to Pataki and the Republicans.
***
As Another Financial Institution Goes Under, House Rejects Emergency Measure
September 28, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC - It was a tense vote in the House of Representatives on the first attempt to stop the plummeting markets and financial turmoil that has gripped the country and the world. Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Bush said the bailout bill is necessary to stop the economic crash and end the cascade of bank failures across the nation. It was a bipartisan effort from prominent House members in both the Democratic and Republican parties. On the final count though, the vote came up short, and to the surprise of many in Washington and on Wall Street, more than a few votes short. The proposed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act failed 197 to 236 today in the House[4].
The market reaction to the failure of the bill was sudden and swift. The Dow dropped over 900 points, its largest single day drop in history, to close at 10,247.88; a nearly 8.2% drop. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson lamented the lack of a deal in a conference with reporters following the House rejection, but said they will continue to seek a way forward in getting a bill passed. Many market analysts hope to see something pass soon, but the failure of this bill is shaking their confidence. The nearly $700 billion outlined in the Emergency Economic Stabilization was aimed at giving credit markets and the economy a jumpstart to stop the freefall. The House’s rejection of the bill may only be the rejection of the first attempt, but when the markets are moving this quickly, every second counts in putting a measure in place to stem the tide.
But if any measure is so necessary, why did the House reject the bill and why has something not already passed? To answer this, we first need to look at how we got into this situation. While the current market collapse likely began in the final quarter of 2007 according to economists, the first sign of a financial crisis did not become apparent until March 2008 with the collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns. Even then, the crisis did not pick up in earnest until this past month. On September 7, the impact of bad mortgages resulted in “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac”, as the two major mortgage security corporations are known, were fully nationalized and placed under the Federal Housing Insurance Authority to avoid liquidation. A week later on September 15, financial services company Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, becoming the largest bankruptcy filing in the history of the United States. Other major banks and investment companies soon followed similar paths. AIG was taken over by the Federal Reserve on the 17th, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley converted from investment banks to holding companies to gain more Federal Reserve protection. Just yesterday, Washington Mutual declared bankruptcy, adding yet another to the number of banks across the country that have gone under just this month.
With everything that has happened in the past month, the urgency of passing an economic stabilization bill should be clear to this Congress, especially with an election coming up. So why then has the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act failed in the House? It may in fact be that election hot on this Congress’s heels that caused it to fail. President Bush’s approval rating has plummeted to just 25 percent in the latest polls. Any Republican member of Congress in a vulnerable district looking at those numbers must be approaching any sort of legislation such as this with extreme caution as they look nervously toward November. As for Democrats, while they do control the House, the $700 billion plus price tag on the bill makes it a hard pill to swallow. One of the reasons for the President’s and Republicans’ disastrous approvals is the skyrocketing deficit that has occurred under the Bush administration. A Democrat in a swing district supporting such an enormous increase in government spending as in the current proposed EESA bill would likely find it difficult to explain to their constituents how the country needs such a large further increase in spending after the President frittered away the Clinton surplus and much more. Additionally, conservative Democrats may find the massive government intervention in the markets outlined in the bill to be unpalatable, and with how quickly the bill came together, there was little time to actually sell it to members of the House on both sides of the aisle before it came to a vote. Action may be necessary, but getting all of Congress and the President to agree on what that action should be this late in an election year is going to be a monumental task in itself.
***
Nader Returns to Campaign Trail With New SDS Founder in Stonington
September 30, 2008
STONINGTON, CT - A sleepy tourist town of fewer than twenty thousand people might not be the place where you would expect to find consumer advocate and thrice Green Party candidate for president Ralph Nader. However, with five weeks to go before the 2008 elections, that was precisely where Nader was. Not far from the Mystic River in the southeast corner of Connecticut played host to Nader as he returned to the campaign trail once again. This time, however, Nader was not running for office himself, but was out supporting another candidate, and one at about as far a cry from seeking the White House as you could get.
When we caught up with Nader in the southeastern corner of his home state of Connecticut, he said he was on the beginning of a swing through the state. No doubt he is testing the waters for a future run for office. Since the aftermath of the 2006 midterms when Nader said he felt he could have won against Senator Joe Lieberman, rumors of the former Green presidential candidate’s return to the campaign trail have swirled. Since he passed up a run for president this year, there has been fervent speculation Nader may be seeking to run for either governor or Senate in 2010. Nader was mum on his future intentions, and only stated he was currently out campaigning to support McCloskey across the state and Pat Korte here in Stonington.
Turning from Nader to Korte, the 20 year old may be a sophomore in college in New York, but his high school roots in the area have driven him to a strong political ambition. Two years ago, Pat Korte was one of the main founders of the revived Students for a Democratic Society, reviving the 1960s anti-Vietnam War organization to fight against a new war[5]. Korte worked with the local chapter of the ACLU during high school and sought to continue his student activism calling for participatory democracy from young people, but struggled to find a group from which to do so. Korte found a few SDS chapters still active across the country in 2006, and he called for and helped organize the organization’s first national convention Now, two years later and barely a sophomore in college, he is seeking election to the Connecticut state assembly for the 43rd district.
Korte says he had been interested in campaigning for the Green Party in some way, but that he was ultimately convinced to run for office on that party’s ticket by what happened in the district last year. Current State Representative Diana Urban had been a Republican elected to the assembly since 2000 and ran unopposed for reelection in 2002, 2004, and 2006, but shortly after reelection in 2006 Urban switched parties to the Democrats. Urban is now running for reelection as a Democrat. Korte called Urban’s party switch “misleading [to] voters,” and says his run for the Green Party is meant to give voters in the 43rd district a real candidate on the left. With Korte’s entry into the race against Urban and Republican candidate Brian Kluberdanz, the 43rd district has attracted national attention from not just Nader but other Green Party affiliated organizations as well. Looking for a breakthrough in Connecticut as the party has seen in Maine and Massachusetts, Korte’s campaign has seen support from Massachusetts and New York Green organizations, as well as an endorsement from Tom Hayden’s Movement for a Democratic Society PAC. Support from one of the original members of the Students for a Democratic Society is not surprising, but such out of state support can sometimes turn off voters in a more locally focused campaign. Within the state, Korte also has the support of the Connecticut Working Families Party thanks to the state’s fusion ballot similar to New York, as the WFP which usually cross-endorses Democrats rebuked Urban after her party switch. In a three way race between Urban, Korte, and Kluberdanz, the result in Connecticut’s 43rd will be one to watch on election night.
[1] The OTL estimations were 1.1 million square feet of office space needed over the next 25 years according to this article: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Transbay-plan-would-sprout-new-S-F-skyline-3285569.php
[2] So this is a neat actual thing that Rincon Hill has.
[3] Tulchin's polling firm was founded in 2009 in OTL, but here he founds it a bit earlier. In OTL he would become Bernie Sanders' 2016 polling strategist, but even in 2008 he had a veteran record as a campaign strategist for people like Howard Dean and Harry Reid.
[4] In OTL the first rendition of the EESA was defeated 208-225 in the House.
[5] Pat Korte was indeed one of the founders of the modern SDS, though as far as I can find, he didn't really stay in politics after the SDS fizzled out with Occupy.
One Rincon Hill Opens In San Francisco
September 15, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - After four years of construction, one of the residential high rise towers at the One Rincon Hill site in SoMa has finally opened to residents. Standing alone at the top of the hill in the neighborhood adjoining the city’s Bay Bridge connection, the slender, newly completed South Tower rises out of the city to a height of 860 feet. This would already be an impressive and imposing height in itself for San Francisco - for comparison, the two towers of The Infinity, the other recently completed high rise development in Rincon Hill, both stand at under 500 feet. In fact, the 860 feet height makes the One Rincon Hill South Tower now the tallest building in the city, surpassing the Transamerica Pyramid by just seven feet. However, the skyscraper’s location makes it even more imposing in the city’s skyline. One Rincon Hill is being built at the apex of the hill that gives the surrounding neighborhood its name, adding yet another hundred feet to the tower’s total height above the bay.
The high rise residential building contains over 500 condo units, with the shorter North Tower expected to contain over 400. The One Rincon Hill development has been a part of the broader effort by the city to reduce pressure on rent and housing prices in San Francisco. Mayor Matt Gonzalez, speaking at the official opening of the tower, acclaimed the new skyscraper as a step forward in making housing more affordable for San Francisco residents. With The Infinity also recently completed and the Millennium Tower in the Transbay Development Area on Mission Street nearing completion and expected to open early next year, many expect the dire housing situation in the city to, if not reverse direction, at least see a less steep rise in prices in coming years.
The One Rincon Hill development is only the beginning of what appears to be an increasing change in the San Francisco skyline driven by a simple factor: a need for space. Along with other developments in the South of Market area, the county board is near approval of further zoning changes in the next phase of the Transbay Development Area. The proposed zoning changes would create opportunities for office or mixed residential and office development near the upcoming Transbay Transit Center on Mission Street, including a permission for an over 1,200 foot tall skyscraper on the Transit Center site to connect directly with the new terminal. Here Gonzalez has faced opposition from those on the board closest to him, mainly from District 6 supervisor Jane Kim, whose district includes the Rincon Hill neighborhood. Kim opposes such tall construction, but Gonzalez has reiterated that such construction is necessary to alleviate the housing and office space issues currently facing San Francisco. Indeed, not only does the city face a housing shortage, but an office shortage as well. Planners have estimated that San Francisco will need over 1.2 million square feet of additional office space over the next 25 years if the city wants to maintain its share of jobs in the Bay Area[1], and the subpar recovery from the dotcom bust over the last several years has not helped matters. Gonzalez has stated that after the elections in November in which a record county supervisor seats are up for election, he hopes to make a rejuvenated effort at tackling these issues. The mayor has already said that working toward repealing the Ellis Act in the city will be a priority, and reiterated that denser development would be a good thing for San Francisco.
The Rincon Hill towers will also feature a unique weather alert system. A beacon of LED floodlights at the top of the Rincon Hill skyscraper will show different colors every night to signal San Franciscans of the next day’s weather[2]. This type of signaling has been done in other cities such as Boston’s John Hancock Building, but this is the first of its kind in the Bay Area. The lights, which ring the tower’s south, east, and north sides so they will be viewable from the Bay Bridge and across the Bay, will light up in different colors depending on the forecast. Amber means no change in the forecast, red signifies a temperature rise or more than five degrees, blue a similar temperature drop, and green if there is a likely chance of rain. The developers of One Rincon Hill want the beacon to be another positive addition to the skyscrapers’ impact on the San Francisco skyline.
***
Tulchin Research Poll Shows MCcloskey At Eight Percent, Race Tied
September 19, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - With the presidential election campaign heating up, a surprising poll was released today from polling firm Tulchin Research that shows the Green Party candidate at his highest polling point so far in the campaign. The nationwide poll, conducted from September 11-14 as an internal poll released today by the Pete McCloskey campaign has McCloskey polling at 8 percent, while Clinton and Pataki are tied in the race at 43 percent each. These numbers show a marked jump for the Pete McCloskey campaign. The Green Party candidate has been polling steadily at roughly 5 percent among other recent polls.
The new Tulchin poll gives us a good dive into where much of the Green candidate’s support may be coming from. Predictably, as with many third party presidential candidates, the support for Pete McCloskey is largely coming from younger and more liberal voters. McCloskey garners an impressive 16 percent of voters aged 18-29 and about 13 percent of liberal voters, compared to just 6 percent of voters aged 45-64 and 9 percent of moderates, which tend to be the two largest voting blocs among age and political lean. McCloskey’s biggest support on the political spectrum comes from those who identify as independents with 13 percent of independents compared to just 10 percent of Democrats and only 4 percent of Republicans in the poll saying they will vote for McCloskey. However, one surprising aspect the poll reveals is the potential support for McCloskey coming from black voters. The Tulchin poll shows a very strong 11 percent of black voters supporting McCloskey, which would put him in second place among the category. Clinton is still polling with a vast majority of African-Americans at 75 percent, but Pataki is only polling with 9 percent of African-Americans.
The polling firm used for the campaign, Tulchin Research, is a new consulting and research firm on the scene founded earlier this year by veteran political data consultant Ben Tulchin[3]. While Tulchin’s firm has conducted several electoral polls throughout this campaign season for various candidates including for McCloskey’s campaign, this is the first national poll from Tulchin Research that has been released, which might lead some to discredit the poll. However, it does follow up on other recent state polls that have shown McCloskey and the Green Party doing rather well. The latest Field Poll in California showed Pete McCloskey at 9 percent in the state. Additionally, a Scott Rasmussen poll of Oregon had McCloskey at 14 percent there, McCloskey’s best result so far in any statewide poll. The Rasmussen poll also had Pataki ahead of Clinton by one point in Oregon, which may worry some Democrats. The presence of McCloskey in the race and his strong run as the Green candidate has led some Democratic commentators to voice concerns about another Nader effect swinging key states and giving the election to Pataki and the Republicans.
***
As Another Financial Institution Goes Under, House Rejects Emergency Measure
September 28, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC - It was a tense vote in the House of Representatives on the first attempt to stop the plummeting markets and financial turmoil that has gripped the country and the world. Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Bush said the bailout bill is necessary to stop the economic crash and end the cascade of bank failures across the nation. It was a bipartisan effort from prominent House members in both the Democratic and Republican parties. On the final count though, the vote came up short, and to the surprise of many in Washington and on Wall Street, more than a few votes short. The proposed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act failed 197 to 236 today in the House[4].
The market reaction to the failure of the bill was sudden and swift. The Dow dropped over 900 points, its largest single day drop in history, to close at 10,247.88; a nearly 8.2% drop. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson lamented the lack of a deal in a conference with reporters following the House rejection, but said they will continue to seek a way forward in getting a bill passed. Many market analysts hope to see something pass soon, but the failure of this bill is shaking their confidence. The nearly $700 billion outlined in the Emergency Economic Stabilization was aimed at giving credit markets and the economy a jumpstart to stop the freefall. The House’s rejection of the bill may only be the rejection of the first attempt, but when the markets are moving this quickly, every second counts in putting a measure in place to stem the tide.
But if any measure is so necessary, why did the House reject the bill and why has something not already passed? To answer this, we first need to look at how we got into this situation. While the current market collapse likely began in the final quarter of 2007 according to economists, the first sign of a financial crisis did not become apparent until March 2008 with the collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns. Even then, the crisis did not pick up in earnest until this past month. On September 7, the impact of bad mortgages resulted in “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac”, as the two major mortgage security corporations are known, were fully nationalized and placed under the Federal Housing Insurance Authority to avoid liquidation. A week later on September 15, financial services company Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, becoming the largest bankruptcy filing in the history of the United States. Other major banks and investment companies soon followed similar paths. AIG was taken over by the Federal Reserve on the 17th, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley converted from investment banks to holding companies to gain more Federal Reserve protection. Just yesterday, Washington Mutual declared bankruptcy, adding yet another to the number of banks across the country that have gone under just this month.
With everything that has happened in the past month, the urgency of passing an economic stabilization bill should be clear to this Congress, especially with an election coming up. So why then has the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act failed in the House? It may in fact be that election hot on this Congress’s heels that caused it to fail. President Bush’s approval rating has plummeted to just 25 percent in the latest polls. Any Republican member of Congress in a vulnerable district looking at those numbers must be approaching any sort of legislation such as this with extreme caution as they look nervously toward November. As for Democrats, while they do control the House, the $700 billion plus price tag on the bill makes it a hard pill to swallow. One of the reasons for the President’s and Republicans’ disastrous approvals is the skyrocketing deficit that has occurred under the Bush administration. A Democrat in a swing district supporting such an enormous increase in government spending as in the current proposed EESA bill would likely find it difficult to explain to their constituents how the country needs such a large further increase in spending after the President frittered away the Clinton surplus and much more. Additionally, conservative Democrats may find the massive government intervention in the markets outlined in the bill to be unpalatable, and with how quickly the bill came together, there was little time to actually sell it to members of the House on both sides of the aisle before it came to a vote. Action may be necessary, but getting all of Congress and the President to agree on what that action should be this late in an election year is going to be a monumental task in itself.
***
Nader Returns to Campaign Trail With New SDS Founder in Stonington
September 30, 2008
STONINGTON, CT - A sleepy tourist town of fewer than twenty thousand people might not be the place where you would expect to find consumer advocate and thrice Green Party candidate for president Ralph Nader. However, with five weeks to go before the 2008 elections, that was precisely where Nader was. Not far from the Mystic River in the southeast corner of Connecticut played host to Nader as he returned to the campaign trail once again. This time, however, Nader was not running for office himself, but was out supporting another candidate, and one at about as far a cry from seeking the White House as you could get.
When we caught up with Nader in the southeastern corner of his home state of Connecticut, he said he was on the beginning of a swing through the state. No doubt he is testing the waters for a future run for office. Since the aftermath of the 2006 midterms when Nader said he felt he could have won against Senator Joe Lieberman, rumors of the former Green presidential candidate’s return to the campaign trail have swirled. Since he passed up a run for president this year, there has been fervent speculation Nader may be seeking to run for either governor or Senate in 2010. Nader was mum on his future intentions, and only stated he was currently out campaigning to support McCloskey across the state and Pat Korte here in Stonington.
Turning from Nader to Korte, the 20 year old may be a sophomore in college in New York, but his high school roots in the area have driven him to a strong political ambition. Two years ago, Pat Korte was one of the main founders of the revived Students for a Democratic Society, reviving the 1960s anti-Vietnam War organization to fight against a new war[5]. Korte worked with the local chapter of the ACLU during high school and sought to continue his student activism calling for participatory democracy from young people, but struggled to find a group from which to do so. Korte found a few SDS chapters still active across the country in 2006, and he called for and helped organize the organization’s first national convention Now, two years later and barely a sophomore in college, he is seeking election to the Connecticut state assembly for the 43rd district.
Korte says he had been interested in campaigning for the Green Party in some way, but that he was ultimately convinced to run for office on that party’s ticket by what happened in the district last year. Current State Representative Diana Urban had been a Republican elected to the assembly since 2000 and ran unopposed for reelection in 2002, 2004, and 2006, but shortly after reelection in 2006 Urban switched parties to the Democrats. Urban is now running for reelection as a Democrat. Korte called Urban’s party switch “misleading [to] voters,” and says his run for the Green Party is meant to give voters in the 43rd district a real candidate on the left. With Korte’s entry into the race against Urban and Republican candidate Brian Kluberdanz, the 43rd district has attracted national attention from not just Nader but other Green Party affiliated organizations as well. Looking for a breakthrough in Connecticut as the party has seen in Maine and Massachusetts, Korte’s campaign has seen support from Massachusetts and New York Green organizations, as well as an endorsement from Tom Hayden’s Movement for a Democratic Society PAC. Support from one of the original members of the Students for a Democratic Society is not surprising, but such out of state support can sometimes turn off voters in a more locally focused campaign. Within the state, Korte also has the support of the Connecticut Working Families Party thanks to the state’s fusion ballot similar to New York, as the WFP which usually cross-endorses Democrats rebuked Urban after her party switch. In a three way race between Urban, Korte, and Kluberdanz, the result in Connecticut’s 43rd will be one to watch on election night.
[1] The OTL estimations were 1.1 million square feet of office space needed over the next 25 years according to this article: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Transbay-plan-would-sprout-new-S-F-skyline-3285569.php
[2] So this is a neat actual thing that Rincon Hill has.
[3] Tulchin's polling firm was founded in 2009 in OTL, but here he founds it a bit earlier. In OTL he would become Bernie Sanders' 2016 polling strategist, but even in 2008 he had a veteran record as a campaign strategist for people like Howard Dean and Harry Reid.
[4] In OTL the first rendition of the EESA was defeated 208-225 in the House.
[5] Pat Korte was indeed one of the founders of the modern SDS, though as far as I can find, he didn't really stay in politics after the SDS fizzled out with Occupy.
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Bookmark1995
Banned
The Great Recession could be a final nail in the coffin for the two party system.
Well, Hillary is toast if McCloskey gets anything over like 2%. Even with the Great Recession, there’s no way she can overcome that.
The structural setup of the U.S. political system still leans very strongly towards a two-party system. More likely it will just massively advantage the GOP.
The structural setup of the U.S. political system still leans very strongly towards a two-party system. More likely it will just massively advantage the GOP.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Yes, but what was once an obscure party: the Republicans.
If one of the two parties loses support, like the Whigs, another party could come along.
Not really. The U.S. has pretty much always had a two-party system starting with the Federalists/Democratic-Republicans, continuing with the Whigs/Dems, and with the GOP emerging pretty quickly as logical successor to the Whigs.
No, the GOP is WAY less fragile than the Whigs, and the Greens being more popular won’t do effect them.
Deleted member 109224
Looking at this, the Greens seem to only be winning in very democratic-dominated regions.
In effect, they're engaging as second-party candidates in very a region-specific manner, though growing a bit on the whole.
Democrats nominating HRC instead of Obama will benefit McCloskey.
Last edited by a moderator:
California Mayors Hope To Take Aim At Housing Crisis After Election As Economic Fears Mount
October 4, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - The housing crisis over the past year has been visible across the country, and California is no exception. Foreclosures have risen at an alarming rate across the state, but particularly in the Golden State has housing prices have fallen drastically since their peak a few years ago. The San Francisco metro area has seen the bottom drop out of the housing market as the home price index has dropped over 20 percent from its peak in 2005, with a majority of that drop coming in just the past year. The city of San Francisco itself has remained largely stable with prices mostly plateauing or seeing a drop of a few percent and foreclosure rates remain at about half a percent, the lowest in the Bay Area. However, even that minor amount is still a 160 percent increase over the number of foreclosures last year, and saw over 550 households[1].
While the economic crash has hit house owners hard, the impact of the real estate collapse has often hit renters harder than homeowners. Not only does a recession economy hurt tenants’ ability to afford rent or risk losing their leases due to unemployment, but in many states including California, no fault evictions are a standard practice that can abruptly force a renter out on the street. The rise in these no fault evictions is part of what brought several California mayors to San Francisco yesterday for a panel discussion and a call to action from the state on ways to mitigate the effects of the housing and economic crisis on low income homeowners and renters. Mayor Matt Gonzalez of San Francisco hosted the panel in his city, and invited several mayors from around the state to discuss the issue and “create a unified plan to protect the most vulnerable tenants.” Gonzalez, who himself was a renter as a county supervisor and for a brief period into his mayoral term, welcomed mayors Gayle McLaughlin of Richmond, Ron Dellums of Oakland, Donna Frye of San Diego, and Bobby Shriver of Santa Monica to the discussion. While most of the discussion panel was from the Bay Area, Donna Frye recalled how the housing crisis has been felt further south in San Diego. Frye, up for reelection to a full in November, pointed out that the San Diego County housing market plummeted by over a quarter from 2007 and that prices reached a low in the region not seen since 1995[2]. She and the other mayors present discussed the possibility of city measures such as requiring banks to notify homeowners of a possible intent to default and provide them with a point of contact to seek help, as well as greater offerings of financial assistance to borrowers before a foreclosure could be undertaken.
While they discussed city measures, a large portion of the discussion also was the five mayors giving the state a call to action on assisting not just homeowners but renters during the market crisis. In particular, mayors Gonzalez and Dellums issued public calls for the repeal of the Ellis Act, a state law governing allowances of evictions. The Ellis Act, named for former Republican state senator James Ellis of San Diego, was passed in 1985 and prohibited municipalities from outlawing a landlord’s ability to evict tenants, particularly if the landlord was going out of the rental business. Signed by Republican governor George Deukmejian, the act has in effect undermined city rent control initiatives, as frequently landlords have evicted their tenants in order to convert the property to condominiums or to demolish a property providing affordable housing, reducing the overall amount of affordable rental units. With foreclosures and rental evictions mounting from the housing crisis, the mayors reiterated the necessity of protecting and increasing affordable housing and maintaining rent control. Along with a majority of the mayors calling for the repeal of the Ellis Act, all five mayors condemned the Proposition 98 initiative on the statewide ballot in November. While framed as an eminent domain initiative prohibiting government agencies from seizing private property for commercial use, Proposition 98 has been largely backed by landlords and real estate groups and has come under fire from opponents as a means of phasing out rent control. With governor Schwarzenegger coming out against Proposition 98 in recent weeks, the fight to protect affordable housing seems to be doing well on that front, but the Ellis Act is going to be a far tougher nut to crack. The mayors of several major cities calling for its repeal is a good start, but the lack of Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was a great absence in the panel discussions.
***
Devoid of Clinton and Pataki, Third Party Debate Still Finds An Audience
October 18, 2008
NEW YORK - On Wednesday October 15, Republican George Pataki and Democrat Hillary Clinton met at Hofstra University to participate in the final presidential debate of the 2008 election. However, while most Americans were paying attention to the two contenders most likely to win the presidential election in a few weeks, that same night 20 miles away, three other presidential candidates were holding a debate at Columbia University. This debate, sponsored by C-SPAN and moderated by Democracy Now! Host Amy Goodman, featured three third party candidates. Former Georgia Representative and Libertarian nominee Bob Barr, former Assistant Secretary of State and Constitution Party nominee Alan Keyes, and former California Representative and Green Party nominee Pete McCloskey attended. While the debate was primarily aired on C-SPAN2 and so did not receive much live TV viewership, it has reached a far wider audience online. In the days since the debate was uploaded onto C-SPAN’s channel on the video sharing site Youtube, it has received over 40,000 views so far in the last three days[4].
The first topic of the hour and a half long debate was the Iraq War and foreign policy. On this issue the candidates present were largely in agreement. McCloskey fervently pronounced his opposition to the Iraq War and called for an immediate troop withdrawal. He referenced his history in opposing the war in Vietnam and the general anti-war stance of the Green Party in framing his call for an end to the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Barr also called for a withdrawal from both countries, but was called out for his vote in favor of the war by McCloskey as well as his related vote for the PATRIOT Act while in Congress in a somewhat heated exchange between the Libertarian and Green candidates. Barr said he only voted for the PATRIOT Act once his amendments for a planned sunsetting of the act were put in place, and further criticized his former party and the president. “President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary Rumsfeld sold us a mountain of lies in order to get the PATRIOT Act passed, and I regret my vote for it. I have been fighting ever since I left Congress to get the Act repealed.” Barr stated.[3] Keyes, a former foreign policy official during the Reagan administration, provided perhaps the most nuanced answer of the three candidates. Keyes agreed with McCloskey that the United States should not have become involved in Iraq and that if he were president he would not have done so. However, Keyes clarified, he believes the world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power and that “now that we’re there, we have a responsibility to remain and secure Iraq until the country can secure itself.” When moderator Amy Goodman pressed the Constitution Party candidate on his apparent reversal from his 2004 run for Senate against Barack Obama, Keyes retorted “if Bob here and Hillary are allowed to change their position, so can I.”
While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a strong focus of the debate, the biggest topic by far, much like in the debates between Clinton and Pataki, was the economy and how to claw the nation back from the continuing bank failures. In many ways, the answers from the three third party candidates mirrored those of the two major candidates. McCloskey stated his policy would include a broad economic stimulus similar to that of Hillary Clinton. However, McCloskey went further than Clinton in calling for a government takeover of the bankrupt banks and breaking them up to avoid another “disastrous cascading effect” as the Green candidate put it. McCloskey gained some exposure from a memorable quote shared widely over the past few days: “To the banking CEOs and their friends in Congress trying to bail them out, I have one thing to say. If you are too big to fail, then you are too big.” Bob Barr and Alan Keyes, meanwhile, took the opposite approach, calling efforts in Congress to pass an economic stimulus “government overreach.” In another attack on a candidate who was not present at Columbia that evening, Barr bemoaned governor Pataki’s record. Barr noted his former fellow party member’s C report card from the Cato Institute during his gubernatorial administration, adding that “like many others in the Republican Party, Pataki talks fiscal conservatism but turns into a spending machine as soon as he gets the signing pen.”
Following the debate’s airing on C-SPAN and posting to the network’s YouTube channel, C-SPAN conducted an online poll among watchers of the debate on its website to determine who won the third party debate. Over the past few days, it has received 312 responses. Of those, 119 or 38.1% think Green candidate Pete McCloskey won the debate, 98 or 31.4% think Libertarian candidate Bob Barr won the debate, and 95 or 30.5% think Constitution candidate Alan Keyes won the debate. While Keyes came in last in the poll, and while there is no notable record of the demographic breakdown of supporters, several comments on the debate’s YouTube video praised Keyes as the only black candidate for president, perhaps giving some insight into the type of voter Keyes may be able to court in the general election. The three candidates were set to meet again next week in Washington, D.C. for a debate hosted by the Free and Equal Foundation, but the last weeks of the campaign have given them all busy schedules. Barr refused and McCloskey had accepted but dropped out last week, both citing scheduling conflicts with campaign appearances. The Free and Equal Foundation declined offers by both to send party representatives instead after Keyes’ statement he would decline if Free and Equal agreed to it. Therefore, this will likely be the only chance television or online viewers will get to see any of the three third party candidates on the debate stage.
***
Tanking Economy Gives Clinton Edge In Polls, But Pataki Still Close
October 27, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC - With the American economy now firmly in the grips of a recession, the toll on the country’s markets is now spreading to a toll on the Republican Party’s hopes for November. Polls before September had shown Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate George Pataki tied for the presidential race, but with the stock market taking a dive, Pataki’s hopes for becoming president seem to be slipping away. In the past two months, several poll aggregators have gone from Clinton and Pataki tied in the polls to giving Clinton a slight edge.
The polling aggregator site RealClearPolitics has tracked polls since the primaries, and show that the Republicans peaked during the summer, when Pataki reached an average of 48.7%, leading Clinton’s 45.2%. The polls tightened soon after as the economy worsened, and Clinton soon took back the lead from the incumbent party. Pataki’s performance in the debate stemmed the bleeding and for a moment the polls had returned to a rough tie between the two around 44 percent. This was also the point where Pete McCloskey reached his height in the polling, but since then it seems voters have returned to Clinton as we near election day. The current RCP averages with barely a week and a half to go before the election have Clinton at 49.4% and Pataki at 45.8%. When the polls included McCloskey, the Green Party candidate has settled around 5.2%, which would be enough to get the Green Party guaranteed federal election funding. In those polls, McCloskey takes from both parties but does appear to attract more Clinton supporters. With McCloskey included, Clinton’s support drops to 46.7% and Pataki’s drops to 44.1%.
While Clinton has the edge in the popular vote, by any respect the electoral college result is still a tossup and the Democrats could be looking at a repeat of 2000. Among the different electoral maps from various sources including RealClearPolitics, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the Princeton Election Consortium, and a number of electoral forecasting blogs including Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight and Harry Enten’s Margin of Error, there are several tossup states that could go either way over the next ten days. These include some of the usual tossups such as Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, and Florida, but they also include a few more interesting predictions. Oregon which nearly went for Bush in 2000 and Minnesota, which voted for the Republican in 2004, are potential vital states if Pataki has a hope of winning the presidency. Meanwhile, North Carolina and western states Colorado, South Dakota, and Montana are curiously in play and would be valuable pickups for Clinton. Bill Clinton won Colorado and Montana in 1992, and if Hillary can win them once again it could show a shifting trend in the traditionally Republican leaning Mountain West and Plains states.
However, despite the appearance of many states that could go either way, the map does not look good for George Pataki and the Republicans. Even in some of the predictions with a broader range of states in play, Clinton still has an advantage of around 250 electoral votes already in hand, largely thanks to California and the Northeast. For Pataki to win, he would have to run the board with many of the tossup states, and that could be difficult to do over the next ten days now that the debates are over and with the continually struggling economy. Our predictions currently have Clinton at 254 electoral votes to Pataki’s 199 electoral votes. Clinton could overcome her current deficit just with wins in either Ohio or Florida. However, the Green Party could throw a wrench in Clinton’s plans just as they did for Gore and Kerry, so Pataki could still pull off a victory if things go right for him.
***
Bombshell Rumor: Clinton Would Appoint Pataki To Cabinet Post If She Wins
October 29, 2008
EAU CLAIRE, WI - With just a week to go before Americans go to the polls in November, a true October Surprise has popped up that could change the entire course of the electoral race. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was at a campaign stop in Eau Claire, Wisconsin earlier this week. Originally reported by alternative weekly newspaper Second Supper in La Crosse and Isthmus in Madison, an aide working with Clinton’s Wisconsin campaign team witnessed Clinton conversing with senior staffers and overhead that the Democratic candidate would be willing to give her opponent George Pataki a Cabinet position if she won the election. Further comments revealed a potential Secretary of Agriculture position for the former New York governor in a presumptive Clinton administration.
If this position by Hillary Clinton is credible, then it reveals a striking fact about the state of establishment politics in this country. Both Cinton and Pataki are New Yorkers, and with her a sitting Senator and Pataki a former governor of the state it is certain that the two have an acquaintance and a rapport together. It reached the point in the crux of the campaigns when the two frequently referred to each other as “my friend” during the debates. However, few people would expect the connections of the establishment between the Democratic and Republican parties to run so deep as for a candidate to openly consider nominating her opponent to a Cabinet post, let alone doing so before the election is over and done with. That shows a level of not just haughtiness but rot and cronyism in the current political and electoral system that is clearly evident now even at the highest levels of government.
The quotes from the aid reported in the La Crosse alternative weekly were Clinton stating that “he [Pataki] can be Secretary of Agriculture,” to other staffers while backstage at a campaign event in Eau Claire. This could be taken as an innocuous joke, but even if so, it shows the lack of seriousness the candidates from the major parties are placing on today’s issues, especially given the state of the economy and the hardships faced by working Americans. Both Clinton and Pataki are candidates beholden to the whims of Wall Street, and will at a basic level tackle issues from that perspective without considering the real change that is necessary to solve the issues facing this country today. It is tempting to say that things may have been different if Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination. Obama would have brought a younger voice and real change to the Democrats. However, the reality is the Democrats are the party of Clinton now, just as they were last decade, they are a party that is little different from the Republicans, and that are tied to each other because both benefit from trading off each other’s success without letting anyone else in. This comment from Clinton it just the latest thing to prove it.
[1] Source: https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Record-foreclosures-in-Bay-Area-state-in-2008-3253153.php
[2] Source: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...rices-tumble-24-2007-2009jan17-htmlstory.html
[3] A retooling of an actual quote Barr said during his 2008 campaign and one of the reasons he joined the Libertarian Party.
[4] For a comparison, the OTL third party C-SPAN debate between Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin has a total of 61,000 views. Over the past ten years.
October 4, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - The housing crisis over the past year has been visible across the country, and California is no exception. Foreclosures have risen at an alarming rate across the state, but particularly in the Golden State has housing prices have fallen drastically since their peak a few years ago. The San Francisco metro area has seen the bottom drop out of the housing market as the home price index has dropped over 20 percent from its peak in 2005, with a majority of that drop coming in just the past year. The city of San Francisco itself has remained largely stable with prices mostly plateauing or seeing a drop of a few percent and foreclosure rates remain at about half a percent, the lowest in the Bay Area. However, even that minor amount is still a 160 percent increase over the number of foreclosures last year, and saw over 550 households[1].
While the economic crash has hit house owners hard, the impact of the real estate collapse has often hit renters harder than homeowners. Not only does a recession economy hurt tenants’ ability to afford rent or risk losing their leases due to unemployment, but in many states including California, no fault evictions are a standard practice that can abruptly force a renter out on the street. The rise in these no fault evictions is part of what brought several California mayors to San Francisco yesterday for a panel discussion and a call to action from the state on ways to mitigate the effects of the housing and economic crisis on low income homeowners and renters. Mayor Matt Gonzalez of San Francisco hosted the panel in his city, and invited several mayors from around the state to discuss the issue and “create a unified plan to protect the most vulnerable tenants.” Gonzalez, who himself was a renter as a county supervisor and for a brief period into his mayoral term, welcomed mayors Gayle McLaughlin of Richmond, Ron Dellums of Oakland, Donna Frye of San Diego, and Bobby Shriver of Santa Monica to the discussion. While most of the discussion panel was from the Bay Area, Donna Frye recalled how the housing crisis has been felt further south in San Diego. Frye, up for reelection to a full in November, pointed out that the San Diego County housing market plummeted by over a quarter from 2007 and that prices reached a low in the region not seen since 1995[2]. She and the other mayors present discussed the possibility of city measures such as requiring banks to notify homeowners of a possible intent to default and provide them with a point of contact to seek help, as well as greater offerings of financial assistance to borrowers before a foreclosure could be undertaken.
While they discussed city measures, a large portion of the discussion also was the five mayors giving the state a call to action on assisting not just homeowners but renters during the market crisis. In particular, mayors Gonzalez and Dellums issued public calls for the repeal of the Ellis Act, a state law governing allowances of evictions. The Ellis Act, named for former Republican state senator James Ellis of San Diego, was passed in 1985 and prohibited municipalities from outlawing a landlord’s ability to evict tenants, particularly if the landlord was going out of the rental business. Signed by Republican governor George Deukmejian, the act has in effect undermined city rent control initiatives, as frequently landlords have evicted their tenants in order to convert the property to condominiums or to demolish a property providing affordable housing, reducing the overall amount of affordable rental units. With foreclosures and rental evictions mounting from the housing crisis, the mayors reiterated the necessity of protecting and increasing affordable housing and maintaining rent control. Along with a majority of the mayors calling for the repeal of the Ellis Act, all five mayors condemned the Proposition 98 initiative on the statewide ballot in November. While framed as an eminent domain initiative prohibiting government agencies from seizing private property for commercial use, Proposition 98 has been largely backed by landlords and real estate groups and has come under fire from opponents as a means of phasing out rent control. With governor Schwarzenegger coming out against Proposition 98 in recent weeks, the fight to protect affordable housing seems to be doing well on that front, but the Ellis Act is going to be a far tougher nut to crack. The mayors of several major cities calling for its repeal is a good start, but the lack of Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was a great absence in the panel discussions.
***
Devoid of Clinton and Pataki, Third Party Debate Still Finds An Audience
October 18, 2008
NEW YORK - On Wednesday October 15, Republican George Pataki and Democrat Hillary Clinton met at Hofstra University to participate in the final presidential debate of the 2008 election. However, while most Americans were paying attention to the two contenders most likely to win the presidential election in a few weeks, that same night 20 miles away, three other presidential candidates were holding a debate at Columbia University. This debate, sponsored by C-SPAN and moderated by Democracy Now! Host Amy Goodman, featured three third party candidates. Former Georgia Representative and Libertarian nominee Bob Barr, former Assistant Secretary of State and Constitution Party nominee Alan Keyes, and former California Representative and Green Party nominee Pete McCloskey attended. While the debate was primarily aired on C-SPAN2 and so did not receive much live TV viewership, it has reached a far wider audience online. In the days since the debate was uploaded onto C-SPAN’s channel on the video sharing site Youtube, it has received over 40,000 views so far in the last three days[4].
The first topic of the hour and a half long debate was the Iraq War and foreign policy. On this issue the candidates present were largely in agreement. McCloskey fervently pronounced his opposition to the Iraq War and called for an immediate troop withdrawal. He referenced his history in opposing the war in Vietnam and the general anti-war stance of the Green Party in framing his call for an end to the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Barr also called for a withdrawal from both countries, but was called out for his vote in favor of the war by McCloskey as well as his related vote for the PATRIOT Act while in Congress in a somewhat heated exchange between the Libertarian and Green candidates. Barr said he only voted for the PATRIOT Act once his amendments for a planned sunsetting of the act were put in place, and further criticized his former party and the president. “President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary Rumsfeld sold us a mountain of lies in order to get the PATRIOT Act passed, and I regret my vote for it. I have been fighting ever since I left Congress to get the Act repealed.” Barr stated.[3] Keyes, a former foreign policy official during the Reagan administration, provided perhaps the most nuanced answer of the three candidates. Keyes agreed with McCloskey that the United States should not have become involved in Iraq and that if he were president he would not have done so. However, Keyes clarified, he believes the world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power and that “now that we’re there, we have a responsibility to remain and secure Iraq until the country can secure itself.” When moderator Amy Goodman pressed the Constitution Party candidate on his apparent reversal from his 2004 run for Senate against Barack Obama, Keyes retorted “if Bob here and Hillary are allowed to change their position, so can I.”
While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a strong focus of the debate, the biggest topic by far, much like in the debates between Clinton and Pataki, was the economy and how to claw the nation back from the continuing bank failures. In many ways, the answers from the three third party candidates mirrored those of the two major candidates. McCloskey stated his policy would include a broad economic stimulus similar to that of Hillary Clinton. However, McCloskey went further than Clinton in calling for a government takeover of the bankrupt banks and breaking them up to avoid another “disastrous cascading effect” as the Green candidate put it. McCloskey gained some exposure from a memorable quote shared widely over the past few days: “To the banking CEOs and their friends in Congress trying to bail them out, I have one thing to say. If you are too big to fail, then you are too big.” Bob Barr and Alan Keyes, meanwhile, took the opposite approach, calling efforts in Congress to pass an economic stimulus “government overreach.” In another attack on a candidate who was not present at Columbia that evening, Barr bemoaned governor Pataki’s record. Barr noted his former fellow party member’s C report card from the Cato Institute during his gubernatorial administration, adding that “like many others in the Republican Party, Pataki talks fiscal conservatism but turns into a spending machine as soon as he gets the signing pen.”
Following the debate’s airing on C-SPAN and posting to the network’s YouTube channel, C-SPAN conducted an online poll among watchers of the debate on its website to determine who won the third party debate. Over the past few days, it has received 312 responses. Of those, 119 or 38.1% think Green candidate Pete McCloskey won the debate, 98 or 31.4% think Libertarian candidate Bob Barr won the debate, and 95 or 30.5% think Constitution candidate Alan Keyes won the debate. While Keyes came in last in the poll, and while there is no notable record of the demographic breakdown of supporters, several comments on the debate’s YouTube video praised Keyes as the only black candidate for president, perhaps giving some insight into the type of voter Keyes may be able to court in the general election. The three candidates were set to meet again next week in Washington, D.C. for a debate hosted by the Free and Equal Foundation, but the last weeks of the campaign have given them all busy schedules. Barr refused and McCloskey had accepted but dropped out last week, both citing scheduling conflicts with campaign appearances. The Free and Equal Foundation declined offers by both to send party representatives instead after Keyes’ statement he would decline if Free and Equal agreed to it. Therefore, this will likely be the only chance television or online viewers will get to see any of the three third party candidates on the debate stage.
***
Tanking Economy Gives Clinton Edge In Polls, But Pataki Still Close
October 27, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC - With the American economy now firmly in the grips of a recession, the toll on the country’s markets is now spreading to a toll on the Republican Party’s hopes for November. Polls before September had shown Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate George Pataki tied for the presidential race, but with the stock market taking a dive, Pataki’s hopes for becoming president seem to be slipping away. In the past two months, several poll aggregators have gone from Clinton and Pataki tied in the polls to giving Clinton a slight edge.
The polling aggregator site RealClearPolitics has tracked polls since the primaries, and show that the Republicans peaked during the summer, when Pataki reached an average of 48.7%, leading Clinton’s 45.2%. The polls tightened soon after as the economy worsened, and Clinton soon took back the lead from the incumbent party. Pataki’s performance in the debate stemmed the bleeding and for a moment the polls had returned to a rough tie between the two around 44 percent. This was also the point where Pete McCloskey reached his height in the polling, but since then it seems voters have returned to Clinton as we near election day. The current RCP averages with barely a week and a half to go before the election have Clinton at 49.4% and Pataki at 45.8%. When the polls included McCloskey, the Green Party candidate has settled around 5.2%, which would be enough to get the Green Party guaranteed federal election funding. In those polls, McCloskey takes from both parties but does appear to attract more Clinton supporters. With McCloskey included, Clinton’s support drops to 46.7% and Pataki’s drops to 44.1%.
While Clinton has the edge in the popular vote, by any respect the electoral college result is still a tossup and the Democrats could be looking at a repeat of 2000. Among the different electoral maps from various sources including RealClearPolitics, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the Princeton Election Consortium, and a number of electoral forecasting blogs including Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight and Harry Enten’s Margin of Error, there are several tossup states that could go either way over the next ten days. These include some of the usual tossups such as Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, and Florida, but they also include a few more interesting predictions. Oregon which nearly went for Bush in 2000 and Minnesota, which voted for the Republican in 2004, are potential vital states if Pataki has a hope of winning the presidency. Meanwhile, North Carolina and western states Colorado, South Dakota, and Montana are curiously in play and would be valuable pickups for Clinton. Bill Clinton won Colorado and Montana in 1992, and if Hillary can win them once again it could show a shifting trend in the traditionally Republican leaning Mountain West and Plains states.
However, despite the appearance of many states that could go either way, the map does not look good for George Pataki and the Republicans. Even in some of the predictions with a broader range of states in play, Clinton still has an advantage of around 250 electoral votes already in hand, largely thanks to California and the Northeast. For Pataki to win, he would have to run the board with many of the tossup states, and that could be difficult to do over the next ten days now that the debates are over and with the continually struggling economy. Our predictions currently have Clinton at 254 electoral votes to Pataki’s 199 electoral votes. Clinton could overcome her current deficit just with wins in either Ohio or Florida. However, the Green Party could throw a wrench in Clinton’s plans just as they did for Gore and Kerry, so Pataki could still pull off a victory if things go right for him.
***
Bombshell Rumor: Clinton Would Appoint Pataki To Cabinet Post If She Wins
October 29, 2008
EAU CLAIRE, WI - With just a week to go before Americans go to the polls in November, a true October Surprise has popped up that could change the entire course of the electoral race. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was at a campaign stop in Eau Claire, Wisconsin earlier this week. Originally reported by alternative weekly newspaper Second Supper in La Crosse and Isthmus in Madison, an aide working with Clinton’s Wisconsin campaign team witnessed Clinton conversing with senior staffers and overhead that the Democratic candidate would be willing to give her opponent George Pataki a Cabinet position if she won the election. Further comments revealed a potential Secretary of Agriculture position for the former New York governor in a presumptive Clinton administration.
If this position by Hillary Clinton is credible, then it reveals a striking fact about the state of establishment politics in this country. Both Cinton and Pataki are New Yorkers, and with her a sitting Senator and Pataki a former governor of the state it is certain that the two have an acquaintance and a rapport together. It reached the point in the crux of the campaigns when the two frequently referred to each other as “my friend” during the debates. However, few people would expect the connections of the establishment between the Democratic and Republican parties to run so deep as for a candidate to openly consider nominating her opponent to a Cabinet post, let alone doing so before the election is over and done with. That shows a level of not just haughtiness but rot and cronyism in the current political and electoral system that is clearly evident now even at the highest levels of government.
The quotes from the aid reported in the La Crosse alternative weekly were Clinton stating that “he [Pataki] can be Secretary of Agriculture,” to other staffers while backstage at a campaign event in Eau Claire. This could be taken as an innocuous joke, but even if so, it shows the lack of seriousness the candidates from the major parties are placing on today’s issues, especially given the state of the economy and the hardships faced by working Americans. Both Clinton and Pataki are candidates beholden to the whims of Wall Street, and will at a basic level tackle issues from that perspective without considering the real change that is necessary to solve the issues facing this country today. It is tempting to say that things may have been different if Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination. Obama would have brought a younger voice and real change to the Democrats. However, the reality is the Democrats are the party of Clinton now, just as they were last decade, they are a party that is little different from the Republicans, and that are tied to each other because both benefit from trading off each other’s success without letting anyone else in. This comment from Clinton it just the latest thing to prove it.
[1] Source: https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Record-foreclosures-in-Bay-Area-state-in-2008-3253153.php
[2] Source: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...rices-tumble-24-2007-2009jan17-htmlstory.html
[3] A retooling of an actual quote Barr said during his 2008 campaign and one of the reasons he joined the Libertarian Party.
[4] For a comparison, the OTL third party C-SPAN debate between Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin has a total of 61,000 views. Over the past ten years.