My name is Catherine Morgan, I'm a writer, nurse, mother, and founder of "The Political Voices of Women". This is a blog dedicated to inform and educate the voting public through articles, ideas, and links. It's also a way of giving myself a voice, rather than just sitting back and watching politics and my opinion go by.
--- I am now also at the Care2 Election Blog.
Why is the Bush administration trying to tie the economic stimulus package to giving the telecoms immunity and the surveillance program?
This makes no sense at all to me. Actually, it makes total sense, if you are an administration that wants to hold the American people hostage. [Here are some checks for all of you financially struggling people…But, we are only going to give them to you if your representatives sign a bill to let us spy on you.] What the…what??? This is the kind of thing that makes people feel that their government isn’t looking out for them, and their elected officials can’t be trusted. This is the kind of thing that should not happen.
Tonight the Republicans debated in California at the Reagan Library. It basically turned into a mini slug-fest between McCain and Romney. Just in case you missed it, here are a couple of video clips and links to posts on the debate.
Democratic candidate John Edwards has decided to drop out of the presidential primary race, giving a speech this afternoon at the same place where he began this campaign — in New Orleans.
READ FULL POST AT THE CARE2 ELECTION BLOG (with updates to follow 1PM announcement)
I’m a disenfranchised voter in Florida, and happy to be voting today anyway. I have to admit, I’ve been more than a little annoyed with this whole Florida delegates don’t count thing. This morning was no different. Especially after I came across this post over at BlueBloggin - Clinton Breaks Pledge and Heads to Florida…
Hillary Clinton along with all the other Democratic candidates pledged not to campaign in Florida, however Hillary will appear in Florida on Tuesday. How can anyone trust or believe what Clinton says. It’s obvious that Hillary doesn’t play or obey the same rules everyone else does.
Obviously, this person has a bone to pick with Hillary. And quite frankly, it very well may be obvious that Hillary doesn’t “play by the rules”. But, as a disenfranchised voter of Florida, I have a couple of things to say about this.
#1 - Hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters in Florida are being told that their [primary] vote does not matter. Even worse, the candidates have signed pledges to make sure the voters of Florida know that they just don’t care.
I don’t normally think endorsements are all that important. However, when the family of President John F. Kennedy endorses a candidate, I think that’s a pretty big deal. Especially, when they are comparing that candidates to one of America’s most beloved presidents. Both Sen. Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, have just announced their support of Barack Obama.
I think this endorsement is huge for Obama, and I also think it could hurt the Clinton campaign more than people realize. Of all the endorsements, I believe this one has the power to move large groups of voters away from Hillary and to Obama.
As the House planned a vote Tuesday on a plan that would speed rebates of up to $600 to most income earners — more for couples and families with children — the Senate was planning to draft its own measure with the add-ons, said senior Senate aides in both parties, speaking on condition of anonymity because the package is not yet final.
The move was in defiance of admonitions from the Bush administration not to risk derailing the deal with changes, and it threatened to slow what was shaping up as an extraordinarily rapid trip through Congress for the stimulus measure.
Adding rebates for senior citizens living solely off — who are ineligible under the plan hatched by House leaders and the White House — would likely mean doling out smaller rebates overall, shrinking the size of the payments from $600 to $500, according to a senior Senate aide.
Even though I didn’t do the early voting thing here in Florida, roughly 750,000 other voters did. This could throw a real monkey wrench into the outcome of our primary. Talk about a pollster and pundit nightmare.
Now the question is - How will this early voting affect the results of the primary? Take Giuliani. When early voting began, he looked like a ’shoe in’, but his performance in the Florida debate was less than impressive.
“Rudy’s people have aggressively worked the absentees, particularly in South Florida,” said Sally Bradshaw, a longtime Florida Republican operative who is running Mr. Romney’s campaign here. “It makes sense for them to do so. They knew Rudy was not strong in the early primary states and they needed people to vote for Rudy before the results from that state came on.” — Read full article at The New York Times
That’s exactly why I’m not really a fan of early voting - what if by election day you want to change your mind? I tend to make my mind up only shortly before election day. [Example: As of today, I am still somewhat undecided about who I will be voting for tomorrow.] But, even though it’s not right for me, I wouldn’t want to get rid of early voting, I like that it allows for more voter participation. And the extra bonus of confusing the pollsters, is kinda fun too.
Even though Giuliani has slipped badly in the polls, if his campaign was successful in getting out the early vote, he still has a chance here. And, the pollsters have had Hillary leading for the Democrats…But, Obama actually has had campaign ads running here (when no other Democrat has). Plus, with his momentum from South Carolina, who knows? Obama could still have a chance here on Tuesday.
So, it should be interesting to see how this all shakes out on Tuesday. Personally, I’m still mad about the whole “punishment” thing by the DNC over moving up our primary. And, I’m generally not happy with any of the three Democrats, because of their lack of desire to stand-up to the DNC. In a way, I don’t really look at my vote on Tuesday as a vote for a specific candidate, so much as a vote to show the DNC that Florida is relevant.
In a not so big surprise, Barack Obama wins the South Carolina primary. What was a surprise though, was the large margin that he won by.
With 99 percent of the electoral precincts reporting, Mr. Obama had 55 percent of the vote, Mrs. Clinton had 27 percent, and Mr. Edwards had 18 percent. — The New York Times
I hope the results of this primary has shown the Clinton campaign, that using Bill Clinton to serve as Hillary’s attack dog, is not the way to go. Ultimately, the only candidates that will benefit from this type of behavior, are the Republicans. And, even though John Edwards didn’t do so great in South Carolina today…He was the only voice of maturity and reason this entire week.
With that said…Barack Obama delivered another “slam-dunk” victory speech tonight. This is a man that can really inspire and empower a crowd. If you missed this speech, it is definitely worth watching…
One of the things we are going to start doing on the Care2 Election Blog, is have a Friday blog round-up. Each round-up will consist of ten blogs, with posts on various political issues from the week. At the moment, I have two ways to surf for political blogs; 1) Google Blog Search, and 2) List of Women Political Bloggers. If you have a blog that you would like me to consider for a future Friday round-up, feel free to leave your link in the comments of this post. I hope you enjoy the blogs we’ve picked for our first week.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Stop the Spying campaign asks for people all over the U.S. to send photos and videos of their opposition to the telecom immunity bill. Here’s mine:
McConnell has called for a cloture vote on the SSCI Bill (the one that gives the telecoms–and therefore Dick Cheney–immunity). The vote is scheduled for 4:30 PM on Monday, just hours before the State of the Union. If the Republicans win the cloture vote, then the SSCI bill will almost certainly become law–and you will have fewer protections against improper government surveillance.
To be honest, this debate has been a snore. But here are a couple of semi-interesting moments. In the first, Mike Huckabee makes some sense on the economic stimulus. He says, essentially, if we’re going to borrow $150 billion from China to finance the stimulus package, why not use it to do something useful instead of just handing it over to be spent on goods imported from China?
This election year is historic in many ways. The most obvious, of course, are that the contenders Clinton and Obama, are the first woman and first person of color who are serious contenders for the White House.
Somewhat overshadowed, however, is the new emphasis on religion in this election.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), a senior member of the Armed Services Committee and former Army Ranger, just returned from his 11th trip to Iraq. Speaking to reporters today about his trip, Reed rebutted conservatives’ assertions of success in Iraq:
First, the surge has not achieved the president’s principal stated objectives, which are political in nature. […]
The America’s Giving Challenge will be over in another ten days. Thanks to the generosity of everyone here, we are still in the running to win the $50,000K. If we win, we can help many children like Mon Channy have a better life. And all for a donation of $10 and asking your friends to do the same.
In a news conference yesterday, Dennis Kucinich announced he will Drop Out of the Presidential Election today. Kucinich has been excluded from several Democratic debates and virtually ignored by the media. He will now be focusing on his re-election in Ohio. Here is a YouTube clip of this announcement from yesterday, I’ll add more information to this post as I get it later today.
To start with, the candidates didn’t want to do a full two hour debate, so MSNBC agreed to cut it down to an hour and a half. I was tremendously disappointed with this decision. Well, not really (I was actually fighting off a happy dance). Sorry, I guess I kind of have a love/hate relationship with these debates.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad debate. Who won??? Some are saying McCain (I think he falls on the economy, and he outright lied about a statement he made on the economy), some say Huckabee (I did like his explanation of the fair tax), and others are saying Romney (even though they says he’s a flip-flopper, he seems like he has a strong message on the economy). Ron Paul didn’t get a lot of time, but he did make some good points. Interestingly enough, no one seemed to think Giuliani was the winner (I would have to agree). I’m not so sure who the winner was, but I think it could have been Hillary (they actually talked about her tonight more than anything else).
There was obviously a conscious effort not to attack and fight with each other. The Republicans were definitely playing nice tonight, I know that probably disappointed the pundits, but it made me happy.
Here are some other interesting spots to check out…
Here is a quick look at the the Bush stimulus/tax rebate plan, and some reaction to it. Even though this is a breaking news story today, the deal still has to pass the Senate. Personally, I’m a little skeptical.
Breaking: Economic Stimulus and Tax Rebate Agreement
WASHINGTON - Congressional leaders completed a deal Thursday with the White House on an economic stimulus package that would give most tax filers refunds of $600 to $1,200, and more if they have children.
NOTE:This plan must still pass the Senate.
Also See:
Does Bill Clinton Need A Time Out? — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at Care2 Election Blog and The Political Voices of Women)
Bill Clinton is not on the ballot for the presidential campaign, but he is getting a lot of attention this week in South Carolina. I would say that his behavior over the last few days has been not only disappointing, but seriously un-presidential like, especially on Wednesday…
DILLON, S.C. - Bill Clinton said Wednesday he expects blacks to vote for Barack Obama and women to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the dynamic may cause his wife to lose the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary Saturday.
The comments by the former president — who also lashed out at Obama and the news media — mark one of the starkest commentaries yet on the possible role of race, although it has been a subtext of the Obama-Clinton rivalry for months.
Even though this type of behavior and controversy makes better political fodder for pundits and ratings, it’s this kind of thing that really turns people off to the process. I’ve expressed my displeasure with this type of campaigning before, and my feelings have not changed. Campaigns do a disservice to the voting public by not focusing on the issues. Voters deserve to hear the issues important to our country…not just bickering and rhetoric.
Don’t get me wrong…I like Bill Clinton, in fact I’m somewhat concerned about him. I realize he is very passionate about supporting his wife for president, but I would suggest that he may be overworked. Even for a healthy person (and lets not forget that it was just 3 years ago that Bill Clinton had heart bypass surgery), the pace of his schedule must be physically and emotionally exhausting. Please, give this man a time-out or something. Even if I’m wrong, and Bill isn’t totally exhausted, he still needs to take a break. It seems to me, that his recent behavior will ultimately hurt Hillary and the democratic party - by giving any Republican nominee an open door for this same type of attack.
