He Can't?????

crow on a post is right.Rep. leaders have no morals when it comes to Republicans. that' because they are above the law. One of the perks.

No I only have a deep loathing of people who take parts of information & extrapolate it on a whole group of people. I Have always had a profound respect for our citizen soldiers in this country. They do an amazing job. They are a tool. A powerful tool an important tool. When that tool is used by an administration to create preemptive wars that are HORRIBLY botched. That use no bid contracting, war profiteering, use our soldiers to guard Halliburtan subsidiaries who make $100,000 a year while these soldiers make nothing, that I find it criminally worthy of anger. Deeply disrespectful of our citizen soldiers & far worse than a botched Joke from Kerry.

You want to throw crap like a monkey about Liberals loathing the armed services when it is your rampant ignorance & stupidity for making such an infantile statement thats the most 'classically ignorant commentary on your parties mentality today, go ahead. I dare say while you may wear a yellow ribbon & say Yaay soldiers they are having to pay for their own ticket to get back home, after 2 to 3 tours of duty that they didn't have a choice to be put back into. In an Illegal war that had nothing to do with the War On Terror. & you back this stupidity & say you support the soldiers & Liberals loath them.
May you live in interesting times....


Well maybe you are a stupid Desert Storm Vet with your degree from Devry. I don't know.
I happen to know a lot of Intelligent Desert Storm Vets & they see the difference between false arguments & real people being used for an illegal war & not being taken care of.

I'm sorry that you can only argue with talking point information spoon fed to you by an incredibly biased corporate media. That's quite small of you.

If you need to get some info that might 'enlighten you' about the botched joke vs. the botched war by a President & vice President who have never served & have no idea what it's like for our citizen soldiers.

Go here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8yp5Gpo3G4

Good luck & maybe you should try to further your degree.

I did not attempt to connect Kerry's loathing of the military to all democrats, only to a group of like minded individuals making up a specific wing of the democratic party that currently is setting the agenda for the entire party.

What exactly is it that makes you think the occupation of Iraq has been horribly botched?? The rate of American casualties is extremely low when compared to past conflicts. We have accomplished many of our goals since we began the occupation. As far as the troops gaurding Haliburton stuff..... what is wrong with that? If American workers are in Iraq trying to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure, and Arab insurgents are trying to stop that work and destroy the infrastructure, why is it wrong for our troops to protect civilians working to rebuild Iraq?? Who gives a flying fuck what Haliburton corporate executives make? Large companies hire good businessmen to be CEOs and other high up positions because they have a record of making money, that is why they are well paid. Just like professional atheletes, good players help their teams to win, and those teams will pay well for that kind of edge. Why does it matter? We dont live in a socialist country, so stop crying about people making more money than you like its against the damn law.

Dont presume to lecture me about wearing a yellow ribbon but not really supporting the troops because I just dont know what its like to be a soldier. I served in the navy for 8 years, and did several extended deployments to the gulf totaling nearly 3 years at sea. I missed the birth of my first son while cruising off the coast of Syria during a medeteranean deployment. I worked 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8 months at a time asshole. I VOLUNTEERED for all of this. I read (most of us can read too) the contract, and signed it. The pay isnt great, but its not that bad either when all of the benifits are considered. Go ahead though, tell me how the navy isnt the real military because we dont dig fox holes. Trash the military some more buddy. Pray tell where did you serve?

Again with the constant attempts to belittle the education of anybody who did not go to a major university. You really are an elitist no matter how venomous your denunciation of the statement. What your saying is, (I'm not saying the soldiers are stupid, I know several of them who agree with me, I'm just saying all of the soldiers who went to community college and who disagree with me are stupid, understand idiot soldier?)

So, you are admitting you can't make it make sense as a joke either. I thought as much.

__________________

Liberal-a person who has his cake, eats his cake, and complains that other people don't have cake, and believes that you should donate your cake to them

I will put my degree in Petroleum Geology from The University of Maryland up against whatever GED Program you attended at night.

__________________

Liberal-a person who has his cake, eats his cake, and complains that other people don't have cake, and believes that you should donate your cake to them

IT looks like what you say you loath
you do in the fisrt paragraph of your post.

typical lib

I have no problem with free market economic systems. That's the point of bid contracts so you can get the best deal to get a job done. What I have a huge problem with is a company, any company that fleeces our tax dollars for Billions of dollars, uses our citizen soldiers on the cheap & does nothing to rebuild the infrastructure of the society that we liberated. Any business that runs that bad is well bad business.

The reason there are 'insurgents' attacking the American interests is quite simply they waited a year after the occupation for the US to rebuild. Haliburton just stole from the country & didn't help rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure & did not allow any other company to bid in an open free market system to do the proper job. So Duh the people revolt against the occupation.

Again making money is great no one is 'crying about it' How about in the future you guys stop complaining about your taxes because right now that's how halliburton is making their money. Stealing our tax dollars, not making a product or a service.....Were you got the, I can only guess as mental lib fantasy projection 'socialist country' crap in what I said is way beyond me.

I like simple things like Rule of law, Accountability & truly free market systems not Monopolistic no bid fleecing of our tax dollars. Regardless of what frat 'party you choose to be apart of this is wrong.

Um I wasn't speaking to you personally asshole, thanks for choosing to see it as a personal assault on you. I don't know your story & couldn't presume to know. When I said yellow ribbon I was observing what I see on the streets with peoples cars but I'm glad you are offended.
Now hold that feeling, savor it & please try to remember that feeling when you or others make generalized statements about democrats or liberals. Because like you they are complicated & nuanced human beings. Like we all are as U.S. Citizens.
I'm glad you take offense. That rage & feeling of frustration at how dare anyone challenge my patriotism or support or care for the troops is well exactly what I & most people feel when we here people like you demonize & lump a whole group of people as a stereotype to hate. Fucking sucks doesn't it. Asshole.

I do not even understand your reference. You must be having a conversation with yourself.
I do not care where a U. S. citizen comes from or where their education is all who join the armed forces are fellow Americans. Some are stupid, like some Americans. Some are brilliant like some Americans. Most are somewhere between like most Americans but all have a great beauty & light within them because we are all interesting, fascinating people.

If you wish to call me elitist then fine I'm elitist I'll take that honor. It's nice to know that a midwestern hillbilly trailer park trash can be perceived as mentally superior to you. You said it. I didn't. I'll take it.

I am the enlightened Elitist bow before me you little people....

Again I don't get your reference....I never thought anything negative of the Navy. Never singled it out & I have no idea who you are ranting to. If it was meant for someone else forgive me for intruding, honestly.

What? You guys always say back it up show me the proof. I went even better & gave you Audio with visual in that new fangled medium called video.

It was still too hard for you to get the self evident statement. Why do I have to write out the words when the whole thing was conveniently displayed for you & stated succinclty & clearly by Keith Oberman. If you can't handle the facts & can only try to make snide comments well fine go ahead just makes you look well uninformed & reactive.

I have to admit that was funny, good one!

So in response I will tell you my online GED from the Dominican republic was the best stolen credit card money I ever spent. So theyr.


Instead of saying you do in the first paragraph typical lib, why don't you break that down because I don't get your rather trite response.
I am open to loathing the very same thing I do. It's a part of why I would have an emotional reaction to anything stated here. On a certain level I do the same things I dislike too. Wow welcome to the human race....
Next.

Also to clarify this stereotyping of me as a typical Lib. Sorry but I'm more complicated than that & your snide remark only reinforces why what I said was correct. It seems there's always this talking point demonizing everyone into these stupid binary dialogs of either Liberal or Conservative.

Quite simply I am liberal about caring for people & conservative on economic policies. I am both & neither. Sorry not going to be put in your preschool bianary intellectual dynamic.

Parties Crank Up Voter Turnout Efforts
Amid the Last-Minute Blitz, Some Polls Hold Positive Signs for Republicans

By Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 6, 2006; A01



Republicans seized on signs of movement in their direction yesterday as they unleashed a massive election-eve voter mobilization operation in an effort to stave off potentially substantial losses in the House and preserve at least a slender majority in the Senate.

Democrats answered the Republicans' get-out-the-vote machinery with intensified efforts to contact infrequent and still-undecided voters in a handful of tight Senate races as well as in more than two dozen GOP-held House districts where races were too close to call.

A Pew Research Center poll showed a significant narrowing in the partisan advantage in House races that the Democrats have enjoyed for much of the year, findings that echoed those of a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Saturday showing the Democrats with a six-point edge.

The Pew poll showed that the Democratic advantage had dropped to 47 percent to Republicans' 43 percent among likely voters, down from 50 percent to 39 percent two weeks ago. The poll found a drop in Democratic support among independents, but Pew Director Andrew Kohut said the most significant change over the past two weeks is that Republicans now outnumber Democrats among likely voters.

Separately, a USA Today/Gallup Poll showed Democrats leading Republicans by 51 percent to 44 percent among likely voters on the "generic vote" -- the question of which party voters intend to support in House races -- down from a 13-percentage-point advantage two weeks ago. But the newspaper noted Republicans enjoyed a similar 7-point edge on the eve of their 1994 landslide victory.

Other weekend polls by Time and Newsweek magazines continued to show Republicans at a steep disadvantage, with Democrats enjoying double-digit margins in party preferences for the House.

GOP strategists said they think their prospects continue to improve as voters digest the guilty verdict against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, positive economic statistics and the prospect of Democrats taking control of one or both chambers of the legislative branch. "I have always believed that Republican voters in many cases come home later, particularly this year," said Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

President Bush campaigned yesterday in two conservative Plains states, Nebraska and Kansas, where there are no competitive statewide races but where Kansas Rep. Jim Ryun (R) is in trouble and where Nebraska state Sen. Adrian Smith (R) is struggling to win an open seat in a heavily Republican district.

A senior GOP strategist said party officials anticipated that the generic vote would tighten, but they do not consider the shift significant enough to change the contours of this election. More than 20 GOP incumbents are tied with their opponents heading into the final days. "It is the 50-50 districts that turnout can help," said the strategist, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to talk about strategy.

Democrats, mindful of the Republicans' success in getting their voters to the polls in the past two elections, expressed nervousness at signs of tightening in some national polls. But they said private and some public polling in contested House districts continued to show their party in a position to win enough seats to claim the majority.

"I don't know what to make of it," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Senate races in Virginia, Missouri and Montana, all for seats currently held by Republicans, remained among the closest in the country. Contests in Republican-held Tennessee and Democratic-held Maryland looked tight as well, depending on the poll. One survey showed the race in Rhode Island, a state Democrats must take to win the Senate, very close.

Strategists sought solace in any survey that looked good, but with less than 48 hours remaining before the polls close on Tuesday, both parties concentrated on direct voter contact, built on months of sophisticated analysis of the electorate and microtargeting of tens of millions of voters around the country.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee expected to spend roughly $25 million on its voter mobilization efforts; the DCCC was set to spend $10 million. The Democratic National Committee has given the other committees about $8 million for get-out-the-vote activities.

The Republican National Committee planned to expend about $30 million on its operations. While that was less than the Democrats, Republicans began with a significant advantage in technology and information, having spent tens of millions in earlier campaigns building voter lists and modeling the electorate. Democrats have tried to create those models this year.

Democratic strategists said privately that overall, there is less money flowing into key states this year than during the 2004 presidential election.

Democrats and Republicans were both counting on help from outside groups. Conservative groups were contacting their supporters, while progressive groups like MoveOn.org and America Votes were turning up their operations. MoveOn.org members made 800,000 phone calls yesterday and plan another 1.2 million each today and Tuesday. Organized labor said it would put 30,000 volunteers on the streets to contact union members.

Both sides boasted about their turnout operations. Democrats said they have signed up one volunteer for every 21 voters in Montana, while Republicans said they directly contacted one in 10 registered voters in that state on Saturday alone.

In Missouri, Democrats planned to contact several hundred thousand "drop-off voters" -- those who vote in presidential but not midterm elections -- and tens of thousands of undecided voters before Tuesday. Republicans were contacting about 200,000 targeted Missouri voters a day.

GOP officials said their biggest concern is the inability to turn out voters in districts they did not originally consider at risk. "We're able to move financial resources, but it's almost impossible to get human resources" into these newly competitive districts, said the GOP strategist.

It was that reality that took Bush to the Plains states yesterday. In heavily Republican districts, aides said, the president could make up for what the NRCC could not do. But Bush's weekend schedule also showed that, because he has less sway with independents, there are many districts where his presence could do as much harm as good.

In another sign of how Bush's market value has fallen, Florida gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist said yesterday that he would skip the president's rally in Pensacola this morning. The White House put the Florida stop on Bush's election-eve schedule specifically to promote Crist, only to be embarrassed by his last-minute defection. That will make the most prominent Florida politician appearing at the event Senate candidate Rep. Katherine Harris, who appears headed for a crushing defeat and whom the Bush family has tried to avoid this fall.

Elsewhere, in New Hampshire, Rep. Charles Bass (R) has seen his 20-point lead evaporate in the past five weeks, leaving the RNC with little time to implement even a bare-bones version of its mobilization plan, known as the 72-hour program. "We are not counting on them," said Matt Hagerty, campaign manager for Bass.

Instead, Bass is using an old-fashioned operation that relies on volunteers calling supporters, knocking on their doors and sending out 40,000 e-mails reminding them to vote. "We are running the same operation the congressman has run for the last six cycles," Hagerty said.

The DCCC identified 40 competitive districts in September and has continued to focus on them, rather than trying to build get-out-the-vote operations in some of these districts that have unexpected opportunities. Bass's Democratic challenger, Paul Hodes, is getting strategic advice from the DCCC but is relying mostly on a network of volunteers to turn out voters.

"You cannot buy G.O.T.V.," said Dana Houle, campaign manager for Hodes, referring to get-out-the-vote efforts. "You have to lay the foundation in terms of volunteer recruitment months beforehand."

Turnout operations can affect only races that are decided by a few thousand votes. With this in mind, the Philadelphia suburbs have become a key battleground. Both sides anticipated that the rematch between Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.) and Democrat Lois Murphy could be decided by a percentage point or two, both plowed resources into the race over the summer in preparation for the final 72 hours of the campaign, and both expressed confidence in their operations.

But it is impossible to determine how voters will react. One group of GOP volunteers hit a leafy neighborhood over the weekend to rally support for Gerlach, but they made contact with only five of 73 GOP households they approached.

Activity has been especially intense in Indiana's 2nd District, where Rep. Chris Chocola (R) faces possible defeat by Democrat Joe Donnelly. Republicans said they contacted 124,000 households in recent days -- more than half of all households in the district. One Donnelly canvasser visited so many households in the Logansport area that the local marshal forced him to register as a solicitor.

Contributing to this report were staff writers Peter Baker in Grand Island, Neb.; Charles Babington in St. Louis; Jeffrey Birnbaum in Logansport, Ind.; Juliet Eilperin in Blue Bell, Pa.; and Blaine Harden in Billings, Mont.

Washington Post

November 6, 2006
Bush Trumpets Iraq Verdict to Rally Support
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JIM RUTENBERG
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 — President Bush on Sunday seized on the conviction of Saddam Hussein as a milestone in Iraq, seeking to rally Republican voters with the issue of national security as some polls suggested that his party might be making gains in the final hours of the campaign.

The White House said the timing of the announcement, two days before Election Day, had nothing to do with American politics and had been dictated by the Iraqi court. But Mr. Bush moved quickly to put it to use in what has been his central strategic imperative over the past week, trying to rouse Republican voters to turn out.

“Today we witnessed a landmark event in the history of Iraq: Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal,” Mr. Bush said to roars of approval in a hockey auditorium packed with supporters in Grand Island, Neb. “Saddam Hussein’s trial is a milestone in the Iraqi people’s efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law.”

The announcement out of Baghdad came as polls suggested some gains for Republicans. A Pew Research Center Survey released on Sunday found that the number of likely voters who said they would vote for the Democrats was now 47 percent compared with 43 percent who said they would vote for Republicans. Two weeks ago, Democrats had an edge of 50 to 39. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found a similar tightening.

These kinds of polls, about the so-called generic ballot, measure national trends and do not necessarily provide an accurate measure of what is happening in individual House and Senate races. Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Center, said the poll nonetheless found that Republicans were becoming more enthusiastic as Election Day approached, a sign that the party was making progress in addressing one of its main problems this year: a dispirited base.

With at least 20 House races and 3 Senate races virtually tied in polls over the past week, Republican officials have looked to the huge voter turnout operation the party has developed over the past six years as its last-stand defense to prevent Democrats from making big gains on Tuesday.

A series of Mason-Dixon polls published on Sunday suggested a tightening in two Senate races, Rhode Island and Maryland, that Democrats had been confident of winning.

Republicans over the past week have spent heavily in Maryland on behalf of Michael Steele, the Republican candidate seeking to fill the seat being vacated by Senator Paul S. Sarbanes, a Democrat. In Rhode Island, Senator Lincoln Chafee, the Republican, has spent heavily and banked on his family’s long history in the state’s politics to help him survive in a heavily Democratic state.

Ken Mehlman, the Republican chairman, said polls showed that Republicans and conservatives “were coming home,” which he said “is what happens when voters focus on the choice before them.”

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the Democrat leading his party’s effort to win control of the House, said, “It’s inevitable that there would be some tightening in the end.”

Still, Mr. Emanuel, who has been careful this campaign to avoid the public expressions of optimism voiced by other Democrats, added, “This is making me nervous.”

Across the country, Democrats also hailed the verdict in Baghdad but argued that it would make no difference in delivering stability to Iraq and would have little bearing on Tuesday’s vote.

“I think it’s a great verdict — I mean, Saddam Hussein is a war criminal and he’s getting what he deserves,” Howard Dean, the Democratic national chairman, said on “This Week” on ABC. “But I don’t think it has any impact on the safety of America.”

Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has become the face of his party’s opposition to the war in Iraq, said the verdict was the right one but predicted it would not make a difference in this campaign. What would matter more, Mr. Murtha said, were editorials in military papers being published Monday calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

“When The Army Times, The Navy Times, The Marine Corps Times, they have all said that we’re not supporting the troops, that they’re losing confidence with the administration, that’s what’s important,” Mr. Murtha said, campaigning in Croydon, Pa., outside Philadelphia, for Patrick Murphy, a Democrat seeking to unseat Representative Michael G. Fitzpatrick.

The fact that Mr. Bush was spending this last Sunday before Election Day in two of the most Republican states in the nation was testimony to how bleak a year this has been for the Republican Party and the president. And in Florida, the home state of his brother, Mr. Bush received what appeared to be another reminder of his political unpopularity when Charlie Crist, the Republican candidate for governor, backed out of a planned appearance with Mr. Bush in Pensacola on Monday.

Mr. Crist said that he needed to spend the day in more competitive parts of the state and that he was not joining the list of other Republican candidates who had snubbed Mr. Bush this year.

The White House, however, said this week that the president was heading to Florida specifically to help Mr. Crist, who, according to Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, invited Mr. Bush in the first place.

But an official with Mr. Crist’s campaign, who would not talk for attribution, said that Mr. Crist had never confirmed the appearance.

On the final Sunday of the election cycle, the leaders of the four Congressional campaign committees took their seats around the table of “Meet the Press” on NBC, appearing together for the first time in the midterm contest — and promptly diving into a sharp exchange over the war in Iraq.

“To pull out, to withdraw from this war, is losing, there’s no question about it,” said Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, the chairwoman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “The Democrats appear to be content with losing.”

Mr. Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, turned sharply toward Mrs. Dole, his face lined with outrage.

“You should take that back, Senator,” he said. But Mrs. Dole kept speaking over him, creating a minute of partisan cacophony on the television set.

“I will not sit idly by with an accusation that Democrats are content with losing,” Mr. Emanuel said.

Mr. Bush was unambiguous in hailing the conviction of Mr. Hussein as welcome news from a country where good reports have been in short supply this election season. That said, there have frequently been developments in Iraq over the past two years that Mr. Bush has proclaimed as turning points, only to see them followed by renewed violence and further deterioration.

And while these announcements of Iraqi milestones have at times produced a lift for Mr. Bush in the polls, the gains have tended to be fleeting.

Still, just before an election that is this close, Republicans suggested that the events of Sunday could be politically helpful.

A senior Republican Party official, who insisted on anonymity to speak about the political implications of the announcement, said it would invigorate Republican voters distressed about Iraq but would not have much effect beyond that. And Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who is heading the Democratic effort to win back the Senate, said, “People are worried about the future of Iraq, not the past.”

Senior aides to Mr. Bush scoffed at suggestions that the announcement of the verdict had somehow been orchestrated by the White House.

“Are you smoking rope?” Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said Saturday in anticipation of the verdict. “Are you telling me that in Iraq, that they’re sitting around — I’m sorry, that the Iraqi judicial system is coming up with an October surprise?”

White House officials were clearly prepared for the news, posing Mr. Bush before Air Force One to make a celebratory announcement as he left Waco, Tex., and inserting remarks about it into his speeches. On Sunday morning, Mr. Snow made a round of the talk shows to praise the development, echoed throughout the day by Republican surrogates and candidates.

Representative J. D. Hayworth, a Republican in a close race in Arizona’s Fifth Congressional District, used a previously scheduled early morning appearance on the Fox News Channel show “Fox and Friends” to declare the Hussein sentence “a victory for the Iraqi people.” Mr. Hayworth said it offered Americans heading to the polls “a chance to take stock” of the war’s dividends.

From California to Missouri to Connecticut, candidates put up their final advertisements.

In Pennsylvania, Karen Santorum, Senator Rick Santorum’s wife, speaks directly into the camera in a 60-second advertisement, looking almost mournful as she says that she has found attacks on her family for living in Virginia hurtful, explaining that they moved there to be closer to Mr. Santorum when he is working.

Adam Nagourney reported from Washington and Jim Rutenberg from Nebraska. Jeff Zeleny contributed from Washington and Kate Zernike from Pennsylvania.