NOW THE FIGHT REALLY BEGINS

Sinclair, Dirty Air

Okay...here's what you're going to do: there should be a link listed above this blog. If not, you need to go to www.sinclairwatch.org and you need to tell them that you own the airwaves and you didn't give them permission to air a blatant, biased, misleading anti-Kerry documenatry on their 62 television stations. Tell them that if they insist on going ahead and airing it, you'd like equal time from the Kerry camp--or at the very least, maybe they can show some of Fahrenheit 911.

I'm not really telling you what to do or think, but if I were you know what I'd be? A broadcaster. There is no such thing as a liberal media. If that fairy tale creature ever existed, it was in the gilded days of yore. We are not in yore anymore, Toto. These days, money talks and bullshit gets broadcast and all the money is being lorded over us peasants by the powerful multinationals and the sycophantic sister companies in the media. Could you imagine 62 stations dumping their prime time lineup and being forced to air Fahrenheit 9/11? You'd never hear the end of the screaming from conservatives and even many so called "moderates".

But this election, or any of the recent elections, is not about fighting fair. The "right" is going to use every dirty trick at their disposal, from free air time to fights in the Supreme Court. Those on the "left" need to respond to every attack, every strategic ploy with intelligence and vigor so that it doesn't go unchallenged. It's October 12th...the race for the White House and control of the Senate is really just getting started. Ladies and gentlemen, sharpen your knives! Send Sinclair a nasty email and then, if you live near one of their 62 stations, boycott their product. It's the least we can do in the dissent channel nation.

Colorado, a Mile High Florida?

From Yahoo! News and the American Foreign Press. (Full disclosure, I'm a Colorado native with a vested interest. Both Bush and John Edwards were in the state today):

DENVER, United States (AFP) - Colorado, where President George W. Bush (news - web sites) was scrambling to rally support, could hold the key to the neck-and-neck US presidential vote November 2 if a landmark electoral reform proposal gets the green light.

The reform would divide up the votes of the state's electoral college members -- those whose votes actually elect the next US president -- instead of using a popular-vote winner-take-all electoral college votes formula, as is used in most of the 50 US states and the federal capital Washington, DC. Colorado has nine electoral college votes.

State voters will weigh in on the proposal, called Amendment 36, on November 2 at the same time most cast a ballot either for Republican incumbent George W. Bush or Democrat John Kerry.

The Bush camp is fighting the initiative; Colorado tends to vote Republican (except in 1964 and 1992).

"Because a gentleman in Brazil is spending millions of dollars" the proposal could pass, Republican Colorado Governor Bill Owens told a rally Monday in Denver.

Jorge Klor de Alva, a former member of the board of directors of the University of Phoenix, who now works at a university in Brazil, has contributed heavily to back the possible shift.

"It's no coincidence that Mr. de Alva has maxed out for John Kerry," Owens added.

Polls show Colorado might actually be in the position of deciding the race -- pushing it in favor of either Bush or Kerry, now in a very tight race -- as did the state of Florida back in 2000.
At that time Bush won 51 percent of the vote in Colorado against 42 percent for Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites), while independent Ralph Nader (news - web sites) drew five percent support.

If Amendment 36 had been in force here, Bush would have carried five electoral college votes instead of all of Colorado's nine.

But the situation could backfire on the Democrats. Thanks to the popularity of their Senate candidate Ken Salazar, Kerry could outdo Bush here November 2, and end up suffering from the change.

Seen as in the Republican camp some months ago for both the presidential and senate races, Colorado now is considered the ultimate toss-up.

If Salazar is elected his win could shift the Republican-run US Senate over to the Democrats.
At the moment Republicans hold 51 Senate seats against 48 for the Democrats and one Independent who usually votes with the Democrats. One third of the Senate's 100 seats are up for grabs November 2 and about a dozen could swing either way.

With so much in play, Bush on Monday campaigned for Republican Senate candidate Peter Coors.

Just two other states currently apportion their electoral votes proportionally: Nebraska and Maine. Nebraska has five electoral college votes and Maine four. Under their system, the winner of the popular vote in the state automatically gets two votes, and the remainder are handed out based on the candidates' performance in all the congressional districts.

There are 538 electoral college votes distributed among the states based on their demographic weight. To win, the presidential candidate has to get at least 270.

In 2001, Bush was awarded 271 compared to 266 for Gore, though the Democrat actually won the popular vote nationally 48.38 percent to 47.87 percent for Bush. One electoral college voter abstained.

Debate Tomorrow Night

And the winner will be...well, you know who the winner will be. The difference will be, who will the media report that the winner is. We shall see...

99 PROBLEMS & BUSH IS ONE (or a lot more...)

Everyone is shocked, shocked by how poorly our Commander-in-Chief performed in last Thursday's debate. I myself was just as shocked, shocked by how much it hurt when I accidentally leaned on my heated stove top and burned myself. My God, what will happen next? We'll discover that snow is cold, that the Cubs won't win the World Series that Jesus was Jewish. Frankly, I'm waiting for a real revelation and you won't go broke betting that Kerry brings more ammo to a battle of wits.

At least John Kerry, the candidate America Would Like To Embrace But is Still Somewhat Confused By, finally has some much needed momentum after weeks (months?) of running a campaign that seemed to be going in circles like a Swift Boat with only one oar. (Clever allusions are thrown in at no extra charge as a service to you, the loyal reader). John Edwards, who is so cute I just want to pinch his cheeks (both sets), will undoubtedly make mincemeat of Dick "Evil Overlord" Cheney, who is so unlikeable even his own party floated the idea of replacing him. So it will come down to the final three weeks with Kerry holding a slim lead and having to decide whether to go for the jugular or play it safe and not squander what he's fought so hard to attain.

I say keep up the attack. Al Gore's greatest weakness in 2000 was a tendency to try and play it safe. He went soft when he should have been tough. He played defense when he should have gone on offense. And he won--but left it so close that the election could still be taken away from him by a GOP oligarchy that has always been more opportunistic than their Democratic counterparts. Kerry did an excellent job finally defining exactly what his position is on foreign policy and Iraq and he needs to do the same when it comes to both the "Town Hall" debate and the domestic policy debate, being careful not to let Bush and his handlers paint him as a tax and spend liberal.

(By the way, what's so wrong about being a "tax-and-spend" Liberal? This is a digression, but what we have now is a "no tax and spend" conservative, which means we don't raise any money, most normal people don't see much of a relief to the assault on their earnings, we get less services from our governement with less value while tax breaks are doled out to big buisness so that they send more jobs overseas with a bigger profit margin at home. This is preferable to a tax and spend Liberal? Just goes to show you how Progressives no longer control the debate in this country and are a long way from getting it back.)

To paraphrase Jay-Z (don't retire Jay-Z, please come back!), in a battle of wits President Bush vs. John Kerry is a like a guy who talks a lot but couldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight. It doesn't matter. Perception is reality and most people are comfortable with somebody who is "more like them", speaks plainly and taps into whatever hot button issues they view the election through. That's the challenge facing Senator Kerry the rest of the way and it should be obvious by now that his success will have a profound effect on the future of the American Republic as we know it going forward these next ten years. It's time for the "A" game not the "Z" game because it's all about the debates now people, and the best person for the job (not to be confused with the RIGHT person for the job) is going to need every single vote to win on November 3rd.

Out of Left Field

Because I don't play in "Right" field...the Boston Red Sox will defeat the Houston Astros in the World Series, 4 games to 2. The apocalypse will begin approximately 20 minutes after the trophy presentation. You heard it here first...