Now is the time to use that energy to get people registered to vote and involved in the campaign. Anyone who is not registered to vote in 4 weeks can’t help us put Barack in the White House. Our ability to register voters in the next 4 weeks will likely be what determines the outcome of the Missouri vote. Can you afford to not get involved?

Politics is not a spectator sport. If you want Obama/Biden to win then you MUST get involved. This race will be won on the ground. Looking back on November 5 and wishing we had done more in not an option. We must act NOW!

By Kate Phillips
ST. PAUL — Two prominent Republicans — one of them a close ally and former aide to Senator John McCain — were caught on a live mic on MSNBC bemoaning the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin and the controversy surrounding her.

Mike Murphy, who worked on Senator McCain’s campaign in 2000 but declined to join this year’s, citing tensions with top campaign staff members, can be heard in near-anguish talking about the fallout from her candidacy. “I come out of the blue, swing-state governor world, Engler, Whitman, Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush” he said. But the McCain campaign just decided to run with Palin, he said, adding “it’s not going to work.”

Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and columnist, interjects: “It’s over.”

Asked whether Ms. Palin is really the most qualified woman Mr. McCain could have picked, Ms. Noonan responds rather incredulously, “The most qualified? No. I think they went for the — excuse me — political (expletive) about narratives. … Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and that’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.”

Mr. Murphy then dives in with a rejoinder: “The greatness of McCain is no cynicism and this is cynical.”

There’s a youtube of these comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrG8w4bb3kg

Fake McCain voicemail (this is a hoot).

Video here.

By George Lakoff

This election matters because of realities—the realities of global warming, the economy, the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, civil liberties, species extinction, poverty here and around the world, and on and on. Such realities are what make this election so very crucial, and how to deal with them is the substance of the Democratic platform (http://www.demconvention.com/assets/downloads/2008-Democratic-Platform-by-Cmte-08-13-08.pdf).

Election campaigns matter because who gets elected can change reality. But election campaigns are primarily about the realities of voters’ minds, which depend on how the candidates and the external realities are cognitively framed. They can be framed honestly or deceptively, effectively or clumsily. And they are always framed from the perspective of a worldview.

The Obama campaign has learned this. The Republicans have long known it, and the choice of Sarah Palin as their Vice-Presidential candidate reflects their expert understanding of the political mind and political marketing. Democrats who simply belittle the Palin choice are courting disaster. It must be taken with the utmost seriousness.
The Democratic responses so far reflect external realities: she is inexperienced, knowing little or nothing about foreign policy or national issues; she is really an anti-feminist, wanting the government to enter women’s lives to block abortion, but not wanting the government to guarantee equal pay for equal work, or provide adequate child health coverage, or child care, or early childhood education; she shills for the oil and gas industry on drilling; she denies the scientific truths of global warming and evolution; she misuses her political authority; she opposes sex education and her daughter is pregnant; and, rather than being a maverick, she is on the whole a radical right-wing ideologue.

All true, so far as we can tell.

But such truths may nonetheless be largely irrelevant to this campaign. That is the lesson Democrats must learn. They must learn the reality of the political mind.

The Obama campaign has done this very well so far. The convention events and speeches were orchestrated both to cast light on external realities, traditional political themes, and to focus on values at once classically American and progressive: empathy, responsibility both for oneself and others, and aspiration to make things better both for oneself and the world. Obama did all this masterfully in his nomination speech, while replying to, and undercutting, the main Republican attacks.

But the Palin nomination changes the game. The initial response has been to try to keep the focus on external realities, the “issues,” and differences on the issues. But the Palin nomination is not basically about external realities and what Democrats call “issues,” but about the symbolic mechanisms of the political mind—the worldviews, frames, metaphors, cultural narratives, and stereotypes. The Republicans can’t win on realities. Her job is to speak the language of conservatism, activate the conservative view of the world, and use the advantages that conservatives have in dominating political discourse.

Our national political dialogue is fundamentally metaphorical, with family values at the center of our discourse. There is a reason why Obama and Biden spoke so much about the family, the nurturant family, with caring fathers and the family values that Obama put front and center in his Father’s day speech: empathy, responsibility and aspiration. Obama’s reference in the nomination speech to “The American Family” was hardly accidental, nor were the references to the Obama and Biden families as living and fulfilling the American Dream. Real nurturance requires strength and toughness, which Obama displayed in body language and voice in his responses to McCain. The strength of the Obama campaign has been the seamless marriage of reality and symbolic thought.

The Republican strength has been mostly symbolic. The McCain campaign is well aware of how Reagan and W won—running on character: values, communication, (apparent) authenticity, trust, and identity — not issues and policies. That is how campaigns work, and symbolism is central.

Conservative family values are strict and apply via metaphorical thought to the nation: good vs. evil, authority, the use of force, toughness and discipline, individual (versus social) responsibility, and tough love. Hence, social programs are immoral because they violate discipline and individual responsibility. Guns and the military show force and discipline. Man is above nature; hence no serious environmentalism. The market is the ultimate financial authority, requiring market discipline. In foreign policy, strength is use of the force. In fundamentalist religion, the Bible is the ultimate authority; hence no gay marriage. Such values are at the heart of radical conservatism. This is how John McCain was raised and how he plans to govern. And it is what he shares with Sarah Palin.

Palin is the mom in the strict father family, upholding conservative values. Palin is tough: she shoots, skins, and eats caribou. She is disciplined: raising five kids with a major career. She lives her values: she has a Downs-syndrome baby that she refused to abort. She has the image of the ideal conservative mom: pretty, perky, feminine, Bible-toting, and fitting into the ideal conservative family. And she fits the stereotype of America as small-town America. It is Reagan’s morning-in-America image. Where Obama thought of capturing the West, she is running for Sweetheart of the West.

And Palin, a member of Feminism For Life, is at the heart of the conservative feminist movement, which Ronee Schreiber has written about in her recent book, Righting Feminism. It is a powerful and growing movement that Democrats have barely paid attention to.

At the same time, Palin is masterful at the Republican game of taking the Democrats’ language and reframing it—putting conservative frames to progressive words: Reform, prosperity, peace. She is also masterful at using the progressive narratives: she’s from the working class, working her way up from hockey mom and the PTA to Mayor, Governor, and VP candidate. Her husband is a union member. She can say to the conservative populists that she is one of them—all the things that Obama and Biden have been saying. Bottom-up, not top-down.

Yes, the McCain-Palin ticket is weak on the major realities. But it is strong on the symbolic dimension of politics that Republicans are so good at marketing. Just arguing the realities, the issues, the hard truths should be enough in times this bad, but the political mind and its response to symbolism cannot be ignored. The initial Democratic response to Palin — the response based on realities alone — indicates that many Democrats have not learned the lessons of the Reagan and Bush years.

They have not learned the nature of conservative populism. A great many working-class folks are what I call “bi-conceptual,” that is, they are split between conservative and progressive modes of thought. Conservative on patriotism and certain social and family issues, which they have been led to see as “moral”, progressive in loving the land, living in communities of care, and practical kitchen table issues like mortgages, health care, wages, retirement, and so on.

Conservative theorists won them over in two ways: Inventing and promulgating the idea of “liberal elite” and focusing campaigns on social and family issues. They have been doing this for many years and have changed a lot of brains through repetition. Palin will appeal strongly to conservative populists, attacking Obama and Biden as pointy-headed, tax-and-spend, latte liberals. The tactic is to divert attention from difficult realities to powerful symbolism.

What Democrats have shied away from is a frontal attack on radical conservatism itself as an un-American and harmful ideology. I think Obama is right when he says that America is based on people caring about each other and working together for a better future—empathy, responsibility (both personal and social), and aspiration. These lead to a concept of government based on protection (environmental, consumer, worker, health care, and retirement protection) and empowerment (through infrastructure, public education, the banking system, the stock market, and the courts). Nobody can achieve the American Dream or live an American lifestyle without protection and empowerment by the government. The alternative, as Obama said in his nomination speech, is being on your own, with no one caring for anybody else, with force as a first resort in foreign affairs, with threatened civil liberties and a right-wing government making your most important decisions for you. That is not what American democracy has ever been about.

What is at stake in this election are our ideals and our view of the future, as well as current realities. The Palin choice brings both front and center. Democrats, being Democrats, will mostly talk about the realities nonstop without paying attention to the dimensions of values and symbolism. Democrats, in addition, need to call an extremist an extremist: to shine a light on the shared anti-democratic ideology of McCain and Palin, the same ideology shared by Bush and Cheney. They share values antithetical to our democracy. That needs to be said loud and clear, if not by the Obama campaign itself, then by the rest of us who share democratic American values.

Our job is to bring external realities together with the reality of the political mind. Don’t ignore the cognitive dimension. It is through cultural narratives, metaphors, and frames that we understand and express our ideals.

George Lakoff is the author of The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 20th Century Politics With and 18th Century Brain.

Saturday, September 6th is the Old Settler’s Parade in downtown Olathe, one of the biggest parades in the state of Kansas, so we definitely need your help!

The parade starts at 10:00am. Moore for Congress will meet at 9:30.

VOLUNTEER
There are many ways you can show your support for Dennis Moore during parades:

* WALK WITH THEM!
* You can come to the parade and wear your Re-elect Dennis Moore t-shirt or hold a sign along the sidelines
* You can donate candy for us to distribute throughout the parade
* You can park your car at the end to help them shuttle walkers back to there cars at the beginning of the parade

For more information contact:

Adrienne Colcher
Field Director

Moore for Congress
(913) 888-4938
Adrienne@mooreforcongress.com

Watch the video HERE.

PO Box 14194, Parkville, MO 64152
Email: kay@kay4congress.com | Phone: 816-877-0804 | Fax: 816-221-1828

Envelopes for Moore!

We are hosting a fundraiser in the wine cellar of our friends, Judy Overton & Tom Gresham, in September. It’s a great event each year, but we need your help preparing the invitations.

WHAT: Invitation Party!

WHERE: Moore for Congress Headquarters, 7210 W 80th Street in Overland Park (one block west of Metcalf, next to the Rio Theatre downtown)

WHEN: Wednesday, August 27th — 10am until we’re done

Please bring yourself — and a friend. Coffee and bagels will be provided!

RSVP to Adrienne at 913.888.4838 or adrienne@mooreforcongress.com

Video is HERE.

Email Canvass Director Brad Main bmain@missouridems.org or call 816-872-5706.

Former Justice Department officials will not face prosecution for letting improper political considerations drive hirings of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Tuesday.Mukasey used his sharpest words yet to criticize the senior leaders who took part in or failed to stop illegal hiring practices during the tenure of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales.

But, he told delegates to the American Bar Association annual meeting, “not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws.”

Other intrusions of Bush administration politics into department hirings and firings remain under investigation. Mukasey said he is awaiting reports on the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the hiring practices in the department’s civil rights division.

The political controversies prompted Gonzales’ resignation last year.

An internal investigation concluded last month that for nearly two years, top advisers to Gonzales discriminated against applicants for career jobs who weren’t Republican or conservative loyalists.

The federal government makes a distinction between “career” and “political” appointees, and it’s a violation of civil service laws and Justice Department policy to hire career employees on the basis of political affiliation or allegiance.

Yet Monica Goodling, who served as Gonzales’ counselor and White House liaison, routinely asked career job applicants about politics, the report concluded.

Mukasey, who once served as a federal judge in New York, said the Justice Department has taken steps under his leadership to prevent a recurrence of the hiring scandal.

“I have made repeatedly clear…that it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in the hiring of career department employees,” Mukasey said.

If the problems were to recur, Mukasey said he is confident department employees would speak up.

That did not happen during Gonzales’ tenure, he said. Gonzales appeared unaware of the political hiring process outlined by Goodling and his then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, the report said.

“There was a failure of supervision by senior officials in the department. And there was a failure on the part of some employees to cry foul when they were aware, or should have been aware, of problems,” Mukasey said.

The ABA has been at odds with the Bush administration on a range of issues, including treatment of prisoners suspected of terrorist ties and the need for a federal law to shield reporters from subpoenas.

Mukasey said that on the issue of politics in his department, there was no disagreement with the lawyers’ group.

“Professionalism is alive and well at the Justice Department,” he said.

Some candidates for career Justice Department jobs who were excluded because of politics could be invited to apply for new positions, Mukasey said.

He also ruled out firing or reassigning those who were hired under the now-discarded evaluation process.

“Two wrongs do not make a right,” he said. “People who were hired in an improper way didn’t themselves do anything wrong.”

I wasn’t going to post this video for fear of crossing over into exactly the territory I’ve been complaining about re the McCain camp (BUT) I enjoyed this video too much / laughed too hard to not pass it along. The folks over at Funny or Die are a talented bunch of satirist–enjoy!