Month: September 2012

"Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you and one of the untruths out there that is driven is that people of faith should not be involved in the public arena.  … Somehow or another there’s this, ya know, steel wall, this iron curtain or whatever you want to call it between the church and people of faith and this separation of church and state is just false on its face. We have a biblical responsibility to be involved in the public arena proclaiming God’s truth," – Rick Perry, still governor of Texas.

The RNC tries to get some mileage out of Obama's 1998 redistribution quote, combining it with the "you didn't built that" line (ad buy size/scope unknown):

Except, well, about that redistribution quote:

[The entire, unedited clip] includes additional comments by Obama that weren't included in the video circulated by Republicans. That omission features additional words of praise for "competition" and the "marketplace" by the then-state senator. In the whole clip, Obama says:

I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody's got a shot.  How do we pool resources at the same time as we decentralize delivery systems in ways that both foster competition, can work in the marketplace, and can foster innovation at the local level and can be tailored to particular communities.

To counter such out-of-context ads, the Obama campaign has a bit of fun with some Romney footage:

On a serious note, and leaving the US for a moment, here is an ad made by the US Embassy in Pakistan that is now airing on Pakistani television in an attempt to put distance between the US government and the makers of Innocence Of Muslims:

Ad Age has details:

The ad appeared across Pakistani news channels Thursday evening as over 2,000 protestors clashed with riot police. Friday has been declared a national holiday, dubbed "I love Prophet Muhammad Day," so people can hold peaceful demonstrations.

During today's State Department press briefing, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that the ad is running. "In the case of Pakistan, it is common and traditional to have to buy airtime on Pakistani TV for public service announcements," she told reporters when asked if the U.S. was paying for the ads. "So in that environment, it was their recommendation that we buy some airtime to make sure that the Pakistani people would hear the president's messages and the secretary's messages, so we did purchase some time, is my understanding, on Pakistani TV stations, all of the stations."

Back on the homefront, the Florida-focused, Rubio-starring spot we mentioned yesterday is now online (ad buy amount unknown):

And MoveOn.org jumps into the ad fray around Romney's fundraiser comments, specifically: "My dad was born in Mexico, and had he been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot at winning this":

A Spanish version of the ad will run in Colorado, Florida and Nevada, though the ad buy amount is not yet known. In more outside spending news, SEIU is spending more than $600K for three ads, one hitting Romney on the radio waves in Florida, and the other two TV ads targeting GOP Congressmen in Michigan and Virginia over their Medicare. Also, a reader writes:

After seeing the poll results you posted on the outside expenditures in the presidential campaign, I became interested in the actual data behind the outside spending. For instance, the post mentioned that Romney was benefitting more, but I was curious to what extent that was true. So I downloaded the FEC data and made the attached pie charts, which break down the outside spending by the candidate who benefits and which phase of the election the money was spent. The charts are sized to reflect the amount of spending (by area), including only those FEC filings tagged with Obama or Romney. (Amusing sidenote: In many FEC’s filings you see Obama’s name filed as "Barak", "Barack", "Barak Hussein", and "Barack Hussein". Unsurprisingly, the large majority filed under "Barak" or "Barak Hussein" is "Oppose" spending.)

Meanwhile, over in the Washington gubernatorial race, five angry men and a wazoo have had it up to here with Democrat Jay Inslee:

Highlighting that ad, Eli Sanders shows how the Invisible Obama meme is affecting more than just the presidential race:

The Inslee campaign is comparing this new ad from the Republican Governors Association to Clint Eastwood's famous harangue at the Republican National Convention. "Much like the McKenna campaign itself, the RGA refuses to let the facts get in the way of an angry rant," says Inslee Press Secretary Jaime Smith. "All that's missing from this ad is an empty chair."

Lastly, Sorkinites everywhere rejoice as the cast of "The West Wing" have reunited to film a political ad for cast member Mary McCormack's sister, Bridget Mary McCormack, a non-partisan candidate for Michigan's Supreme Court:

Ad War archive here.

Ezra Klein sums up the problem with people focusing only on income tax:

This entire conversation is the result of a (largely successful) effort to redefine the debate over taxes from "how much in taxes do you pay" to "how much in federal income taxes do you pay?" This is good framing if you want to cut taxes on the rich. It’s bad framing if you want to have even a basic understanding of who pays how much in taxes.

David Byrne, former lead singer of the Talking Heads, considers how the world is "awash with (mostly) recorded sounds":

In 1969, Unesco passed a resolution outlining a human right that doesn’t get talked about much—the right to silence. I think they’re referring to what happens if a noisy factory gets built beside your house, or a shooting range, or if a disco opens downstairs. They don’t mean you can demand that a restaurant turn off the classic rock tunes it’s playing, or that you can muzzle the guy next to you on the train yelling into his cellphone. It’s a nice thought though—despite our innate dread of absolute silence, we should have the right to take an occasional aural break, to experience, however briefly, a moment or two of sonic fresh air. To have a meditative moment, a head-clearing space, is a nice idea for a human right.

Cara Spitalewitz reviews a new collection of essays, "My Heart is an Idiot" by Davy Rothbart, founder of Found magazine, which collects "anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life":

It can be hard to remember, but it wasn't that long ago—just a little over a decade—that glimpses into other people's lives, like those provided by Found and Rothbart's essays, were novel. These days, social media provide us with far more glimpses than we care to see. As Rothbart points out in an essay about a bus trip he took from Michigan to New York in the wake of the September 11 attacks, times have changed: "these days…I would've gathered a slew of email addresses and made a dozen new Facebook friends. But that was another time, before the souls we crossed paths with could be collected like passport stamps."

You can read an excerpt from Rothbart's collection here. Jessica Freeman-Slade thinks Rothbart has missed the mark, noting that "it takes more than experience to make a narrative voice, and not every failure or triumph should be destined for memoirization":

The impulse to memoirize isn’t a bad one, even on the part of the young and reckless — I’ve spent hours on end devouring the first season of Girls and underlining sentence after sentence of Sheila Heti’s extraordinary How Should a Person Be? What makes stories worth telling is not what happened, but how what happened made something else happen to the teller. And the true stories that we remember — from the Burroughs, the Karrs, the Nabokovs and Rakoffs of the world — didn’t just serve up the events of their day planner or black book. They spun them into glittering tales of experience. "I needed a cover story," Rothbart said in "Shade," and you can see it in every story in this collection, each essay that yearns to be "collection-worthy."

(Found object via Flickr user FINDS!!!)

Ka-pow:

Dylan Matthews sprinkles grains of salt on Sam Wang’s analysis:

It’s worth noting … that other models give different results. John Sides and the team at the Monkey Cage have a model that uses GDP, the president’s party and approval rating, incumbency, and district-level presidential vote, rather than House polling. Their model gets the seat margin wrong by 2.61 seats, on average, much lower than Wang’s error. It gives Republicans a three out of four chance of keeping the House.

So Wang’s model isn’t definitive. But it does mean one should keep an eye on Congressional ballot polls going forward.

US President Barack Obama meets with supporters about voter registration at OMG Burgers on September 20, 2012 in Miami, Florida. Obama is traveling to Florida for the day to participate in a taping for Univision in Miami before attending a campaign event in Tampa. By Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images.

The Jesuit magazine America tackles Paul Ryan's 2005 speech at the Atlas Society’s "Celebration of Ayn Rand" (there's no video – but there is audio). America's Vincent Miller explains how the philosophy Ryan believes in is so inimical to Catholic thought and tradition:

In the published transcript Ryan states that like Rand, he views all political and policy questions as battle between individualism and collectivism.

(2:38) In almost every fight we are involved in here, on Capitol Hill, whether it’s an amendment vote that I’ll take later on this afternoon, or a big piece of policy we’re putting through our Ways and Means Committee, it is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict: individualism vs. collectivism.

This philosophy leaves no room for Catholic notions of Government in service to the common good, there is no room for a social conception of the human person.  Rejection of Rand’s atheism notwithstanding, Ryan’s policies are based on a political philosophy completely at odds with the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine.  "Prudence" is an insufficient measure of his proposals and the threat this philosophy poses to the Catholic faithful.

Ryan is more hostile to the core social teaching of Catholicism than Obama could ever be.

A month is a long time in politics. Silver:

The Democrats’ chances of controlling the Senate have increased to 79 percent in the forecast, up from 70 percent on Tuesday. Had we run the model a month ago, based on polls through Aug. 19, the Democrats’ chances of maintaining Senate control would have been listed at just 39 percent.

Tommy Thompson has just lost the lead in the Wisconsin Senate race to Tammy Baldwyn. McCaskill now edges Akin, Warren is in a much tighter race with Brown; and in Indiana, Democrat Donnelly has edged ever-so-slightly ahead of Mourdock.

Holy Ga-Ga. What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is going on out there? And Maddow just beat O'Reilly in the critical demo two nights in a row.