Month: October 2008

Dirty Tricks Watch

by dday

Every year the Republican Party sends a flier into minority or poor neighborhoods telling people to vote on the wrong day. This one is even more efficient, because it claims that Virginia modified their laws to have Republicans vote on November 4 and Democrats on November 5. That way, they don’t lose one vote! Good work, Virginia GOP! There’s a copied logo from the Commonwealth of Virginia on the flier, too, making it look all official-like.

But as far as crude fliers go, this one from Wisconsin, distributed in a heavily white area, wins the prize.

“Change means…BLACK!” Mmm, that’s some delicious ratfucking!

And then there’s this, a pretty novel case of ballot-stealing.

Three Hialeah voters say they had an unusual visitor at their homes last week: a man who called himself Juan, offering to help them fill out their absentee ballots and deliver them to the elections office.

The voters, all supporters of Democratic congressional candidate Raul Martinez, said they gave their ballots to the man after he told them he worked for Martinez. But the Martinez campaign said he doesn’t work for them.

Juan “told me not to worry, that they normally collected all the ballots and waited until they had a stack big enough to hand-deliver to the elections department,” said voter Jesus Hernandez, 73. “He said, ‘Don’t worry. This is not going to pass through the mail to get lost.'”

Hernandez said he worries his ballot was stolen or destroyed. He and two other voters told The Miami Herald that the man was dispatched by a woman caller who also said she worked for Martinez. But the phone number cited by the voters traces back to a consultant working for Martinez’s rival, Republican congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

Martinez’s campaign manager, Jeff Garcia, has asked the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office to investigate.

Wow. That’s breathtaking criminality.

The Republicans are going to do everything they can to make sure that if you’re a Democrat, you don’t vote this year. Not all of it will work – the stories of young workers who probably need the money walking off the job at call centers rather than read smear call scripts against Barack Obama are inspiring. And the GOP is consistently losing in the courts. But they clearly have other means, as you can see above, and some will be effective. The best way to stop it is to bring them out into the sunlight.

.

Proposition Hate: Meet The Funders

by tristero

In a previous post on the anti-marriage initiative in California called Proposition 8 (aka Prop Hate), I discussed one funder of this hateful proposal, the odious Howard Ahmanson, a well-known christianist extremist.

Now, here’s another, the less-well-known Vineyard Group of Mesa, AZ who donated $35,000 to the National Organization for Marriage of Princeton, NJ, one of the prime movers behind Prop Hate. (Email me if you need back up for this).

Turns out that Broc Hiatt of the Vineyard Group is a director of the Institute for American Values, a think tank that runs websites like The Happiest Wives where we learn that, among other things, “a breadwinning husband,” wives “who stay at home,” and “shared religious attendance” make for Stepford contented wives. Perhaps the oddest criteria for happy wives, however, is “traditional gender attitudes:”

Wives who hold more traditional gender attitudes—e.g., who believe that wives should focus more on nurturing/homemaking and husbands should focus more on breadwinning—are happier than wives who hold more feminist attitudes. One reason this may be the case is that traditional-minded wives probably have lower expectations of what their husbands can and should do for them emotionally and practically. We also find that more traditional-minded wives spend more quality time with their husbands, perhaps because they are less likely to argue with their husbands about housework and childcare.

Right. If you want a happy marriage, expect little to nothing from your hubby, and don’t argue. Just as long as he stays out of the house, working his butt off.

In other words, the people behind Prop Hate aren’t promoting marriage in general, but a particular kind of marriage: A patriarchy of the kind literally illustrated on their website. And again, as noted in my previous post, the role that they assign to religion in this kind of marriage brings up disturbing church/state issues in the Prop Hate initiative.

Broc Hiatt’s think tank has some other papers worth perusing to get an idea of who these people are. One of the stranger is this one, The Consequences of Marriage for African Americans which opines:

There are racial differences in the consequences of marriage. All in all, Black women appear to receive a smaller marriage premium than White women. Black men appear to receive a smaller marriage premium only in terms of their satisfaction with family life. A major reason for these differentials is that marriages of African Americans are, on average, of lower quality than those of Whites.

Let’s take this at face value, as William Raspberry did, and not as racist cant. Nevertheless, he was struck by this finding in the full report, which somehow did not make it into the executive summary available online:

Our research finds that marriage brings small health benefits to black men — and none to black women. In fact, married black women are significantly less likely to report having excellent health than are unmarried black women.

Actually, there’s no mystery why this information wasn’t in the executive summary. It undermined this confident, pre-ordained conclusion:

On average, married African Americans are wealthier, happier, and choose healthier behaviors than their unmarried peers, and their children typically fare better in life—differences that indeed seem to stem largely from marriage itself.

But there’s an unusual “tell” in their recommendations:

Policies seeking to increase marriage rates and marital quality among African Americans should focus on tax reform, reducing domestic violence, providing culturally-relevant marital education and counseling, and numerous other efforts outlined in the report.

Tax reform, first?

The clear picture that emerges is that one more funder for Prop Hate is actively involved in the advocacy of an extreme rightwing agenda, of which the denial of marriage equality is but one piece.

Vote NO on Prop Hate.

Holy Moldy

by digby

So Joe the sanctimonious jerk is making his move:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, one of John McCain’s closest political allies, said Friday he does not believe that Barack Obama is unprepared to be president.

“I’m saying he is less prepared than McCain,” Lieberman said.

But what about Sarah Palin?

Is she ready?

“If, God forbid, an accident occurs or something of that kind?” Lieberman said. “Um, she’ll be ready. You know, she’s had executive experience. She’s smart and she will have had on-the-job training.”…

“[McCain] is ready to be our president at this very difficult time,” Lieberman said. “And Sen. Obama is not as ready. It’s as direct as that.”

Hendrick Hertzberg says:

Not as ready. Sweet.

That little word—“as”—is supposed to be Lieberman’s life jacket, I guess, now that the SS McCain looks like it’s going glug glug glug and may not, after all, be seaworthy enough to deliver its chaplain to that big corner office in the Pentagon. Google “lieberman obama ‘not ready’” if you need a few thousand samples of the unqualified way Joe talked about Barack’s readiness before the ship hit the iceberg.

You probably don’t need any reminding of any more of Lieberman’s perfidy, but Hertzberg runs down some of the highlights if you like to torture yourself.

This reminds me of something that’s been driving me nuts for the past few days. The gasbags are chattering excitedly about the potential filibuster-proof Democratic senate majority. On what planet does anyone think that’s actually going to be operative? It wouldn’t happen with people like Ben Nelson or Mary Landrieu, much less Holy Joe. In fact, this fantasy would put Lieberman right back where he was in the last congress — the deciding vote. Oy vey. They’d be better off just sticking with 59 votes than let that jackass run his game anymore.

Matthews said today that he thought the governing party should have a filibuster proof majority so he would know who to blame when nothing gets done. Doesn’t that sound like a perfect set up? Either Reid and Obama will have to whip up some unprecedented party loyalty or they’re going to have to educate the mainstream media about the fact that having 60 “Democrats” in the Senate isn’t a magic legislative bullet. I’m not sure which one of those things is less likely to succeed.

.

Playing With Fire

by digby

I understand why neither the authorities or the media want to make too big of a deal about assassination plots against Obama by knuckleheads. Elevating such things to a Big Story might just make some people think it’s worth doing. But sadly, knuckleheads are often the perpetrators of such crimes and the fact that we have had two plots (that we know of) thwarted already makes me very nervous.

I grew up in a time when American political leaders were assassinated with alarming frequency. It almost happened as recently as 1981, although the perpetrator was a nutcase rather than a racist or someone with a political agenda. It’s not a relic of some distant time in our history. And this election is running on some of those very same fault lines in American life, adding to the victimology of the right wing and feeding into some very ugly corners of the American lizard brain.

If anything happens, I will hold Republicans responsible for failing to call out the disgusting behavior of their rabid base and very explicitly and frequently reminding their neanderthal followers that political differences are not a cause for violence. Lying about Obama “palling around with terrorists” was damned close to endorsing an assassination attempt. It’s no wonder that knuckleheads are out there scheming.

Reader Jake from North Carolina sent this in to me last night:

We (Asheville) are hosting Ms. Palin in the arena this evening in a big, last-minute and hastily planned rally.

People have come from all over the southeast. Primarily, the crowd is local, but there seems to be a large contingent from South Carolina, just about an hour’s drive from here. The crowd was estimated to be about 8,000, but I can tell by how long the line is (and comparing it to concerts that have had large turnouts), that there’s easily 15,000 out there. The line has gone around the block completely and backed up around back to the front door again…

You should see this crowd. These people all look normal enough, until you really start studying them. Most are happy, but about every third one is angry and quite willing to scrap with the occasional protester that wonders by (The good news, about one of every 10 is an Obama supporter.) I’ve spoken to a few, they’re very sure they’re going to win. That Palin is going to be the next VP, and shortly, the Pres. Comments on our local paper’s site show that people are taken with the notion that Palin is just like their neighbors wife.

I didn’t delve into “why” they were so sure that things are going to swing their way. Maybe they believe that they’ve prayed about it fervently enough. Maybe the fact that so many are from the reddest of red states where red state media only serves up red meat to chew on has skewed their world view. One can only imagine. Maybe in their last meeting in the great conspiracy cornfield were they all meet to breed they discussed the proper techniques for stealing votes. Who knows?

It only takes one of those disappointed true believers who have been convinced that Obama is a Muslim socialist in league with terrorists to do something stupid. particularly since millions of them will be convinced that ACORN stole the election for him. If you think that all this doesn’t tie into those white supremacist twits they caught today, think again:

The right wing continues to link the fight for black equality with socialism and communism. At the website of conservatism’s flagship publication, National Review, conservatives like Andy McCarthy argue whether Obama is “more Maoist than Stalinist,” and National Review writer Lisa Schiffren explicitly argued this summer that Obama must have communist links based on his interracial background. Schiffren mused, “for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.”

This conclusion is one she shares with Robert Shelton, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s, who declared that “amalgamation is ultimately the goal of the Communist element.” (To be fair, these conclusions make a bit of sense: could there be a more perfect vessel for a secret communist takeover of the United States than a biracial one-term senator from Chicago with an Arabic-sounding name? At a Starbucks somewhere, Chairman Mao is leeching WiFi for a quick instant message to William Ayers: “It’s happening exactly how we planned it.”)

McCain, a child of privilege who spent the late 1960s in a Vietnamese prison camp, may simply be unaware of the feelings and historical context he has evoked through his campaign’s rhetoric. When Sarah Palin accuses Obama of “palling around with terrorists” and suggests that Obama hates his own country enough to wish it violence, the McCain campaign fuels age-old paranoia built around the conflation of black rights and the radical left. As for McCain himself, his attempts to tamp down the vitriol of his crowds suggest that he is somewhat confused by their response. He wants voters to dislike Obama, but he seems unaware of just what he has unleashed. However, by implicitly invoking the idea that Obama represents a socialist takeover of the United States, McCain is inviting what can only be a rational response from those who would die for their country: violence. What else is a patriot to do when freedom is threatened? Especially when their fears have been validated by no less authoritative a source than the Republican nominee for president of the United States?

Here are Rush’s comments on today’s nonsense regarding Obama’s comments in 2001 about the Supreme Court:

LIMBAUGH: I just think it’s about the economy right now. You mentioned cap gains — that may be a little sophisticated. But this Obama tape that’s out there is not. It’s not too sophisticated. It is easily understood. When you’ve got a guy out there saying that he doesn’t believe in the U.S. Constitution, yet he’s got to take an oath to defend it and protect it. I mean, did Hillary put this out? Where’s this been? How come this has not come out until now? Now there’s a lot of undecideds and that’s where this tape and that’s where the economic mantle on Obama can have some impact here in the final week.

Yeah right, saying Obama doesn’t believe in the constitution is an “economic” argument. It plays directly into some of the more arcane weirdness in the far right about blacks and communism and Muslims forcing Sharia law on your virgin daughters and all sorts of wingnut crazy that’s only going to get worse if the Democrats win. He knows exactly what kind of fear and rage he’s feeding.

These conservatives are playing with fire, just like those firebugs out here in California who persist in playing with matches on the dried up hillsides and causing catastrophes.

.

Traditional Values

by digby

For its final op-ed ad in the New York Times, Campaign For America’s Future characterizes the progressive argument for change as a return to the Democratic tradition. I like it a lot:

There’s more to the American tradition than war and taxes. For instance, there is the tradition of pulling together when times are tough. That’s why I think this current Republican assault on the term “spreading the wealth” is going to fall on deaf ears. (They would have been better sticking with the “socialism” boogeyman since most people don’t really know what it means.) “Spreading the wealth” just doesn’t sound like a threatening unamerican idea. It sounds like … fairness. The kind of thing you teach little kids — the kind of thing that some people used to call Christian values.

I just don’t think most voters are going to get too worked up about whether the government is being unfair to rich people right now. They have plenty of other things to worry about. Obama’s closing argument hit all those notes today and I think it’s far more compelling than the cramped and angry, petty case from the Republicans. A little All American community spirit sounds very good right about now.

.

Rejecting The Footsoldiers

by digby

Sirota catches today’s attempt to frame an impending election of a Democratic government as a victory for Republican philosophy:

The Village freakout continues, this time in the form of Peter Wehner’s op-ed in the Washington Post today. With most Republican candidates explicitly running on a platform promising a revival of Reagan conservatism and berating the supposed “socialism” of Democrats, this former Bush hack writes that “it is a mistake to assume that significant GOP losses, should they occur, are a referendum on conservatism.”

It’s hard to overstate how absurd this is. Let me repeat: In the stretch run of this campaign, the Republican Party has decided to make this an ideological contest between Reagan conservatism and supposed wild-eyed liberalism/socialism – and now, sensing a potentially huge loss, conservatives are now arguing that despite their decision to make this an ideological contest, “an Obama victory would be a partisan, rather than an ideological, win.”

Obviously, the Right understands what’s really going on in America – and is working to reinterpret that reality.

Having doubled-down on Reaganism, they know that a loss under these circumstances would be not just a momentary electoral set back, but a huge repudiation of conservative ideology, and a huge mandate for progressivism. And so conservatives are already trying to revise history to pretend these last few months of the campaign never happened.

To underline Sirota’s point, I would just remind everyone of this:

ROMNEY: Absolutely. Ronald Reagan would look at the issues that are being debated right here and say, one, we’re going to win in Iraq, and I’m not going to walk out of Iraq until we win in Iraq.

Ronald Reagan would say lower taxes. Ronald Reagan would say lower spending.

Ronald Reagan would — is pro-life. He would also say I want to have an amendment to protect marriage.

Ronald Reagan would say, as I do, that Washington is broken. And like Ronald Reagan, I’d go to Washington as an outsider — not owing favors, not lobbyists on every elbow. I would be able to be the independent outsider that Ronald Reagan was, and he brought change to Washington.

Ronald Reagan would say, yes, let’s drill in ANWR. Ronald Reagan would say, no way are we going to have amnesty again. Ronald Reagan saw it, it didn’t work. Let’s not do it again.

Ronald Reagan would say no to a 50-cent-per-gallon charge on Americans for energy that the rest of the world doesn’t have to pay.

Ronald Reagan would have said absolutely no way to McCain- Feingold.

I would be with Ronald Reagan. And this party, it has a choice, what the heart and soul of this party is going to be, and it’s going to have to be in the house that Ronald Reagan built.

…

MCCAIN: Ronald Reagan would not approve of someone who changes their positions depending on what the year is.

Ronald Reagan — Ronald Reagan came with an unshakable set of principles, and there were many times, like when he had to deploy the (INAUDIBLE) cruise missile to Europe and there were hundreds of thousands of demonstrators against it, he stood with it. Ronald Reagan had a deal in Reykjavik that everybody wanted him to take, but he stuck with his principles.

I think he knows that I stick with my principles. I put my political career on the line because I knew what would happen if we failed in Iraq.

I hope that the experience I had serving as a foot soldier in his revolution would make him proud for me to continue that legacy of sticking to principle and doing what you believe in, no matter what.

…

PAUL: I supported Ronald Reagan in 1976, and there were only four members of Congress that did. And also in 1980. Ronald Reagan came and campaigned for me in 1978.

I’m not sure exactly what he would do right now, but I do know that he was very sympathetic to the gold standard, and he told me personally that no great nation that went off the gold standard ever remained great. And he was very, very serious about that.

So he had a sound understanding about monetary policy. And for that reason, I would say look to Ronald Reagan’s ideas on money because he, too, was concerned about runaway inflation and what it does to a country when you ruin the currency. And that’s what’s happening today. The dollar is going down and our country is going to be on the ropes if we don’t reverse that trend.

…

The way to stop Iran, [Giuliani] said, was through resolute American leadership facing down the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“He has to look at an American president, and he has to see Ronald Reagan,” Giuliani said.

All of the Republicans ran explicitly as the heirs to the legacy of Ronald Reagan, at times to the point of absurdity.

The right is working overtime to frame a Democratic win as a repudiation of Bushism — which it is. But there can be no doubt that it is also a repudiation of Reaganism. They have been evoking his name like a sacred talisman, making the case that they would adhere to St Ronnie’s policies without deviation. If the Republicans lose, it’s not because the American people want Reaganism again. If that’s what they wanted, they had a bunch of Republicans who said over and over again that they would deliver it to them.

It’s pretty clear the American people are tired of conservatism, whether it’s Bush conservatism or Reagan conservatism, and that scares the villagers. They are inherent conservatives, guardians of the status quo and protectors of the wealthy elites, even as they style themselves as jes plain folks down at the beauty parlor.

The liberal hippies are coming to their town to trash the place — and it’s not their place. They’re already setting up the barricades.

.

The Final Days

by dday

I fully expect one last-minute “Shocking revelation!!! Must credit Drudge!!!eleventy!1!” for each remaining day until the election. John McCain has run his entire campaign from news cycle to news cycle, and so they’ll grasp on to whatever they can manage to find. Today’s big hit is a 2001 interview with Barack Obama about the civil rights movement, where he lamented the movement’s propensity to lean on the courts to mandate changes as opposed to building social change from the bottom up within local communities. That’s pretty much all he said, but because he used the words “redistribute” and “wealth” every conservative in America figures they’ve cracked the Da Vinci Code and revealed Obama for the Maoist-Leninist-Marxist-Communist-socialist that he is. The key quote is this:

“And I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and organizing activities on the ground that are able to bring about the coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still suffer from that,” Obama said.

That’s not only a pretty conservative (not in the political sense) argument, it’s echoed by conservative legal scholars.

Now here’s how the McCain campaign deliberately misinterprets it:

“Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t been more ‘radical’ and described as a ‘tragedy’ the court’s refusal to take up ‘the issues of redistribution of wealth.’ No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench,” Holtz-Eakin continued.

This is reminiscent of the “global test” brouhaha from 2004, where Bush officials went ahead and misinterpreted a line from John Kerry for their own ends. It’s a very common and even tired political trick.

On the substance of whether or not we should accept “redistribution of wealth” in society, perhaps it’s better to flip the question. Does the McCain-Palin ticket defend the extreme concentrations of wealth – with CEOs earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a minute and sitting on the proceeds rather than creating jobs – that exists in this country today? The owners of the top 1% of wealth have more than the bottom 90%. The top 1% wage earners make more than the bottom 50%. Is that in any way sustainable or preferable? Can anyone look into the eyes of the 47 million who have no health care or the other 50-60 million who would go bankrupt if they tried to use theirs and tell them that extreme concentration of wealth is a positive social good?

I would put up the time-honored concept of progressive taxation against the attempt to protect the massive, depression-inducing income inequality we have today.

And furthermore, the definition of socialism, in general terms, is when the state collectivizes the ownership of the means of production and distributes wealth equally across segments of society. You know, like in Alaska.

“And Alaska—we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs. … It’s to maximize benefits for Alaskans, not an individual company, not some multinational somewhere, but for Alaskans.”

The words, folks, of Sarah Palin.

Guilty!

by digby

Has there ever been a more perfect coda to the corrupt, big money Republican rule than the conviction of Ted Stevens on all counts?

Alaska clearly needs to clean up its act. Luckily, the Democrats have a great Blue America candidate, Mark Begich, ready and willing to do the clean-up. If you would like to help, you can do so here.

keep in mind that Alaska is a very red state. They have even been known to elect wingnut Wasilla mayors to the governorship rather than a highly qualified Democratic ex-governor and mayor of Anchorage.

So don’t count on Stevens’ conviction not leading to his reelection. It could happen. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to serve out his term. But one Sarah W. Palin would be the one to appoint his replacement to the Senate. It wouldn’t surprise me if she appointed herself. I think she’s got the chutzpah 9and the wardrobe) to do it, don’t you?

.

You Knew It Would Happen

by digby

Last week, Huffpo reported that the McCain campaign was “rethinking” McCain’s allegedly heroic decision not to use Jeremiah Wright in the election because John Lewis had said he was hearing some echoes of George Wallace in this election. sadly, Mccain might not be able to keep from responding with George Wallace style attacks in the face of such slander.

It looks like one of those 527s is coming to the rescue, saving poor McCain from having to further besmirch his sterling character:

The National Republican Trust PAC, which aired one harsh anti-Obama ad that it also used to fundraise on Drudge and elsewhere, says it’s putting $2.5 million behind this spot in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

The ad is exactly what many conservatives have been hoping would air for months: A Jeremiah Wright highlight reel, with a voice-over describing the pastor’s long relationship with Obama.

“For 20 years, Obama never complained, until he ran for president,” says the ad, which labels Obama, “too radical, too risky.”

“This is the base giving a collective direction to where the campaign should have gone a long time ago,” said Rick Wilson, the consultant who made it.

He’s right. That is, in fact, the base giving a collective direction to where they wanted the campaign to go all along. It’s all right out there.

If you aren’t a racist and you’re still voting Republican, how do you see this and not feel dirty?

.

Rogue Palin

by digby

She is way off the reservation:

Ensuring that news of the Republican National Committee’s sartorial spending spree will remain in the headlines for at least one more news cycle, Sarah Palin on Sunday sounded off on the $150,000 wardrobe that was purchased for her in September, denouncing the report as “ridiculous” and declaring emphatically: “Those clothes, they are not my property.”

A senior adviser to John McCain told CNN’s Dana Bash that the comments about her wardrobe “were not the remarks we sent to her plane this morning.” Palin did not discuss the wardrobe story at her rally in Kissimmee later in the day.

At this point, the McCain campaign consultants are trying to keep from being sued for political malpractice. After Palin made the kind of mistake she made yesterday by keeping that story alive, they have to cover their asses. I saw it as it happened and could hardly believe my ears:

But in Tampa, Palin happily broached the clothing issue after being introduced by “The View” co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who accused Palin’s opponents of being “fixated on her wardrobe” and “deliberately sexist.”

That opened the door for Palin to weigh in on a topic that has frustrated the candidate and her advisers since the story first broke five days ago.

“This whole thing with the wardrobe, you know I have tried to just ignore it because it is so ridiculous, but I am glad now that Elisabeth brought it up, cause it gives me an opportunity without the filter of the media to get to tell you the whole clothes thing,” she said.

“Those clothes, they are not my property. Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the RNC purchased, I’m not taking them with me. I am back to wearing my own clothes from my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska. You’d think — not that I would even have to address the issue because, as Elisabeth is suggesting, the double standard here it’s — gosh, we don’t even want to waste our time.”

Palin, however, forged on.

“I am glad, though, that she brought up accessories also. Let me tell you a little bit about a couple of accessories, didn’t think that we would be talking about it, but my earrings — I see a Native Americans for Palin poster,” she said. “These are beaded earrings from Todd’s mom who is a Yupik Eskimo up in Alaska, Native American, Native Alaskan.

“And my wedding ring, it’s in Todd’s pocket, ’cause it hurts sometimes when I shake hands and it gets squished,” she continued. “A $35 wedding ring from Hawaii that I bought myself and ’cause I always thought with my ring it’s not what it’s made of, it’s what it represents, and 20 years later, happy to wear it. And then finally the other accessory, you bet I’m a gold — I’m a blue star mom. I’m wearing this in honor of my son who is fighting over in Iraq right now defending all of you.”

After spending four minutes on the shopping escapade, Palin switched gears and trained her sights on Barack Obama, who, she said, is prematurely measuring the White House drapes.

“Barack Obama and I, we both have spent quite some time on the basketball court,” she said. “But where I come from, you have to win the game before you start cutting down the nets.”

Palin accused the Democrat of renting a stadium for a victory party on November 4.

That’s actually not the case — Obama’s rally on election night will be held outdoors in Grant Park in downtown Chicago.

She’s just letting it all hang out now.

And on a slightly amusing sidenote, Palin told the press last Friday that she was very frugal and shopped at a store called “Out of the Closet” in Anchorage. Anyone who lives in LA must have chuckled at that one because “Out of the Closet” is a major thrift store chain that benefits HIVAids patients. (I thought that it might have even been the same chain.) It’s not the kind of place Sarah W’s base would feel “comfortable” having their darling shop.

Well, it turns out that Sarah W has also caused her favorite little resale shop some trouble:

AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s flagship ‘Out of the Closet’ fundraising thrift store in the heart of Hollywood also offers free HIV testing and has an AHF
Pharmacy on site which is open to everyone, but offers clients specific
expertise in HIV/AIDS medications. Governor Sarah Palin recently made headlines
stating that another ‘Out of the Closet’ resale store in Alaska is her family’s
favorite store. AHF will pursue trademark protection for its registered federal
trademark for ‘Out of the Closet,’ which AHF first opened in 1990.

And then there’s this:

Retailer Christos Garkinos recently hosted the owners of the Alaskan store at Decadestwo, the designer resale store he co-owns with Cameron Silver in Los Angeles. “I was saying that Alaska’s been in the news a lot, and they said that Palin shops at their store all the time,” he said. The Out of the Closet owners ended up “buying a ton of stuff,” but the L.A. retailer — a staunch Sen. Barack Obama supporter who recently married his longtime partner — said he was so skeeved out at the thought of Palin wearing clothes bought from his store, he donated 100% of the sales to the Obama campaign.

Ouch.

.