By The Nader-Gonzalez Campaign

The Democratic National Convention that gathers in Denver this week to nominate Barack Obama for president will be more like a coronation than a competition. Huzzahs, speeches, bands, balloons. These affairs have long lost any suspense or spontaneity, but somewhere amid the many corporate ‘hospitality parties’ and lobbyist glad-handing, you’d expect some demonstration of political courage to shift power toward the American people.
Instead, voters will watch (or, rather, not watch) as more than $16.5 million of their tax dollars (the amount allotted by the federal government for each convention) is spent on saying very little of substance.
Rather than ideas, this convention is about power and avoidance: the power of big business and the avoidance of important but neglected issues.
Here is a short list of what you won’t hear this week, either on the convention floor or in the party’s platform. Call them the 12 taboos.

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Posted on August 26, 2008

By Citizen Kate

When Joe Biden was just another guy on the trail, Citizen Kate caught up with him and promoted her Hugs and Peace platform to great effect.

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Posted on August 26, 2008

A Biden Compendium

“Senator Joe Biden’s personal story has been tested many, many times,” Robert Gibbs, Obama’s communications director, said on Fox News Sunday.
And the focus groups liked what they heard!

Judging Joe: The Beachwood’s Best of Biden The MasterCard Senator

*
Says Ed Rendell: “But Joe Biden’s going to grow on the American people very fast.”
He hasn’t even grown on Democrats all these years.
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“Joe Biden works in Washington but he doesn’t live there,” Gibbs responded.
He would if he didn’t represent a state that’s a train ride away.

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Posted on August 25, 2008

By The Beachwood Biden Affairs Desk

Date: January 18, 2007
Article: The Trouble With Obama
What We Said: “No matter how some Democrats (though still not the majority) might like Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, just to pick two, ought to be given a serious look because they are serious, experienced public policy leaders. If only our media was as serious.”
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Date: February 12, 2007
Article:The Obama Kool-Aid Report
What We Said: “A Joe Biden appearance on a Sunday morning news show has more poetry than this.”
*
Date: April 27, 2007
Article: Mystery Debate Theater: South Carolina
What We Said: “Biden’s worst mistake was overestimating the ability of the Bush Administration to carry out the Iraq war and underestimating its incompetence, or something. So, Joe, you want to be the president of the free world and have us place our trust in your ability to judge foreign leaders far more inscrutable than George W. Bush? Same for you, Hillary.”

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Posted on August 25, 2008

By The Nader-Gonzalez Campaign

“MasterCard VP,” Pro-War Biden Doesn’t Have What it Takes to Deliver Hillary Votes That Obama Needs
In naming the MasterCard Senator and pro-war Joe Biden to be his Vice Presidential nominee, Senator Obama has chosen a running mate whose biting primary season criticisms of Obama will be used by John McCain.
While Biden has shown backbone by supporting the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, habeas corpus for Guantanamo prisoners and voting for the McCain-Feingold overhaul of campaign finance, it is difficult to see what Biden brings to the Obama campaign other than the possibility of being a rhetorically populist attack man against the McCain campaign.
Biden will have a tough time when people find out that as MBNA’s man in the Senate – MBNA has been his biggest financial backer, after contributing $214,000 over his career – he was the long-time champion and key architect of, in the words of Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Chris Dodd, “one of the “worst bills ever,” the anti-consumer bankruptcy law, which helped pave the way for the present foreclosure crisis by shifting the risk for engaging in predatory lending practices from predatory lenders to hapless borrowers.

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Posted on August 25, 2008

By The Beachwood Angry Mayor Affairs Desk

Our mayor is obsessed with headlines. And, to be fair, Fran Spielman of the Sun-Times does seem to use a reporting strategy of trying to elicit comments at press conferences on angles she’s pursuing in order to crank out three mediocore stories a day. Still, Richard M. Daley is a lousy media critic and a perpetual crank. Let’s take a look.
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Headline: “Firefighters graduate as possible layoffs loom”
Date: August 20, 2008
Publication: Sun-Times
Quote: “Everybody’s jumping. I know you need a headline . . . We are in a recession in the country. There’s major problems in the economy. Let’s not jump to headlines and scare people . . . “I’m not gonna answer that question. You need a headline . . . I’m not gonna give you that. Simple as that.”
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Headline: “Daley insists layoffs will not be political”
Date: August 19, 2008
Publication: Sun-Times
Quote: “That’s just a phony headline. It’s done by union rules. I’m sorry. About 99 percent of the people are unionized in the city of Chicago. So don’t make up phony stories.”

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Posted on August 21, 2008

By The Nader-Gonzalez Campaign

Ralph Nader, Matt Gonzalez, Val Kilmer, Sean Penn, Cindy Sheehan, Tom Morello, Jello Biafra, Nellie McKay, and Ike Reilly will all appear at the Nader/Gonzalez “Open the Debates” Super Rally August 27 at 6 p.m. at the University of Denver Magness Arena in Denver, Colorado.
“Our focus at the Denver Super Rally will be to expand the debates beyond just two parties,” said Nader. “It’s an issue of central concern to many Americans and extends far beyond any one candidate. It is a first amendment matter of speech, petition and assembly during a Presidential election for both the candidates and the voters.”
The Denver Super Rally is being held to coincide with the Democratic National Convention. A second Super Rally is planned for Minneapolis on September 4th at Orchestra Hall during the week of the Republican National Convention.

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Posted on August 20, 2008

By The Mystery Debate Theater Affairs Desk

The Mystery Debate Theater team of Tim Willette, Andrew Kingsford and Steve Rhodes couldn’t re-assemble over the weekend for Rick Warren’s Saddleback Mountain, but Steve pinch-hit with a run through the transcript. The following has been edited for space, clarity and sanity. We start with Obama and end with McCain.
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WARREN: Who are the three wisest people you know in your life, and who are you going to rely on heavily in your administration?
STEVE: Richard Daley, Bill Daley, and John Daley.
*
WARREN: What would your greatest moral failure?
OBAMA: You know, there were times where I experimented with drugs. I drank in my teenage years. And what I traced this to is a certain selfishness on my part. I was so obsessed with me.
STEVE: Until when, five minutes ago?
OBAMA: When I find myself taking the wrong step, I think a lot of times it’s because I’m trying to protect myself instead of trying to do God’s work.
STEVE: I thought that was George Bush’s job.

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Posted on August 18, 2008

By Citizen Kate

Welcome to politics, Citizen Kate!
On June 5, 2007, Citizen Kate asked John Edwards what it took to be a great leader. Part of his response: “Someone who is honest and very open . . . America wants to feel like they can trust their president.”
That was enough for CK. “I like that you’re honest!” she told him.
But we should have been paying closer attention. Watch for the creepy moment when Kate asks Edwards for a job and he seems to briefly consider hiring her to make webisodes for his campaign.

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Posted on August 9, 2008

By The Beachwood Special Session Affairs Desk

“Gov. Rod Blagojevich is bringing state lawmakers back for a two-day special session next week, just in time for the Illinois State Fair.”
* The governor will propose dates for next summer’s special session.
* Legislators will solve the state’s budget crisis by holding the world hostage for $1 million – no, $100 billion – dollars!
* The governor will reveal that he actually has a doomsday machine.
* Michael Madigan will abandon the governor on the rollercoaster at the State Fair and take the workers home with him.
* Fundraising idea: Dunk the governor! This would come close to closing the budget gap.

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Posted on August 7, 2008