A Majority of Americans Place Trust in Democrats' Ability to Lead US Economy

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by The Samples
What Are Records

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written May 11, 2007

Those poll obsessed pollsters at Gallup reported today that a majority of Americans are more confident in the Democrats' ability to handle issues related to the economy. Gallup asked people within its sample group to rate the extent to which they have confidence in Democratic leaders in Congress, Republican leaders in Congress, Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and President Bush to “recommend the right thing for the economy.” 54% of those polled said they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in Democratic leaders. Of the four groups, President Bush had the lowest support with 43% of Americans placing trust in his ability to lead on economic issues. According to Gallup, this is the first time in the seven-year history of this particular pole that a majority of Americans voiced more confidence in Democrats compared to the other three national leaders on economic issues. The bar graph below charts the results of the poll.


Perhaps the most notable finding from the poll, is the percentage of self-described Republicans who placed more trust in the Democratic leaders in Congress to do the right thing for the economy. 34% of Republicans sided with the Democrats whereas 27% of Democrats placed more confidence in the Republican leaders in Congress.




Technorati Tags: giant podium, music, politics,economy,Gallup,Bush

The Candidates' Perceived Closeness to Bush: An Asset or Liability?

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by Four80East
Native Language Music

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written on May 3, 2007

So far it appears that John McCain is the lone Republican to be openly critical of President Bush. Will any of the other Republican candidates use tonight’s debate as an opportunity to join McCain in distancing himself from George Bush’s handling of the Iraq war, or the debacle surrounding the firing of the U.S.attorneys, or perhaps the woefully mismanaged Hurricane Katrina disaster response? I can't imagine MSNBC's Chris Matthews not asking at least a few hardball questions with the intent of provoking the candidates to proclaim their support or disapproval of Bush's job performance.

According to a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted April 20-24, 76 percent of Republicans said they approved of Mr. Bush’s job performance. That seems to be reason enough for a candidate not to voice sharp criticism of Bush during the debate. However, only 32 percent of overall respondents in the New York Times/CBS News poll said they actually approve of the President’s job performance. As New York Times writer Adam Nagourney notes in his article today, “That is something certain to be on the mind of all the major Republican candidates on Thursday night — aware that they are not speaking, say, to a Republican audience in Dubuque, Iowa, but a national audience watching on MSNBC…”


Technorati Tags: giant podium, music, politics,debate,Republican,New York Times Poll,John McCain

Republican Candidates Set to Debate Tonight

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from "Hope In Isolation"
by The Martino Conspiracy
Aspirion Records

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written May 3, 2007
Tonight marks the first televised debate among the ten Republican presidential candidates. The event, slated to run 90 minutes, will be televised by MSNBC, which also carried last week’s Democratic debate. The politico.com is co-sponsoring the event and will stream it live over the internet. In a very cool Web 2.0 twist, the politico is also accepting questions submitted via Internet from visitors to its website. The debate will feature three ten-minute segments during which time the candidates will have 30 seconds to respond to questions submitted from Politico readers. So far, more than 3,000 questions have been submitted. Will my question make the final cut?

With ten candidates in the mix, the debate will surly prove a challenge for any of the candidates to get serious air time. In last week’s debate, Barack Obama claimed the most speaking time with 12 minutes. Tonight’s debate will end up taking the form of an intense elevator pitch competition. Perfect for those of us with short attention spans and a touch of ADD.



Technorati Tags: giant podium, music, politics,Republican,debate,politico

Democratic Candidates Square Off in First Debate

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Six Degrees Travel Series

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written April 27, 2007

The eight democratic contenders participated in their first major debate last night on the campus of South Carolina State University. Sadly, I missed the entire event, but not surprisingly there’s no shortage of print coverage of the debate in the blogosphere and mainstream print media to fill me in on what I missed. Based on the reports I've read, foreign policy topics (notably Iraq and Iran) produced several testy exchanges originating on the left-wing side of the party from Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich . Overall, the pundits appear to agree that overall the debate was a rather tame affair that produced neither any regrettable emotional outbursts on the part of the candidates nor a shakeup of the current front-runners -- Clinton, Edwards, and Obama.

In the hope of finding a video replay of the event I went to MSNBC’s website, but all they are offering is a measly 13 minute 50 second segment from the full 90 minute debate. What about the other 75 minutes? Oh, I should point out the network is offering a full length transcript if you have the time, patience, and will power to click through 20 web pages of text. So the network is providing a full transcription, but not the full video. If this were year 2004, I would cut MSNBC some slack for this omission. Offering 90 minutes of video in the form of multiple shorter segments is not an unreasonable expectation.

The next major debate features the Republican candidates on May 3 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA. MSNBC will again televise the debate, but in a very creative and interactive twist the Politico.com will stream the event over the Internet and provide viewers an opportunity to question the candidates in real-time. Finally, the debate forum meets Web 2.0. And hopefully, this time, MSNBC will make the full length video replay available afterwards on its website!!!

Technorati Tags: giant podium, music, politics,debate,MSNBC,Democratic,Republican

Geekalicious Political Website

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by The Shakes
Teenacide Records

• Buy at RealNetworks / Rhapsody

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written April 24, 2007

GEEKALICIOUS! Perhaps that should replace the delicious tag for marking creative and unexpected new uses of youtube. The fine folks at Expertvoter.org have created a website that organizes youtube videos of the presidential candidates by policy issue. Want to know what a candidate’s thoughts are on the war in Iraq, immigration, energy policy, health care, or some other not so trivial policy issue? The Expertvoter website seems to me to be a fun if not quick and dirty way of discovering where the candidates stand on a variety of policy topics. At the very least, the website makes for a nifty digital photomontage of Brooks Bros suits.

Romney Discusses Biggest Issues Facing America

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Groove Gravy Records

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written April 23, 2007

I finally tore myself away from the Yankees-Red Sox series to indulge my fix of You Choose ’08 videos. First up: Mitt Romney describing the “biggest issue that America faces” – a lofty enough subject for any serious presidential contender. In the span of 1 minute, 48 seconds, Romney goes on to identify not just one, but eight whopper issues facing the country:
1) The spread of radical Jihad
2) Nuclear proliferation
3) The emergence of Asia as an economic competitor
4) A deteriorating family structure (is this code for Romney’s opposition to same sex marriage?)
5) Better schools
6) Better health care
7) The environment
8) Energy independence

Shouldn't Iraq be at the top of the list? Other hot button issues left out of the great eight: global climate change, free trade, and immigration.

Top Six Presidential Fundraisers Suckle on Large Donors

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by Parker, Maceo
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written on April 17, 2007

More news on the fundraising prowess of the presidential candidates in Q1 – 79% of the total funds raised by the candidates came from large donations ($1,000 or more per donation). Small contributions of $200 or less accounted for only 14% of total candidate fundraising in Q1. The Campaign Finance Institute out of the George Washington University provides a break down of the relative contribution of donations of various size for each candidate. Looking at the top three Republican fundraisers, Romney pulled in 88% of total funds from large donors. Giuliani wasn’t far behind with 87% and McCain with 74%. The top three Democratic fundraising also relied heavily on big donors. Clinton’s share from the $1,000+ donation set was 86%. For Edwards it was 77%. Obama, however, seems to have broken away from the pack with respect to leveraging small donors. Though large donations filled the bulk of his campaign chest, he did manage to pull in the largest share of small donations of the top six fundraisers at 22%. This fact bodes well for the Obama campaign as it indicates that he is building a strong and economically diverse base of support. The percentage share of donations of $200 or less were as follows for the other top fundraisers:

Clinton – 9%
Edwards – 15%
Romney – 6%
Giuliani – 7%
McCain – 19%