Union Drops New Mailer In Battlegrounds Hammering McCain On Health Care
The AFL-CIO -- which has taken on a lead role in trying to persuade working class voters in swing states to vote their economic interests -- keeps up the economic assault on John McCain with this new mailer in battleground states hammering McCain as rich, out of touch, and a disaster on health care.
Click on the images to enlarge:
The mail, which will be dropped in Colorado, Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida, features Ohio union worker Dave Fecke hammering McCain as "rich" and saying "he doesn't get it" on kitchen-table issues.
The mail piece, which doesn't mention Obama, signals the start of a new and aggressive campaign by the union to target McCain in those key battlegrounds by speaking to worker anxieties about health care with more mailers, phone calls, and door-to-door canvassing, AFL-CIO spokesperson Steve Smith says. Health care, of course, is an increasingly urgent issue on its own for financially pinched families, as well as a kind of proxy for larger anxieties about the state of the economy in general -- anxieties that McCain has failed to address, polls show.
"McCain's practically had free health care his whole life," Fecke says in the mail piece. "He doesn't understand how hard it would be for my family to pay more."
The stakes of such efforts are particularly high in the slower-growing states of the industrial midwest, where polls show Obama gaining but still not at the point where he's put these states way, despite the economic collapse.
"hammering..." Did you leave a word off the headline?
September 30, 2008 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Keep up the good work.
September 30, 2008 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Keep up the good work.
September 30, 2008 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Keep up the good work.
September 30, 2008 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
My feeling is always that the best candidates can do is highlight the differences in their governing philosophies cause no matter how many specifics a candidate gives in an answer, it is my feeling that no candidate really knows what they will face once they get there.
Obama has said as much - he's said: I can't say any more exactly what I will do cause I don't know the whole situation. The best he can do is just tell us how his view and his vision is different than McLame's on the economy.
In this situation - what else can he do?
The worst part of this crisis is that no one trusts or believes the administration so everyone is working somewhat blind here.
September 30, 2008 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know, I just posted this on the wrong thread, I believe. I meant it for the post below but Greg - you guys are putting posts up faster than I can read them this AM.
September 30, 2008 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Glad to see this.
September 30, 2008 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
by the way all, we've overhauled our servers. has the site been working better for you?
September 30, 2008 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Better than a couple weeks ago but still not perfect. As you can see above.
September 30, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hate to say this - but yes and no. It's still acting like the old server at times, Greg. Yesterday I got the "no server response" over and over during the afternoon when traffic was high.
September 30, 2008 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure when the overhaul was complete, but Friday night during the debates was terrible.
September 30, 2008 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Better, but my avatar doesn't seem to be working. It's 50 pixels wide X 76 high; is it the height issue?
September 30, 2008 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Greg, people who want to change avatars or add one are going nuts! Nothing works for them. Or didn't last I knew.
September 30, 2008 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Early voting in Ohio begins today.
I know on the CNN focus group tracker at the bottom of the screen during the debate, the issue that always caused Dem, Repub, and Ind to shoot up was when Obama mentioned health care (I don't think McCain mentioned it once.)
September 30, 2008 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, in the debate, McShame did repeat the lie that Obama's plan would put government in control of health care and that government would get in the middle of a patient's relationship with a doctor.
This was one of a number of things McShame said in the debate (lying about his support for veterans was another) that I wanted Obama to slam him for. Hopefully, in the next two debates, Obama can call McShame out for lying about his health plan, remind people of the truth about it, and also point out that McShame's plan will amount to a middle-class tax increase and cause 20 million people to lose coverage.
September 30, 2008 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
The thing I'd like to hear from more Democrats on healthcare is:
"You can tell someone is rich if they think there are no bureaucrats involved in people's medical decisions now."
September 30, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
True.
And I'd take a government employee any day over an insurance company bean-counter. Though, of course, that's not the real choice since Obama's plan would have zero government intervention in medical decisions.
September 30, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Preview function, fertheluvofkeerist.
September 30, 2008 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama live in Denver atm.
http://www.cnn.com/video/live/live.html?stream=stream2
September 30, 2008 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Diageo/Hotline: Obama Surges in Battleground States
An early look at today's Diageo/Hotline tracking poll shows Sen. Barack Obama now holds a double-digit lead in key battleground states.
Among registered voters surveyed in Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Nevada, Obama tops McCain 50 to 40%. Just a week ago, Obama led 45% to 42%.
September 30, 2008 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is that one poll that surveys just in those states, or a poll for each state.
September 30, 2008 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Erm...not sure.
September 30, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is great stuff. My only criticism -- and it's a pretty mild one -- is that I don't understand why this figure -- "McCain's plan will cause 20 million Americans to lose their health benefits" -- isn't there. Especially in big bold letters. It's from an independent study that can be cited and it's entirely valid.
September 30, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am in such a quandary - I have the paperwork to apply for an absentee ballot and I have to get in before the 6th and I'm going back and forth.
If I ask for an absentee ballot I can't vote in person and this post office is so infamous for such good reasons I'm scared I won't get my ballot.
I can't decide what to do.
September 30, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tough choice. If they're out to steal the election, they can do it any number of ways.
I'd make it this way: Does your state have touch screen voting with no paper trail? If so, I'd risk the post office. But if your state has a more reliable form of election day voting, perhaps safer to go that route.
September 30, 2008 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah it's touch screen in my precinct in Dallas
I'd rather vote absentee, but I have one of the worst mail carriers in Taos and that's really saying a lot. The son of a bitch turns around in my driveway every day and will not deliver my packages. He pretends I don't live here.
*sigh*
September 30, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps you should go to a different post office and then if you want to be extra sure, do one of those registered mail with return receipt things.
Though I am sorry you're registered in Texas and not in New Mexico.
September 30, 2008 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well the other thing I'm thinking of doing is using a friend's fax machine and doing it that way.
I wish I was registered to vote here, too, except - and here's where I get jumped by trolls - New Mexico has a state income tax. Texas does not. My husband is not going to let me change my legal residence.
And I understand.
September 30, 2008 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Plenary indulgence for being a good poster.
September 30, 2008 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
If Obama's problems in the industrial midwest are essentially racial, I don't see how he has breakaway poll numbers, at any point. I am very fearful that the "older" white vote in Ohio and Pennsylvania are going to cost him the national election. This whole voting for a black guy just isn't coming easy for a lot of people. Does he even have support among the union rank and file?
September 30, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's exactly why this and all of labor's efforts are so important.
I guarantee you that Obama will get a significantly higher percentage of the union vote than he does among non-union working class voters. Whether it's as high as the percentage of the union vote Kerry received, I don't know, but given the number of new registrants, the increased numbers of younger people voting, and Obama's ground operation, I don't think he has to match those numbers.
September 30, 2008 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree.
I'll tell you what I'm seeing here in New Mexico: two Repug activists here - one was head of the party - have publicly made racist statements and they didn't pull punches - they said outright that Latinos won't vote for Obama cause he's black.
They're wrong - and the first guy who said it has been fired from his position. I have talked to more regular people here - just everyday people who are mostly Latino here and they all support Obama.
There's a little under the radar race war going on but the bigots are going to lose it. They're Repugs and it's their last gasp.
September 30, 2008 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed. I'd be willing to bet a significant amount of money -- maybe not as much as McShame blows on the craps tables, but a lot for me -- that Obama gets a higher percentage of the Latino vote than Kerry.
If Obama's got a Latino "problem," I hope he has similar "problems" with lots of other voting groups.
September 30, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
O believe me, I think so too.
The Repugs here who made those statements pissed off the Repug power structure here big time.
Those statements were major major mistakes. It was really ugly.
September 30, 2008 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Take heart, John. Here in Kentucky, home of racist "democrats," just in the last week two of them who would not vote for Obama under threat of torture confessed to me that they will not vote in the presidential race at all rather than vote for McCain.
The reason? Palin terrifies them.
I think the big Obama numbers in supposedly racist territority may reflect this disgust at McCain. They may not vote for Obama, but sure as hell ain't voting repug, either.
September 30, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sanity is breaking out!
September 30, 2008 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just saw and Obama ad on healthcare with a very interesting visual - it takes his campaign logo and has two arrows going out to either side. The thrust of the ad is that there are two extremes to the health care situation and that Obama is in the center looking out for you. The subtext - somewhere between Hillarycare and John McCain you'll find the answer in the Obama plan.
I know I have a serious hero worship man-crush on Obama, but his political jujitsu is amazing. He is taking the criticisms of his plan not being "universal" from the primaries and turning it into a positive.
September 30, 2008 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
LOL! Ain't it funny how so many of us do have serious hero-worship crushes on Obama? He does that to you -
September 30, 2008 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I heard something similar from a male psychoanalyst at a public meeting last spring. Warmed my heart! Another analyst I know is consulting with the campaign - has a specialty in community psychiatry. And when he gave a presentation on community psychiatry, my mind went: BINGO! So I said to him, "That's the Obama campaign! Either you are assisting them or they are channeling you!"
The man is awesome! He's working for the mental health of all of us... not just the tangibles, but the all important intangibles.
September 30, 2008 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has nearly a ten point lead in Penn in the latest Ras poll. I'm not worried about his losing any Kerry states. As far as Ohio, team Obama has all along downplayed his chances there. At one point, Ohio had the largest Klan membership in the nation. If Obama wins Ohio then he'll already be in the 300+ electoral vote range.
And keep in mind that Obama has solid leads in the polls to win the election with out winning Ohio, Florida, North Carolina or Virginia.
September 30, 2008 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Small news to some people, but it looks like Bloomberg's chances at extending the term limits for NYC mayors from 8 to 12 years might be improving, given the economic crisis.
September 30, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama just might "max out" his electoral college numbers. If you give McCain only the red red states the numbers are Obama 375 to McCain 163.
375 is pretty much the ceiling for Obama, but he already looks to be in the 320 neighborhood and the trend is positive.
I can't wait until Nov 4, but in the meantime I will just have to go and kick in another $25 to the campaign.
September 30, 2008 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I gave him another two fiddy last night.
September 30, 2008 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here is the headline you need:
Union Mailer in Battlegrounds Hammers McCain on Healthcare
Not only is "drops" the wrong verb, it is unnecessary.
Please get a clue.
September 30, 2008 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agree. Drops is ambiguous. Delivers would be a better word. Took me two seconds to figure out what drops meant.
September 30, 2008 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink