Category: Politics

Boston Globe: In a study conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, supporters of W show quite a bit more slippage between opinion and reality regarding Iraq-related issues than do Kerry supporters (in other words, Bush supporters statistically believe more things about Iraq that are not true).

Kull said it is common for voters to tailor their views on particular issues to those of the candidate they favor overall, but the extent to which Bush supporters are filtering out news from Iraq that might reflect poorly on the president is unprecedented.

MoveOn.org has thousands of volunteers using web-based tools to locate and chew out talk with undecided voters. Trouble is, a lot of volunteers out there doing the data-mining and pounding the pavement need basic computer support to get the job done — web questions, browser questions, etc. — simple stuff. So MoveOn is looking for tech-savvy peeps to support the non-tech-savvy volunteers over the next two weeks.

Got a bit of spare time and an innate ability to know when to tell people to trash their prefs or power-cycle their modems? Sign up to tech-support the Dem vote.

NY Times:

Earlier this week former employees of Sproul & Associates (operating under the name Voters Outreach of America), a firm hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters, told a Nevada TV station that their supervisors systematically tore up Democratic registrations.

There’s more, and it’s ugly.

Thanks rinchen.

You’ve probably seen one or another variants of the “Bush resumé” floating around — here’s one. As an exercise, this year’s Political Reporting class at the J-School undertook the challenge of fact-checking the faux resumé point-by-point. It’s a work in progress — solid work.

What’s the difference between thuggery and diplomacy? Size. Dylan Tweney referred to this great little QuickTime movie “Noam Chomsky meets Schoolhouse Rock.”

Lebkowski: Cheney said last night that he had never said there was a connection between Hussein and al Qaeda. MSNBC was quick to dig up a clip of him saying exactly that. Cheney said he had never met Edwards before that night’s debate; Elizabeth Edwards was quick to remind him that in fact he had. But both contenders were guilty of an evening’s worth of misleading statements – MSNBC has a breakdown.

Went with baald to tonight’s debate between New Yorker columnist / J-School professor Mark Danner and editor of The Weekly Standard William Kristol on the topic “Does America Need a New President?” I thought Danner had a better handle on the facts, Kristol worked more in generalities and was frequently apologetic for certain Bush foibles, which didn’t help his case. Kristol was quicker, if more soft-spoken, Danner more forceful and direct, more energetic. Separating style and content can be a challenge of debate watching — it was for me tonight.

Hecklers were out in force and moderater Orville Schell was the perfect diplomat trying to make certain audience members understood they were there to listen, not to talk. Police finally escorted the worst heckler out, but not until the event was almost over.

Danner made a pretty compelling argument that the past four years have been disastrous in almost every measurable respect. Kristol tried to make the case that anyone in Bush’s shoes would have — or at least should have — made similar decisions in similar circumstances, but for me at least, his points seemed anemic.

Hope all two of the undecided voters in the audience took home something useful.