Monday, October 20, 2008

Sarah beats Biden in the Duel in the Desert

by Garret A. Hobart

The painted New Mexico desert is exotic.  The sun and the wide open spaces have a way of winnowing fiction from truth.  Both Veep candidates appeared in the New Mexico desert this week, and as our MFP associate on the ground can attest, she brought her “A” game to the crowd of 10,000-plus in Roswell.  By the way, Joe Biden drew only 2,500.

MFP has received a report from one of our associates, a young man who is attending a junior college in New Mexico.  Our MFP was one man in a crowd of approximately 20,000 Palin well-wishers at a rally in Roswell, New Mexico.  It’s a good thing that he is young.  The more seasoned MFP members might have gotten a little stiff had they accompanied him.  He showed up two-and-one-half hours early for the event.  His grit and determination paid off:  Governor Palin walked within feet of him as she left her plane.

“The crowd eagerly awaited the plane.  When it arrived and the Governor stepped out, the crowd went nuts,” our associate reported.  “The enthusiasm for Sarah Palin here in New Mexico is off the charts!”

What type of crowd was it?  The stereotype of a Republican is a rich white guy in a BMW who wants women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.  But according to our MFP associate, the crowd did not fit the profile.  “There were men, women and children from all different backgrounds.  There were veterans.  There were students.  There were special needs citizens.  And there were lots of children.  Their headware ranged from cowboy hats to baseball hats to pigtails.  There were rich people, poor people, but mostly those in between.  She made sense in her speech - common sense.”

Some have estimated that there were as many as 20,000 people in the cheering throng.  News reports conservatively place the estimate at 10,000.  Either way, Sarah outdrew Senator Biden, who drew only 2500 when he visited the region this week.  That bodes well for Republican turnout in fourteen days.  Newsmedia coverage of the stirring event can be accessed below.

Sarah Palin in Roswell New Mexico part I

Sarah Palin in Roswell New Mexico, part II

Monday, October 20, 2008

Sarah Palin is a friend of Israel

by TheTruthSquad

Recent comments from the Obama camp indicated that the nation of Israel would slip in our nation’s priorities in a hypothetical Obama administration.  This is another area of contrast with the approach that Governor Palin and Big Mac will take.  BIg Mac is a proven friend of Israel, and Sarah has made herself abundantly clear that she agrees with Big Mac on this important foreign policy issue.

From Day One of its existence, the modern state of Israel has had to fight for its existence, and from Day One, it has been an uphill struggle.  The modern state of Israel was born from the ashes of the Holocaust as a refuge for the Jews who survived Israel has repelled repeated military attacks on its sovereignty.  Israel has to fight hostile neighbors from all sides, hostile Palestinians from within and Antisemitism in the United Nations.

Fortunately, Israel is the most potent nation pound-for-pound on the planet.  Fortunately, Israel has always had a friend in the United States.

During the campaign, the Democrats willingness to continue America’s strong pro-Israel policy has come into question.  Obama supporter, Jesse Jackson, Sr. opined that one of Obama’s important changes would occur in the Middle East, where “decades of putting Israel’s interests first” would end.  Jackson believes that, although “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades” remain strong, they’ll lose a great deal of their clout in an Obama administration.  (New York Post:  October 14, 2008) Contrast that outlook with Governor Palin.

In a nationally-televised interview, she stated:

“Israel has got to have the opportunity and the ability to protect itself. They are our closest ally in the Mideast. We need them. They need us. And we shouldn’t second guess their efforts. . .  It is obvious to me who the good guys are in this one and who the bad guys are. The bad guys are the ones who say Israel is a stinking corpse and should be wiped off the face of the earth . . . That’s not a good guy who is saying that. Now, one who would seek to protect the good guys in this, the leaders of Israel and her friends, her allies, including the United States, in my world, those are the good guys.” (Israel News Network, September 26, 2008).

The contrast could not be clearer on the important issue of the security of Israel.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Baseball Tea Leaves:  Tampa Bay Rays cloud the tea leaves

by Charles W. Fairbanks

MFP continues to read the tea leaves to determine what developments in the major league baseball playoffs mean for the presidential election.  There are three teams left:  Philadelphia, Boston and Tampa Bay.  The aura around Philadelphia and Boston clearly point to a Republican victory.  The aura around the Tampa Bay Rays is, at best, uncertain, and at worst dark and forbidding. Developing . . . 

This is the third in a series of articles.  In part two, MFP established that the Phillies victory in the National League Championship Series pointed to a Republican victory in the presidential election because the Phillies only World Series victory in franchise history occurred in 1980, when Ronald Reagan scored a comeback victory against incumbent president Jimmy Carter.  The link is strong, especially after Gov. Palin dropped the ceremonial first puck for the Flyers.

Thanks to a strong comeback by the Bosox, the ALCS is tied 3-3, so import of the ALCS is still unclear.  The Bosox have a long history, so their role in the stars is not hard to discern.  The Tampa Bay Rays are more difficult.

Tampa Bay is a relatively recent addition to the Major Leagues.  They have never appeared in a World Series.  Indeed, they have a very consistent losing record, like most expansion franchises after they enter the majors.  The Rays’ history does not directly point us toward any particular result.  Instead, the tea leaves seem to coalesce around the two other MLB franchises who won the Series during their first decade:  The Mets and the Marlins.  Those histories are dark and do not point directly to a Republican victory. 

When the New York Mets were born in 1962, they were so bad that one of their players observed that man would walk on the Moon before the Mets won the World Series.  The Mets were the National League’s doormats from 1962 through 1968.  When Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon in July 1969, the Mets were in second place.  They went on an historic hot streak, and finished the year by winning the World Series.  1969 was not a presidential election year.  However, there was a New York Mayoral Election in which incumbent Republican Mayor John Lindsay was running for re-election.

At first blush, the story of the 1969 Miracle Mets and the 1969 New York mayoral election would seem to point to a Republican victory because in 1969 New York Mayor John Lindsay became the first Republican since Fiorello LaGuardia to be re-elected to the office.  However, Lindsay was not re-elected as a Republican; he was re-elected as a member of the Liberal Party.  Lindsay - who had made an appearance on the national stage when he put the name of Spiro Agnew into nomination for Vice President at the 1968 RNC - lost the Republican primary for Mayor.  He did, however, manage to win the nomination of the New York Liberal Party.  Lindsay ran without the fundraising support of a major party.  Running a campaign on a shoestring as a Liberal against the Republican and the Democrat, Lindsay was struggling to run advertising, and struggling to get media attention.  That is, until he latched on to the rising star of the Miracle Mets.  He was always with the Mets - at the ballpark, at the airport rallies and at press conferences.  When he won, many people credited the Mets for helping him earn publicity.  (Ironically, Lindsay never rewarded the Mets; instead, he re-built Yankee Stadium.)

The Marlins came into being in the mid-1990s as an expansion team.  In 1997, they advanced to the World Series as the winners of the National League Wild Card.  The Marlins won the World Series behind the pitching of lefty Al Leiter.  1997 was not a presidential election year.  There was, however, a Miami mayoral election, an election that became one of the most notorious in the history of election fraud.

Game seven of the NLCS will bring the tea leaves into sharper focus.  While there could still be surprises in the leaves if the Bosox win, if they do win game seven, a more clear cut Republican direction will probably emerge.  If the Rays win, then MFP will have to look deeper into the tea leaves.