solarbird: (Default)
[personal profile] solarbird
okay i know this is already everywhere but: schwarzenegger vs. legislature lulz. he shoulda just said "yeah deny this."

in not funny news, now that focus on the family's state proxy has failed to either get a special-rights-for-them exemption from campaign spending and secrecy laws, the national focus on the family has started dumping anti-gay money into the local race for referendum 71, sending out mailers that try to make recipients think evil faggits will teach fag pervert sex to first graders if it passes. contemptible, as always; it's what they've been doing in maine and what worked in california, too.

don't forget to vote YES on referendum 71 btw. unless you hate me.

nationally, the obama administration working with democratic leadership have managed to remove all meaningful reform in the patriot act. I like this quote from Julian Sanchez in The Nation:
We know the rules by now, the strange conventions and stilted Kabuki scripts that govern our cartoon facsimile of a national security debate. The Obama administration makes vague, reassuring noises about constraining executive power and protecting civil liberties, but then merrily adopts whatever appalling policy George W. Bush put in place. Conservatives hit the panic button on the right-wing noise machine anyway, keeping the delicate ecosystem in balance by creating the false impression that something has changed. We've watched the formula play out with Guantánamo Bay, torture prosecutions and the invocation of "state secrets." We appear to be on the verge of doing the same with national security surveillance.
...because it's entirely how this system works.

You can tell I'm waking up because I'm starting to use capital letters. I think I'll leave it that way. G'morning. ^_^

Date: 2009-10-28 07:15 pm (UTC)
shadesofmauve: (Default)
From: [personal profile] shadesofmauve
The off-year election is a big worry.

As far as my recent experience with media/publicity goes, [livejournal.com profile] epawtows has a very good point. I don't know that most people have voted yet, but a signifigant percentage have. It seems that classic last-minute campaigning is really too late in many cases. That's certainly true for election-eve tactics, and probably to a lesser degree for earlier, post-ballot-mailing ads.

No side has really adapted to the earlier schedule perfectly (I winced when I saw a "Help us pay for pro-71 ads" message this week -- too darn late, guys!). A few of the bigger newspapers have gotten better at writing their op-eds early, signage is everywhere, but my local newspaper is still hooked on election day, and fundraisers are clearly banking on last minute tactics (as in Family PAC's "But the rules shouldn't apply to US!" lawsuit).

Damn. I wish there was a good way to keep out-of-state money OUT of state campaigns. Hard to do without running up against free speech issues. Any ideas from the bright people here?

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