There’s been lots of discussion of the latest gaffe on the part of GOP gubernatorial candidate, Dave Spence – or rather on the part of his campaign staff. It’s  funny enough that it’s even made national blogs. An aide, one Matuschka Lindo Briggs, mistakenly distributed to the press a memo not intended for the public. In it she poffered a more eloquent response to the endless and pointless GOP (-generated) curiosity about the President’s religion.

Asked previously whether or not he thought the President was a Muslim, Spence had replied “I don’t know.” Briggs suggested that he try to spin the subtextual message that the President is not like you and me in a more eloquent fashion that would also conform to the general GOP line while layering on a slather of faux dignitas:

This is not an issue that I felt was pertinent to my candidacy for governor and expressed those sentiments. However, if the media insists that this is a critical issue that must be addressed, I will be clear.  President Obama says he is a Christian, and I take him at his word.

It seems to me that I’ve heard several GOP politicians making similar declarations. So many otherwise critical politicians seem to be willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt. Which, given the fact that were never any grounds for doubt –  nor any reason to be too interested in any case – is really generous of them.

The best take on the whole situation can be found in the comments section of TPM:

Dave Spence says that the thought and speech centers of his brain, despite all available evidence, are not connected directly to Karl Rove and Frank Luntz’s sewage systems, and I take him at his word.

President Obama is asking the Congress to do what they were hired to do (a novel concept.)  They should pass his American Jobs Act right away.  I know we can debate this forever and pick it apart, but let’s put some pressure on the Congress to stop stalling.  What the Republicans and their corporate masters are doing is trying to make the economy so bad that people will blame it all on President Obama.  Companies are sitting on mountains of cash, but they won’t start hiring until after November 2012.  As the President said last night, there are too many families that can’t wait another 14 months for help.   I’m sure you know people out of work just as I do.  All the food pantries in the St. Louis area are scraping bottom.

Call your Congressman/woman  and the two Missouri Senators.  Urge members of both parties to get busy helping the President with his plan.  If you feel as strongly as I do about what the Republicans are doing, tell them you’re ashamed of them for making families suffer while they play political games.  Give ’em hell, Harry.  We don’t have Harry Truman to give ’em hell, so we’ll have to do it ourselves.  Let’s burn up the Capitol switchboard.

Phone numbers. All these begin with area code (202)  All the House numbers begin with 225-

Akin 2561  Clay  2406  Carnahan  2671  Hartzler  2876  Graves  7041  Long 6536   Emerson  4404  Leutkemeyer 2956.

Senators:  McCaskill  (202) 224-6154    Blunt  (202)  224-5721.

 

On Sunday, Michael Bersin and I got up at the crack of dawn and gathered up all of our paraphernalia and hit the road for Joplin. We had requested media credentials from the White House and we made the cut, so we got to cover the event right alongside the old media that hates our guts.

Now — I’m not just a blogger for a couple of decidedly liberal news sites — I am also a party hack, and I admit that freely. At least two days a week I am over in Independence in the Jackson County Democratic Committee office. My raison d’etre is to get Democrats elected because before we can accomplish anything we want to see brought about, we have to win elections and control majorities and chairmanships of committees.

Over the last few days, I have found myself thinking back on the service and the words of both President Obama and Governor Nixon, and of course about the politics of what I saw on Sunday.

I’m not going to point fingers at Eric Cantor for politicizing it first by demanding relief for Joplin be offset with spending cuts or it was a non-starter. I’m absolutely not mad at him for making it about politics.

I’m grateful he made it about politics. Because you know what? It’s always about politics. Everything. Is. Always. About. Politics, because all politics is, is the distribution and application of power, and that means everything we do has a political element, from two people deciding on where to go for lunch or what toppings to put on the pizza to the decision by the House Majority Leader to withhold relief from the devastation of a natural disaster unless corresponding spending cuts are made.

In 2008, President Obama lost Missouri by a mere one-tenth of one percent. Less than 4000 votes out of approximately three million cast, and the race in Missouri wasn’t called for two weeks. If the election had been close, we could have woke up one morning a few weeks later asking how the hell we turned into Florida and reset the clock to 2000.

Now let’s leave aside the fact that in reality, Obama probably won it. A lot of provisional ballots were cast in inner city precincts that were never counted, and I am pretty comfortable asserting that those young black people I personally saw filling out provisional ballots in MY precinct while I was voting weren’t filling them out for John McCain and Sister Sarah. Obama didn’t need our eleven electoral votes to win, so he didn’t sue to have those ballots counted.

I talk to campaign people all the time, and after the election they all said that I shouldn’t plan on seeing much of an Obama presence in Missouri, he would concentrate on the states he won in 08. That conventional wisdom seems to have shifted, though.

It started when the republicans ginned up their voter suppression schemes all across the land, and since the tornado that devastated Joplin, talk of Obama skipping Missouri has all but been abandoned.  

Then Eric Cantor opened his mouth and opened the door for Democrats to hammer the hell out of republicans with their venality and callous disregard for the suffering of a community that was devastated by the worst tornado in decades. And their crass disregard is directed at “their own.”  The Missouri seventh congressional district is the most solidly republican of any in the state. In 2008, McCain carried it with more than 60% and so did Kenny Hulshoff — and Nixon won his election in a double digit landslide.

The response to the tragedy in Joplin was immediate and competent and it stood in stark contrast against the Bush administration and their response — or lack thereof — to Hurricane Katrina. Nixon sent the National Guard and Obama sent FEMA, and they both stayed out of the way for a few days and let the professionals work.

And then the President came to town to grieve with them and promise that they would not be forgotten, that Joplin would be rebuilt and that wasn’t just a promise from him, that was a promise from America. And I saw a crowd of people who were overcome with gratitude that he came to mourn their dead and celebrate the strength and resolve of the living with them.

I’m a pretty good judge of this political stuff, and I have the archives to prove it. President Obama lost the Missouri Seventh by 2:1 — so did Jay Nixon —  and neither one of them is going to win down there next year. But they don’t have to. That is the reddest, most solidly republican part of the state, and all they have to do is pick up a few votes from people who may have been sobered up just a little bit by the events of the past week and a half. If they narrow the gap and the ratio is 3:2 next year, Obama carries Missouri and the nation and we get our bellwether status back.

I’m pretty confident that Obama is going to go after our ten electoral votes with a vengance and a fury, and I think it’s going to be worth his while. Because if a conservative really is a liberal who has been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who has had his house blown away by a tornado.

Yeah, this is a process story. Since we cover politics and government in Missouri and President Obama was here yesterday, we went through the process to be able to cover his trip. Since we don’t cover major league baseball (pace RBH) we weren’t going to get credentials to cover the first pitch along with 2500 other media folks. Instead, we covered the arrival and departure of the President on Air Force One.

Inivted guests waiting next to the press pen for the arrival of the President.

And it could happen. The President could decide that he’s a little ahead of schedule and go ahead and work the rope line. Then we’d get some nice close up photos and maybe a comment or two. It didn’t happen, but you show up just in case it does happen.

It’s much louder in person.

Touchdown.

President Obama exits with Wille Mays.

After the motorcade left for the game invited guests (and practically everyone else) took turns posing for photos with Air Force One in the background. In case you’re wondering, yes, I have one of those photos, too.

Our running gag as we waited in the press pen between arrival and departure and as commercial air traffic on final approach passed to land: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, if you look to your right you’ll see Air Force One. Those little dots on the ground are people sleeping in the press pen.”

There’s a photo floating around somewhere of me sleeping on the ground on the tarmac with Air Force One in the background. I’m hoping to get a copy.

The president enters the aircraft. It was dark and I have no idea who is with him.

President Barack Obama speaks at Cairo University in Cairo, Thursday, June 4, 2009. In his speech, President Obama called for a ‘new beginning between the United States and Muslims’, declaring that ‘this cycle of suspicion and discord must end’. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

The contrast with the previous eight years is quite striking, don’t you think?

Update: So a vacuous right wingnut television celebrity and others criticize President Obama for not using the word “democracy” in today’s speech [in it’s entirety in the comments below]. Except that he did:

“…The fourth issue that I will address is democracy.  (Applause.)

I know — I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq.  So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other…”

“…This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they’re out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others.  (Applause.)  So no matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power:  You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party.  Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy. …”

President Barack Obama speaks with a foreign leader in the Oval Office on his first day in office 1/21/09. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.

From yesterday’s White House press briefing:

…MR. GIBBS:  Well, look, I think — not surprisingly, I doubt I’m going to enumerate them.  But I think anybody is hard-pressed to look back over a significant period of time like 99 or a hundred days and think you wouldn’t have done some things differently.  I’ve mentioned a decision today that the President would have made quite differently than was made in this White House.  I think it is safe to say that the President spends some time each day reflecting on what’s been done here in the course of any given day, and has asked us and asks himself to figure out how he can do what he does better.

When the President was first elected to the United States Senate, I remember one of the very first staff meetings that we had.  Then-Senator Obama said to all of us that were assembled that he knew that there were certain sacrifices in public service, that we could all figure out how to do something that gives us more time with our families or maybe earns us more in our paychecks, but he thought there were probably few things that we could do that were — be more rewarding if we worked every day to help people improve their lives.  I think that’s what he gets up every day thinking, and thinks each and every day about how he can improve, making sure that that happens.

Q    Do you want to juggle less balls, maybe?

MR. GIBBS:  Say again?

Q    Do you want to throw some of the balls out that you’re juggling; juggling too many?

MR. GIBBS:  No, I — I have addressed this and I think the President will probably get a chance to address this tomorrow — we don’t have the luxury of picking the problems that we address that face this country or face the American people, because we’re in a — we’re in a time period in which there’s a lot on the American people’s plate — whether it’s creating jobs; whether it’s stabilizing the financial system; whether it’s getting credit flowing; whether it’s making a college education more affordable; whether it’s cutting the cost for health care; finding a path towards true energy independence; making our nation safer; rehabilitating our image in the world in order to ensure that we have the greatest leverage and power to push the national interests of this country.  I’m not sure which of those things you would decide as less important in that group.

The President has decided that those are the issues that face this country, and he’s going to work every day to find a solution to move us a step forward toward reaching those goals…

[emphasis added]

President Obama is in Missouri this morning – holding a town hall meeting in Arnold – all with the media “celebrating” the milestone.

The President is popular, just not among what remains of the republican base:

A SurveyUSA poll of 1200 adults in the United States taken on April 27th and released on April 28th, sponsored by KABC-TV, Los Angeles with a margin of error of 2.9%:

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as President?

All

58% – approve

38% – disapprove

4% – not sure

Democrats [39% of sample]

86% – approve

12% – disapprove

2% – not sure

republicans [29% of sample]

31% – approve

64% – disapprove

5% – not sure

Independents [30% of sample]

47% – approve

47% – disapprove

5% – not sure

Considering what other polls (Pew and NYT/CBS, for instance) are telling us about party self identification, 29% for the republican sample seems a little generous. Those poor numbers could explain Arlen Specter.

Not being a fan of the media manufactured and very artificial 100 day label, I’ll just consider this a good start.