Political Punch

The Daily Iowan endorsement was the second major Iowa college newspaper endorsement 'won' by Obama. The Iowa State Daily, the college newspaper at Iowa State University in Ames, had endorsed him earlier in the month.

Considering that Obama has made quite a push to attract and mobilize the student vote, it's not shocking to see him citing the endorsements in his ads.

After all, a student vote counts just as much as any other voter's.

Obama had written a guest column in the Daily Iowan in mid-December (followed by John Edwards and Joe Biden).

On the Republican side, John McCain took the endorsement from the Iowan and the Daily.

I would ask Huck how many of these US citizens would not have their scholarships in Iowa because he had given them to illegal aliens instead.

He is soft on illegal aliens...soft on crime (pardoning a dozen murderers)
and
Liberal on taxing and saw no government program that needed to be cut.

He is a big government liberal who goes to your church...in other words, he is JIMMY CARTER. If you would have voted for the good Christian in 1980, you would have voted for jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan, the man who had signed the most liberal abortion-rights bill in California and was a divorcee...but he was not "a good Christian" according to the definition of Huckabee and his bigoted minions.

So, go ahead and vote for the 2007 version of Jimmy Carter and watch what happens. Jimmy was the worst president ever. Huck will be the worst GOP candidate ever. He will not make it to November. He is not presidential

Mitt Romney will be one of the best presidents ever. He has the education, executive experience and leadership abilities that we need.

Mitt will win the nomination, but don't waste your caucus vote on the reincarnation of Jimmy Carter.

This is a hilarious blog entry.

Just thought I'd mention that. Glad someone caught on to the Iowa Daily inanity.

I wonder if the research people even knew it was a student paper?

If they did, hard to imagine they'd use it, because it makes them look dumb.

On the other hand, no one else would have written what they quoted, so maybe they had to settle for what they got.

Why is an endorsement from a (student) college newspaper less valuable than one from ABC-news (not that your group would ever OVERTLY endorse anyone) or a daily newspaper? When we were undergrads were our opinions less valuable than the older "wiser" voters getting us bogged down in Vietnam and Iraq? Not that I noticed!!

Questions for the candidates?
Does your plan cover student nurses?

Did you know that student nurses are not covered by OSHA or worker's compensation and have no health insurance, but you are billed full price for their services in facilities built with HILL BURTON FUNDS or billed through government contracts.

Student nurses are not being paid for clinical hours, student doctors are, and even have an FICA tax exception.

The city of New York granted an FICA exception to dentists and are now having to bail them out with taxpayer money, so they will qualify for Social Security.

With no OSHA coverage by the Bloodborne Pathogen Standard, and being one of the first stops when the Red Cross needs blood, It is a problem.

John McCain is in third place in Iowa.

You have to capatilize on that John.
If I was your campaign manager?
I would have you on the first jet to Iowa.
(and I mean today!)

I'd be whipping John like a workhorse.

He needs to move his forces to Iowa
to capalize on this possible third place win.
If you take third John
you'll be the "comeback kid" for the Iowa caucuses.

John, I wrote you off in the summer of '06,
but like Lazarus you have risen from the dead.
unbelievable!

"Get going in Iowa John!
Ya!"

Obama has probably been concerned about the slew of polls that have come out over the past 11 days showing a bit of a John Edwards (media created) surge. However, just because the DMR results are different from the other polls it doesn’t mean they’re wrong. In 2004, the DMR was the only pre-caucus poll to correctly predict the rank of the top 4 democratic contenders coming out of the caucus. All the other polls were all over the place before the caucus, but DMR got it right. As far as polling Iowa goes (it’s a really hard state to poll), the DMR poll is the gold standard.

Also, his healthcare radio ad can hardly be considered an attack ad. For a pundit, you're pretty thin skinned. Hillary and Edwards have been blanketing IA and NH with marketing materials that have been HARSHLY critical of Obama's healthcare plan. Hillary even went so far as to say Obama was betraying democratic principles by not having a mandate. They've really been trying to skin him on this healthcare issue. All Obama does in his ad is mention what Iowans already know – that Hillary and Edwards have been criticizing him over the mandate issue - and he tells voters WHY he doesn't feel mandates are appropriate at this stage (i.e. before costs are under control). He doesn't try to caricature them.

Hillary’s plan estimates premiums of $12k/yr for family coverage – according to the US Census Bureau, the average American family makes $48k/yr (Gross). The issue is affordability first. Most people don’t have the insurance because they can’t afford it, not because they don’t want it. Once they’ve got the costs under control for the average family, they can impose a mandate. Massachusetts’ mandated program has had to exempt 100’s of thousands because people can’t afford it, and they’re beginning to fine others. We already have an example of a mandated program that doesn’t ensure full coverage, largely because it’s too expensive. Frankly, I think it’s the insurance companies who are working with Hillary to push the mandate issue. They want to be assured of profits, regardless of whether people can afford their premiums. When they get their premiums under control, they’ll have a captive audience of 300 million Americans to make money from. They should not be allowed to impose a mandate until the premiums are within reach of average Americans. As an aside, the president of AFSCME, the group backing Hillary that is sending out the healthcare attack mailers against Obama, testified earlier this year that they don’t believe in mandates - so they are only sending out those attack ads because they have pledged support to Hillary.

What is it with ABC?
What has Obama done to you guys.
Your whole website is choke full of overwhelmingly pro-Hillary, pro-Edwards, anti-Obama news and blogs.

He will win anyway you know.

Start being fair guys.
And Jake Tapper, please stop trying so hard to manufacture an Obama controversy.