When asked by a student if he was aware of China’s firewall blocking the popular micro-blogging service, Obama forewent his tech friendly reputation, saying, “I have never used Twitter but I’m an advocate of technology and not restricting internet access.”

President Obama’s admission of his unfamiliarity of the internet tool du jour would have been an altogether innocuous acknowledgement that the President is, well, old, were it not for the dogged efforts of his campaign apparatus in portraying the young then-Senator Obama as hip and tech savvy opposite the old and inaccessible Senator John McCain.

In explicitly making the case that McCain’s simple awareness of technology was not equivalent to Obama’s superior appreciation–and use–of technology, the Obama campaign launched a web ad in September of 2008 callously assailing McCain for his inability to use a computer and send an email. Were McCain elected, their logic went, the seat of the Free World’s power would run through the 73-year-old’s car phone and computer running on MS-DOS.

Of the ad, the Obama campaign said, “‘Still’ details why John McCain would just be another out of touch president offering more of the same.”

While the Obama campaign suggested McCain’s indifference to new technology was the result of the Senator’s age, Republicans were quick to note the real reason for his perceived tech-illiteracy: Senator McCain’s battle-field wounds limit the use of his hands. The Obama campaign never apologized, insisting McCain’s failure to make use of technology was due to his age and he was therefor unfit to serve as President.

President Obama’s admission that he’s Twitter-averse is not an acknowledgment that he’s old or even out of touch, like he suggested of Senator McCain. It is, however, emblematic of the duplicitous ends to which President Obama and his allies–complicit in this and countless other deceptive electioneering offenses–will go in the name of campaigning.

“Our nation is facing serious economic challenges because we keep rehiring the same failed career politicians who have proven themselves incapable of making hard choices,” read Coburn’s statement. “Carly’s common sense and fiscal conservatism will be a welcome addition to the United States Senate. I am glad to offer her my endorsement.”

Today’s announcement by Fiorina, who only formally announced her bid for Senate on Wednesday, comes on the heels of Senator Jim Demint’s endorsement of Fiorina’s Republican primary opponent, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore.

In addition to Coburn, Senators Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham, Jon Kyl, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and Olympia Snowe endorsed the former Silicon Valley executive.

“I am humbled to have earned the endorsement of each one of these distinguished Republican Senators,” Fiorina said of today’s endorsements. “They are all dedicated public servants and it is a true honor to have their support.”

While DeVore’s campaign has likened the California primary to the contentious GOP primary in Florida with liberal Republican Governor Charlie Crist and conservative Marco Rubio, conservative activists have failed to coalesce behind DeVore in ways similar to Rubio in Florida, Hoffman in New York, and Toomey in Pennsylvania.

Fiorina’s endorsers–who run the political gambit from reliably- to questionably-conservative–emphasizes the campaign’s general election strategy against liberal Democratic incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer. Fiorina must cobble together an altogether unlikely coalition, attracting the GOP’s newly-energized conservative activists while not running a campaign entirely predicated on red meat conservative values. And she’ll have to do it soon with the dogged DeVore at her every turn.

Fiorina’s allies acknowledge there is yet a long way to go in their uphill battle against Boxer, but today’s endorsements are a step-if only small in the critical eyes of California’s conservative activists–in the right direction.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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Rosiak writes:

The biggest disparity seems to be bandwidth costs–the RNC paid Smartech Corp., a Republican-focused hosting firm, more than a million dollars, plus $22,000 to Eloqua, compared to the DNC’s $203,000 to Sprint, Switch and Data and Servint Corp.–despite the fact that the two sites’ traffic, which determines bandwidth usage and, largely, hosting costs, was the same.

But the design of the site itself was costly, too. In the months prior to the October 13 launch of GOP.com, the committee paid $328,000 to 11 firms for Web development.

For an organization that prides itself on investigative research, the Sunlight Foundation is comically inept at reading campaign finance data. “They should learn to read an FEC report,” remarked my source.

The most outrageous of the RNC’s web-related expenditures, Sunlight’s exposé goes, is the $1 million-plus disbursement to Tennessee-based Smartech Corp. for hosting services. Smartech, considered by many a heavyweight in Republican web hosting, began consulting for the RNC in 2000.

“I can tell you from my tenure there that the Smartech bill includes a lot of things that aren’t GOP.com,” said former RNC eCampaign Director Michael Turk. “If you go back and look at that bill over time, I suspect it has always been high, regardless of who was Chair and regardless of whether they were rolling out a new GOP.com.”

The range of services provided by Smartech extends far beyond pricey bandwidth support for the party’s new website. According to party officials, Smartech facilitates internet at the national headquarters, hosts 31 state parties’ websites on the RNC’s platform, and provides broadcast email capabilities to the RNC and over 40 state parties. Additionally, a vast majority of the data aggregated by Voter Vault–the RNC’s voter microtargeting database, which compiles state voter files, information from commercial marketing companies, and census data to predict voters’ partisan tendencies–is hosted by Smartech.

Sunlight correctly notes the DNC’s expenditures for bandwidth services are well below that of the RNC, but what they neglected to report is perhaps more telling: the DNC does not provide website and email hosting to state parties.

RNC officials were not willing to disclose exact figures related to the party’s new digital threads, but offered assurances it was “well in the average for the services rendered.”

To that end, Turk said of the RNC’s web development budget: “subtract the million from the $1.4, and then deduct the $328k for development, and the big ‘shock’ here is that they spent $100,000. As is often the case with Sunlight attacks on the RNC, this one can be summed up with ‘Show’s over, folks. Nothing to see here.’”

Speaking of ‘Sunlight attacks,’ it is worth noting that all are not equal. Transparency and skepticism should be reserved only for some — specifically, Republicans. When reporting on the Obama administration’s fiscally irresponsible $18 million redesign of Recovery.gov, Sunlight officials sought to quell criticism, writing at the time, “you can’t presume that the government isn’t spending its money wisely unless you know both what Government is paying and what they’re paying for. We don’t know what they’re paying for.”

But Sunlight presumed to know exactly what the RNC’s web development expenditures were for, presumably because their targets were, well, Republicans.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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The latest installment in OfA’s “call ‘em out” campaign—a call to arms of sorts for complacent allies of President Barack Obama to debunk Republican myths about heath care reform—accuses Steele of scare-mongering and orchestrating a misinformation campaign against the President’s efforts on health care.

“Michael Steele is willing to lie and play political games in order to kill reform that would help Americans of every political party — so we’re calling him out,” reads an email from OfA Executive Director Jen O’Malley announcing the video.

The Democrats’ new web campaign, however, is as blatantly wrong as it is overtly hostile.

Opening with a recent segment from White House-scorned FOX News on health care reform’s “obligation to older Americans,” Steele said, “Just look at the situation with our veterans when you have a manual out there telling our veterans, you know, stuff like are you really a value to your community. You know, encouraging them to commit suicide.” Promptly followed by a blaring, rubber-stamped chyron reading “FALSE,” OfA cites as Politifact.com as cover for their claim.

At issue is a Department of Veteran Affairs-funded pamphlet—dubbed the “death book” by the Wall Street Journal—which presented various advanced care scenarios to aging veterans, callously prompting readers to then decide if their life would be “not worth living.” Democratic strategists correctly note the “Your Life, Your Choices” document was first published in 1997 and promoted by the VA throughout President George W. Bush’s two terms in office. What they fail to mention, conveniently, is that the “manual” was suspended after a review by Bush administration officials – and only later revived in 2009 by the new Democratic administration.

Despite OfA’s protestations, the Obama administration published a directive on July 2nd, 2009, emphatically stating that “primary care practitioners are responsible for giving patients pertinent educational materials, e.g. refer patients to the ‘Your Life, Your Choices’ module.” If patients request more information from doctors, the directive continues, they should “be directed to the exercises in ‘Your Life, Your Choices’” – i.e., initiating end-of-life counseling.

Furthermore, the belief expressed by Steele and other prominent Republicans that elderly Americans and aging veterans would be vulnerable under the Democrats’ health care proposal is one grounded in the realities of the marketplace, not a smoke-filled room in the Republican Capitol Hill Club. A study from Georgetown University’s Center for Clinical Bioethics, in fact, legitimized the fear of government-encouraged suicide as a means of cost-cutting when it found staggering “links between cost-cutting pressure on physicians and their willingness to prescribe lethal drugs to patients.”

Again with their self-indulgent “FALSE” rubber stamp, the DNC cried foul on another Steele claim: that Obama’s health care reforms could result in “119 million Americans being dumped out of their private coverage into a cheaper government-run health care program.” But the Lewin Group, a non-partisan health care policy research firm, estimated that of the 171.6 million people who currently have private employer or non-group coverage, 119.1 million would be forced to move to the public plan. Politifact.com, OfA’s fact-checker-of-choice, finds no error with the Lewin Group’s model, but ultimately disagrees because it is “unlikely” that Congress would move forward with a Medicare-style public option.

Politifact’s review came in May, where it was unlikely that progressive Democrats would have bucked the President on health care if their demands for the public option were not met. Flash-forward to October, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will “move forward with the more liberal version of a health reform bill that would peg government-run coverage to Medicare,” and Steele’s claim looks far more valid than the DNC, OfA and White House are willing to admit.

Citing Senator Max Baucus’ recent declaration that his version of the legislation would “actually reduce the federal deficit in the tenth year by several billion dollars” by way of debunking Steele’s claim that Obama’s reforms would increase the deficit, OfA once again gleefully says “FALSE.” Independent reviews of Baucus’ bill, however, reveal something quite different from the sentiment expressed today by the White House – namely, a parlous game with Congressional Democrats concealing hundreds of billions in costs to appear deficit neutral. Unlike their Democratic colleagues in the lower chamber who at least accurately portrayed the fiscal reality of the $245 billion “doc fix,” Senate Democrats patch an ever-expanding problem by naively assuming doctors would accept a 25% cut in Medicare disbursements for the unforeseeable future.

OfA’s latest assault comes on the heels of similar attacks on Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty and Representative Michelle Bachman. The strategy adopted by the White House, as many Republicans on Capitol Hill see it, is to unrelentingly ‘call out’ and dish ‘reality checks’ to their Republican critics until such a point where all ambivalent Americans succumb and submit as a means to end the White House’s seemingly un-ending fact-checking crusade. But if the White House’s political operation is so keen on fact checking their critics, many of whom are, in fact, on the money in their criticism, they would do well to avoid deceptive and duplicitous web videos.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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Upon reaching the new GOP.com, RNC Chairman Michael Steele takes a virtual step onto the computer screen and leads users on a tour of the site’s new features.

“Notice anything different?” asks Steele. “It’s the new GOP.com. It’s a forward-looking, open-platform for the party of new ideas. If you’re a Republican activist, this is your space.”

The developers of the new website hope to capitalize on the organic activism that gave way to Tea Parties across the nation by “creating a larger, more informed, more organized, and more energized Republican community.”

Conscious of the propensity for online social networking to mobilize activists, the new website was designed with an unmistakable attentiveness to social media and blogging, having devoted a significant portion of the landing page’s real estate to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr.

At first glance, the RNC’s new digital threads look nothing like a typical political website. From the dynamic logo featuring user-submitted pictures of supporters to the refreshingly simple navigation menu, the revamped and reorganized GOP web presence represents a commonly-preached but rarely-practiced belief on Capitol Hill: that the best ideas come from outside the Beltway.

Said one RNC official familiar with the project: “We tried to break the mold here. None of the firms we hired have ever worked in politics.”

In addition to seamlessly incorporating prominent social networks like Facebook and Twitter into their new platform, the RNC also revised their now-defunct in-house social network, myGOP. Renamed to represent Steele’s embrace of organic activism and community engagement, their new social network, dubbed “OurGOP,” allows users to organize by location, issue, or candidate slate.

And as a supplement to the new “you-centric” social network, RNC officials note an additional innovative feature: users can securely login with third-party credentials, including OpenID and Facebook rather than creating a new account.

The new website is the latest aspect of Steele’s comprehensive rebranding campaign for the GOP, who weathered two consecutive election-year losses in 2006 and 2008. The 2010 midterm elections, Steele hopes, will be different. And that difference will be fostered by surging online conservative activism.

“At GOP.com something new is happening. And that something is you,” said Steele in his video introduction.

UPDATE: As Politico’s Ben Smith points out, the RNC’s “Future Leaders” page is curiously—or perhaps candidly—blank.

The Democratic National Committee gleefully noted the error to reporters this morning, echoing the “it’s funny because it’s true” criticisms voiced on Twitter today.

Suggesting the blank page is somehow emblematic of the GOP’s withering crop of leaders, one DNC spox told Talking Points Memo “there are no future leaders in the GOP. As the GOP continues to champion the same failed policies of the past, recycle the same failed leaders of the past like Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich, and fails to get that the American people aren’t looking for a party that just says ‘NO’ to progress, we rate this claim ‘True. So, very true.’”

Hoping to recover from their early-morning fumble, the RNC updated the page to reflect Steele’s belief that ‘action begins with the individual, and that grassroots activism holds the key to future GOP success.’

“Who are the future leaders of the Republican Party? You are — you, the people who make America work,” the new site reads.

The page does not currently feature any prominent Republican elected official or activist, but says supporters may send an email to FutureLeaders@GOP.com to acknowledge “stand-out, Republican leaders who don’t get the acclaim they deserve.”

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

“We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president’s desk,” Reid said Thursday afternoon on a conference call with constituents.

But the Nevada Democrat, who is tasked with reconciling the competing Senate committee versions of the bill, yesterday told reporters the final bill would not be fashioned until the White House and leaders of the Finance and HELP committees had been consulted.

“Once that’s done, we’ll decide jointly as to what should be in that bill,” he said.

On Wednesday, the final bill hinges on consultation with Senate leadership and the President. Thursday, news surfaces that suggests Reid has consolidated the two Senate versions, and opted for the more progressive. There exists only two possible explanations. Harry Reid is either the single most productive member of Congress or he’s circumventing Democratic leaders—and the Ranking Republicans of the HELP and Finance committees—to advance his own agenda.

While Reid’s comments will likely embolden disaffected progressives, they promise to marginalize Democratic Senators Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe.

Some Democratic leaders maintain there’s no “line in the sand” in the health care overhaul, signaling the potential for negotiations with Republicans. Still, Reid’s comments today represent the increasing vulnerability of Democrats to attacks from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party for rejecting the public option.

Highlighting this vulnerability, Daily Kos Founder Markos Moulitsas wrote on Twitter today, “Blanche Lincoln will soon wonder why no one is riding to her rescue, or [cares] about her possibly losing.”

Moderate Democrats must fall in line like Speaker Reid or risk losing deep-pocketed progressive donors and online advocates like Moulitsas.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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Citing the physical demands of her ongoing treatment for breast cancer, for which she was diagnosed last March, potential GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina said her schedule of radiation treatments would not permit her attendance at the convention.

But the DeVore campaign has noted that, while Fiorina’s health curiously precluded her from attending the party gathering, she spent much of the following Monday campaigning in Fresno with ranchers and participated via satellite in Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women Summit.”

Laying the foundation for the belief that Fiorina is somehow casually exploiting her illness for the benefit of her campaign, State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore told The Fresno Bee he finds “it curious that her campaign said she was unable to make the convention for health reasons, and yet, … she was engaged in what appears to be a pretty standard, strenuous campaign day yesterday – the day after the convention.”

Indicative of his campaign’s reliance on rumor-mongering of a particularly vicious and fatuous sort, DeVore’s critics say his campaign’s latest assault on Fiorina is predicated on the notion that he can cobble together support among the GOP rank and file by fostering the double-edged rumor that his opponent is either too ill to campaign against Bay Area liberal Barbara Boxer or too liberal to campaign for the Republican nomination – or, perhaps, both.

“Carly says daily treatments keep her home, yet she campaigned Monday. Conclusion: as Pluto is no longer a planet, Monday is no longer a day,” wrote campaign spokesman Josh Treviño on Twitter.

Fiorina, whose campaign is stalled in the exploratory phase, will “continue to take day trips with a limited schedule, like she did in Fresno, in order to meet with people and hear first hand their concerns about our state and our country,” said spokeswoman Beth Miller.

Sources familiar with Fiorina’s event in Fresno say it was neither “strenuous” nor absent of conservatives, contending it was a casual agricultural campaign event. Moreover, the event in Fresno was conveniently—and necessarily—located near where Fiorina receives her radiation treatment – whereas Indian Wells is roughly 400 miles away.

As for Fiorina’s participation in Fortune’s summit, the suggestion that she is cherry-picking her appearances to deliberately avoid Republicans is asinine. And it’s particularly offensive when considering the topic. Fiorina and fellow cancer survivor Elizabeth Edwards spoke on behalf of “Stand up to Cancer,” a star-studded campaign to fund cancer research, both of whom were unable to attend in-person due to their treatment regimen.

Fiorina, who is in the final weeks of radiation treatment, is expected to make a definitive announcement about her intentions to run for Senate in the coming weeks.

But should she ultimately decide to challenge Boxer, California Republican activists should expect to see Fiorina at the next state GOP convention in February – healthy.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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After launching a website last week describing Pawlenty as “extreme,” the Democratic National Committee today characterized the potential 2012 contender as a “part-time Governor” after news surfaced he was to launch a political action committee.

“Tim Pawlenty is quickly becoming the definition of ’say one thing and do another’. Today’s news about Pawlenty starting a political action committee is just the latest in a series of broken pledges by the Governor - first breaking his pledge to not raise taxes on the people of Minnesota, and now breaking his pledge to finish his term ‘strong’ as Governor,” said DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan.

“This is just more evidence that Pawlenty is, at best, a part-time Governor who cares more about his national political ambitions than the people of Minnesota,” he said in an email to reporters this afternoon.

While the formation of PACs are indeed a signature of budding presidential campaigns, Democrats have not always been of the opinion they somehow represent a “broken pledge” or a dereliction of duty, as one political advisor close to Pawlenty noted.

Then-Senator Hillary Clinton filed a statement of organization for her leadership PAC, “HILLPAC,” on January 5, 2001, spending eight years as a “part-time” Senator before leaving her post in 2009.

On June 25, 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama announced the formation of “Hope Fund,” whose donations to politicians in key 2008 primary states raised questions of legality on the level of coordination between the PAC and the Obama campaign.

And four days after the official formation of Obama’s “Hope Fund” PAC, then-Senator Joe Biden filed a statement of organization with the FEC for his “Unite our States” PAC, in anticipation of his campaign for president in 2008.

The formation of political action committees is one of many steps in the logical progression of presidential campaigns. If Pawlenty is a “part-time” governor, he will find himself in the company of President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary of State Clinton – all of whom formed PACs years before their terms in the U.S. Senate expired.

UPDATE: The DNC’s “part-time” missive seems particularly ill-advised when one considers the organization’s leadership. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine was installed as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in early 2009 by President Obama, and has since weathered criticism for his absent governing. Keeping with Sevugan’s twisted logic, Kaine fits the bill of “part-time Governor” quite nicely.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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But Republican responses to the pending censure might explain why some prescient Democrats, perhaps guilty of similar actions under the last administration, were uneasy with assuming the role of disciplinarian: several key Democrats are weathering their own controversies, including Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means committee, Jack Murtha (D-PA), and Pete Visclosky (D-IN).

“Call it the Glass House of Representatives effect,” writes Politico’s Glenn Thrush.

The censure is “another stunning example of hypocrisy,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele in a statement. “Congressional Democrats are wasting taxpayers’ time and resources on a legislative measure to censure Congressman Joe Wilson so they don’t have to talk about their exceedingly unpopular health care plan.”

While the proposed censure has galvanized Republican legislative opposition to the President and Speaker Pelosi, it represented low-hanging fruit for many Capitol Hill communicators – an opportunity to revive fading Democratic controversies.

“If we are going to march Members down to the well of the House to apologize, Joe Wilson is going to have to get in line behind Nancy Pelosi, who attacked the intelligence community who protects us, Charlie Rangel who cheated on his taxes, Jack Murtha – a walking scandal, and we all know how the Democratic leadership tried to protect William Jefferson” said Steele.

Echoing Steele’s sentiment, Ken Spain of the National Republican Congressional Committee asks, “When is Nancy going to schedule a vote for Charlie Rangel?”

Despite the censure-worthy actions of Democratic members of Congress, “Nancy Pelosi continues to look the other way,” Spain added.

“The American people are still waiting for a public repudiation of the corrupt actions of Democrat members like Charlie Rangel, John Murtha, and Pete Visclosky, whose actions have truly disgraced the integrity of the People’s House that Democrats claim to be so concerned about defending.”

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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While the president consciously rallied fleeting progressive support and attempted to dispel myths surrounding the legislation, he wholly neglected to mention military personnel, becoming the first wartime Commander-in-Chief to do so since former President Gerald Ford in 1974.

With public approval of the war effort in Afghanistan dipping, the case could be made—and with little difficulty—that the decision not to mention the troops serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere was a conscious, deliberate one.

Obama’s progressive base is rebelling, raucously in some instances, on everything from the public option to LGBT marriage equality. As it stands now, the President’s political house has been beaten and battered, and a commitment to the Afghanistan War just may be the big, bad wolf to come blow it all down. And this is not a risk the White House is willing to take.

The collapse of public resolve for the ongoing but unmentioned efforts in Afghanistan is symptomatic of the Administration’s timidity with fully committing to the war. Americans look to their President in times of war for leadership and guidance. Our President’s silence can mean only one thing, and it surely is not victory.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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But the original prepatory material for Obama’s school house stump speech raised a few parents’ eyebrows and left others convinced the principle aim was nothing short of indoctrination.

The Department of Education told teachers they might “extend learning” and stimulate discussion by instructing students to “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” And to ensure the students hold themselves accountable, the teacher should collect the letters and redistribute them at a later time – presumably when the President’s approval rating has dropped another 10 points.

In a letter to school administrators announcing Obama’s back-to-school speech, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Obama’s special address will seek to inspire students by impressing upon them the necessity to complete school.

“During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.”

White House officials say Obama’s telecast will be the first speech by a sitting president to stress academic achievement since 1991, when President George H. W. Bush spoke to students from Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C.

Democrats, of course, sang a far different tune when a Republican was preparing to address the nation’s school children.

Then-House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Missouri) said, “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the President.”

To be clear, the Department of Education is only a tool of indoctrination when the Secretary of Education answers to a Republican President. When students are instructed to “help the president” and no doubt support his anemic legislative agenda, it’s a teaching experience – namely the lesson of political double standards.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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But while DeVore is surely among the most tenacious and unswerving candidates vying for public office in the 2010 midterm elections, his campaign has seen only moderate success in translating his attributes as a indefatigable campaigner into support – namely, contributions, with his last FEC filing in July showing only $75,600 in cash on hand in his uphill campaign against Democratic incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer.

In an hour-long interview with REDSTATE, DeVore likened his insurgent, techno-centric campaign to that of then-Senator Barack Obama, and said he anticipates a surge in donations as his campaign further develops its online fundraising infrastructure.

The DeVore campaign is “trying to use new media in a synergistic way to tie together volunteers in a way that had not previously possible prior to the time that Al Gore invented the internet,” he told me, tongue-in-cheek.

In the hopes of affecting the debate on the Democratic-sponsored cap-and-trade legislation, the DeVore campaign launched TaxFax.us, a micro site designed to capture contact information from supporters and subsequently provide a simple, online vehicle to contact their elected officials.

“You’d be surprised how effective faxes into the Capitol Hill can be,” says the website, quoting a Hill staffer. And you may also be surprised how effective DeVore’s fax campaign was.

“We generated over 50,000 faxes into the U.S. Senate over tax-and-trade. Every U.S. Senator got a fax that I wrote,” DeVore said. “I’m unaware of any other person who has run for U.S. Senate who has tried to affect a national issue by generating such a massive amount of correspondence into Capitol Hill on an issue of currency.”

DeVore remains hopeful his unconventional but aggressive campaign will prove catch Boxer by surprise, and said that July was their best month yet in terms of fundraising where he raised over $100,000.

While his campaign’s online strategy would no doubt be music to online evangelists’ ears, I was more concerned with the campaign’s recent missives highlighting former HP CEO Carly Fiorina’s position on abortion – one they claim to be muddled. I wrote last week that DeVore’s abortion critique of Fiorina was wholly without merit, for which a DeVore consultant responded thusly: “unfortunately, it is all too easy to question the depth of Fiorina’s commitment to the pro-life cause.”

Indeed, unanswered questions remained – specifically whether DeVore is of the opinion that Fiorina is pro-choice when the only evidence to that effect are scant blind quotes by “Republican insiders” and not an admission herself.

He was quick to note that whenever Fiorina’s position on abortion was questioned, it was done so in the context of other less than appealing positions she has supported in the past. “You don’t know where she stands on the issues of the day,” he said, adding, “she has no record in anything because she’s never run for office.”

I should have anticipated some obfuscation; DeVore is a politician, after all.

Prior to assuming her position as RNC Victory Chairmwoman in 2008, Fiorina was a Silicon Valley business executive, so I was not satisfied with the tired “lack of a record” response. But upon further questioning DeVore revealed a rather bold assertion.

“I’ve heard from McCain campaign advisors that worked with her that unequivocally she was [pro-choice].”

Such personal reassurances from Fiorina’s fellow McCain advisors have likely emboldened DeVore in his convictions on the matter, but Republican primary voters should not anticipate abortion to overwhelm other salient issues, particularly California’s “bone crushing economic crisis.”

And perhaps providing his opponent with an avenue to escape further criticism if an examination of Fiorina’s past proves she was pro-choice, DeVore said: “What’s going to be on everyone’s minds here is jobs, jobs, jobs, economic development, modern, nuclear power, and oil and gas.”

UPDATE: DeVore has been quite the busy candidate. Ace of Spades’ Gabriel Malor also interviewed DeVore — posting the lengthy exchange in three parts, the second of which was focused on California’s busted budget and Proposition 8.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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PPP, whose sampling of voters skewed Democratic, found that only 36% of respondents approve of Lincoln’s job performance, while 44% say they disprove. In March of this year, the same outfit found that Lincoln maintained an approval rating with a 5-point positive spread.

The three would-be GOP challengers polled included state Senator Gilbert Baker, Huckabee fundraiser Curtis Coleman and Harvard-educated lawyer and U.S. Army veteran Tom Cotton. Among them, Baker performed the best; however a majority of Arkansans—ranging from 78% to 83%—were unsure of their opinions on the three men.

“You couldn’t get a clearer indication that the national momentum is with Republicans right now than a poll showing some guys with single digit name recognition running even with an incumbent Senator,” said PPP’s Dean Debnam.

With Obama’s health care proposal fairing worse in the polls than former President Clinton’s defeated reforms of 1994, Lincoln must take into consideration the consequences of supporting the President’s contentious legislation in a state whose voters ten months ago gave Republican John McCain 59% of the vote.

What’s more, the hemorrhaging of Democratic support to wavering public opinion raises a serious dilemma for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and poses an acute challenge to the President’s legislative agenda, as Democrats today lost their filibuster-proof majority with the death of Senator Ted Kennedy.

Reid must accept the political reality that Lincoln, who previously bucked party leadership on the cap-and-trade legislation designed to reduce carbon emissions and the reauthorization of banking infusion, may be the next casualty in the polarized health care debate.

UPDATE: Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Doyle Webb responds:

“It’s obvious that Sen. Lincoln is vulnerable, and her approval rating of just 36% reflects the fact that she no longer represents the values of Arkansans.  It’s clear the people of Arkansas reject the liberal agenda she supports in Washington D.C.  Recent health care town halls have shown us that Arkansans want leaders who protect their interests, not control their lives.”

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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Last week, Fiorina announced she took the first step in challenging Senator Barbara Boxer, and by proxy DeVore, by registering her campaign committee, “Carly for California,” with the IRS.

The DeVore campaign, certainly wasting no time, launched a cheeky website to “welcome Carly to the race,” asking supporters to send Fiorina one of four pre-scripted emails. Found among the original choices was the patronizing option to ask Ms. Fiorina, 54, to “make up her mind” on abortion, adding that “Carly Fiorina has never said whether she’s pro-life.” The DeVore campaign has since changed the wording to “suspect on life issues,” but the sentiment—that Fiorina is some sort of pro-abortion Manchurian Candidate—remains the same.

Following the launch of the website, DeVore allies began widely circulating an item from the Wall Street Journal that so matter-of-factly described Fiorina as “pro-choice on abortion” it reeked of poor campaign opposition research. Yesterday, the article was amended to show that Fiorina was, in fact, pro-life.

You should have detected a theme here.

Despite DeVore’s protestations, Fiorina settled on the contentious issue of abortion years ago. And contrary to the campaign’s constant refrain, she proudly calls herself a “pro-life, conservative, and life-long Republican.”

While abortion promises to be a challenge in a face-off with the fiercely pro-choice Boxer, Fiorina seems nonetheless resolved to make her pro-life position known. But for whatever reason, Fiorina’s verifiable pro-life record is not enough for DeVore.

“If DeVore doesn’t make it to the general election, he’ll be sure to bloody up Fiorina on her way,” said one Republican activist with ties to the DeVore campaign, speaking only on the condition of anonymity.

“They don’t have a statewide donor network and, as a result, they’ve raised only a couple hundred thousand dollars. They’re running against a three-term United States Senator, but their campaign is barely equipped to stage a successful state Senate bid.” Putting it bluntly, the activist added, “Chuck is a good man, but he is not a viable candidate.”

Political strategists consider any incumbent polling below 50% as potentially vulnerable, but money is the final arbiter in California statewide elections – and money is just what DeVore does not have. What DeVore lacks in campaign funds, he makes up for in doggedness, to be sure. Doggedness, however, won’t saturate television and radio with the ad buys necessary for electoral success; this requires millions of dollars.

DeVore has only raised a meager $337,000 in the eleven months he’s been running to unseat Boxer, according to his campaign’s July FEC filings. But with a fairly loose grip on the campaign’s purse strings, the campaign has burned through $302,000 and found itself $106,000 in debt.

Fiorina, who left HP with a severance package of $21 million in 2005, is positioned to shift considerably the dynamics of the money game. California has become reliably Democratic, and, should she hope to stage a successful challenge, she’ll need to either raise significant sums of money or dip into her personal fortune to stem the Democratic tide. On this count, Fiorina is particularly well-suited.

California’s voters first sent Boxer to Congress in 1992 and she easily won reelection in 1998 and 2004 – all three races against men. In her seventeen years there, Boxer has been a leading voice on women’s issues, including health care, domestic abuse, and reproductive care.

National interest in the race was subdued until last month when Rasmussen revealed that Fiorina, the first female chief executive of a Fortune 20 company, trailed Democratic incumbent Boxer by only 4 points in a theoretical matchup.

UPDATE: Joshua Trevino of the DeVore campaign responds thusly: “Pro-lifers should congratulate Carly Fiorina for her belief in the sanctity of life. But if she wants to claim it as a credit to her electoral ambitions, she has a long road ahead — and some explaining to do about the road behind.”

Read it all.

[Full disclosure: The author of this article served as RNC Online Communications Manager during Ms. Fiorina’s tenure as 2008 Victory Chairwoman at the RNC.]

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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“You’ve heard this is all going to mean government funding of abortion,” the President said. “Not true.”

But as with many of Obama’s statements regarding his health care proposal, his seemingly forthright claim is simply ‘not true.’ Before a crowd of Planned Parenthood executives and contributors in 2007, then-Senator Obama explicitly pledged to not yield on “the fundamental issue” of abortion, adding that “reproductive care is basic care, it is essential care.”

The right to an abortion, Obama said, “is at the center and at the heart of the plan that I proposed.”

“Essentially, what we are doing is to say that we’re gonna set up a public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don’t have health insurance. It will be a plan that will provide all essential services, including reproductive services,” Obama said to applause.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has been on Capitol Hill working with pro-life members of Congress to include amendments that would prohibit tax-payer funded abortions, but says despite the President’s fierce protestations, the House and Senate health care reform plans will likely subsidize reproductive care unless Obama intervenes.

“The president knows very well that pro-abortion House and Senate committees rejected every single amendment to keep abortion funding out of the health-care overhaul,” Perkins said in a statement issued shortly after Obama’s open appeal to the progressive religious community ended.

“President Obama stated that abortion funding in health-care reform is a ‘distraction.’ If that is the case, then why not end this so-called ‘distraction’ and amend the bill to explicitly prohibit abortion funding and coverage with his health care plan?”

Following the President’s conference call, pro-life advocates quickly drew attention to an amendment offered by Democratic Congresswoman Lois Capps (CA-23) to allow for subsidized reproductive care under the House health care reform plan. The amendment, which the National Right to Life committee predicts will result in “the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade,” is unlikely to be removed from the final bill, according to Republican aides on Capitol Hill.

It is unfortunate not that Obama would chastise those who bear “false witness” and later, as if reflexively, wholly misrepresent his health care proposal, but rather that such dishonest and duplicitous rhetoric has become the norm with President Obama that I am not stunned by his latest actions.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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Declaring war on Republicans critical of the president’s proposal, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel offers a far less rosy picture of Obama’s success in fostering bipartisanship than the image the Obama campaign created last November.

“The Republican leadership has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama’s health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day,” Emanuel said.

Democratic leaders say Republican obstructionism has forced their go-it-alone hand, but evidence exists to the contrary – namely the fact that off-message members of Congress have attested to the fact that Congressional Democrats were told, in no uncertain terms, to avoid bipartisan negations with Republicans.

Writing at The Huffington Post, Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper said: “And the White House released a statement praising this bipartisan leadership. In the House of Representatives, meanwhile, we are explicitly told not to work with Republicans.”

Like Obama in the White House and their colleagues in the lower chamber, Senate Democrats seem less than keen on bipartisan negotiations. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), in particular, expressed his aversion to such a bipartisan coalition of the willing when the bill was still in its infant stages.

“My goal is to write a good bill. My goal is not bipartisanship,” Dodd admitted in June.

Unfortunately, Dodd failed on both counts. And rather than concede that they failed in writing a good bill, frustrated Congressional Democrats are intent on characterizing Republicans as reflexively partisan, condemning them for putting the health care bill on life support.

Tense negotiations require courage to compromise and, if necessary, buck party leadership, but Obama possesses neither a genuine interest in bipartisanship nor the courage to challenge Congressional Democrats to pass health care reform. The fact that Obama, whose record on bipartisan compromise is virtually non-existent, has given up on negotiations should come as no surprise. What should be disturbing, however, is how coolly Obama deliberately misconstrues the situation.

“It’s a shame that the White House and their liberal allies are now trying re-write history,” said John Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. “From the beginning of this debate, Republicans have tried to work with the President and Democrats on real health care reform that reduces cost and expands access for the American people. Instead, Democrats played the old Washington game, bribing and log-rolling special interests to produce a plan that will cost at least a trillion dollars and just won’t work.”

Absent the ability to filibuster such a proposal, Republicans are not the enemies of Obama’s health care reform legislation – public opinion is. But if the President intends to pass health care legislation without Republican cooperation, he would do well to at least mediate the intraparty dispute over the public option currently stifling Democratic cooperation in this process.

The collapse of bipartisan health care reform negotiations rests squarely on the shoulders of the President. Obama has all the while maintained that his hawk’s eye for bipartisanship and his knack for finding common ground between competing interests would put an end to Washington’s partisan divide, but here we are, still faced with more Democratic doublespeak and hardball politicking. And there, health care reform lie dead.

Bipartisanship, Obama hardly knew ye. Rest in peace.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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“So either Republicans were for death panels in 2003 before turning against them now–or they’re lying about end-of-life counseling in order to frighten the bejeezus out of their fellow citizens and defeat health reform by any means necessary,” wrote TIME’s Amy Sullivan.

Not quite.

The four Republicans did, as Sullivan reported, vote for the 2003 bill, but nowhere in the bill did it call for the same broad and wholly unnecessary end-of-life counseling practices as President Barack Obama’s proposal.

Republican operatives argue the comparison between the two bills is an unfair one, noting, specifically, that Republican-backed provisions in the 2003 bill called for end-of-life counseling only in cases where individuals were already on hospice care—that is, terminally ill and close to death—whereas the 2009 bill calls for end-of-life counseling for all 44 million seniors on Medicare every five years.

“Anyone who understands this issue would find this comparison idiotic,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. “Hospice care is, by definition, for people who are already close to death. The Democrats’ new government takeover of health care legislation would offer this counseling to every senior on Medicare.”

The 2003 bill, Steel explains, is not nearly as prescriptive as the proposed legislation of 2009, which calls for, among other things, the explanation of living wills, durable power of attorney, orders of life-sustaining treatment, health care proxies and end-of-life services by medical practitioners.

The 2003 legislation backed by Boehner, McCotter, Isakson, and Grassley was specific as it related to end-of-life consultation for those already in hospice care or those who were terminally ill – not for the 44 million seniors already enrolled in Medicare.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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The Northern Colorado Townhall Committee, who say their objective is to “provide a forum” for the voters of Northern Colorado, announced today they would hold a health care town hall on August 25th, and extended an open invitation to Representative Markey to moderate the event.

“With the August recess nearly half way over, we can’t wait any longer,” said the group’s founder, Kelly Trosper. “When other Reps across the nation are adding extra meetings, we still don’t have a schedule from her. This is a forum to discuss urgent topics, to include Health Care reform. We’re having to set one up ourselves, because our Rep isn’t making herself available.”

But this afternoon, following the public outcry and impressive political theater, Markey’s staff announced a town hall blitz, featuring 11 public forums on health care reform.

Greg Merton, a spokesman for the townhall committee, remains skeptical of Markey’s new-found interest in dialogue, and points to a local news report where Markey’s staff obfuscated on the matter last night, saying no details on the Congresswoman’s events would be made public for at least another week.

Confronted with the prospect of engaging in a dialogue with unhappy constituents, Democratic members of Congress have begun employing questionable tactics to limit access to town hall, some staffing the forums with supporters, while others still requiring photo identification to verify residency. While Congressional Democrats routinely demagogue the latter practice as it relates to voting, arguing it disenfranchises poor and minority voters, they seemingly have no problem disenfranchising low- and middle-income families concerned with the future of health care in the United States.

Concerned Markey may chart a similar course of action, Merton says his group intends to keep the August 25th event on-the-books until they “find out the ‘rules of engagement’” for the Congresswoman’s other events.

“We appreciate the small victory for democracy,” Merton says, adding, “but we’ll be keeping the date so we can be sure to be heard.”

Markey’s staff did not return an immediate request for comment.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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“I have not said that I am a supporter of a single-payer system,” he said, channeling former presidential contender John ‘I voted for it before I voted against it’ Kerry.

But in August of last year, Obama touted single-payer systems as a promising solution to the ailing health care system at a New Mexico town hall. Eliminating private insurance companies and instead opting for a pseudo-Medicare system with the government footing the bill for all health care-related expenses, he said, would be a more effective means to provide greater coverage than our system’s current iteration.

“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,” said then-Senator Obama. “I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody.”

Evidence of Obama’s open embrace of single payer health care systems dates farther back than 2008, much to the chagrin of the White House’s professional wordsmiths, who no doubt spent hours retooling the president’s message for today’s town hall.

Unequivocally expressing his support for a government-run health care system, Obama said to a crowd of AFL-CIO members in 2003, “I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health care coverage.”

Obama’s evolution on the extent to which the federal government should meddle in the private marketplace of health care coverage is one that speaks to the White House’s justifiable concern they may be losing the debate. Obama and Congressional Democrats are anxious to stem the tide of fleeting public opinion, and both have gone to great lengths to cast their opponents as fear mongers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer characterized the town hall protests as “un-American,” while the DNC suggested critics of Obama’s ever-changing health care proposal are fringe lunatics bent on disproving Obama’s citizenship status.

The insinuation that opposition to Obama’s health care system—which, I’ll add, has become increasingly difficult for the simple fact that I’m not entirely sure which iteration we’re to oppose—is grounded in a citizenship conspiracy theory is no more credible than the notion that Obama would, as Saturday Night Live comically suggested, cut taxes for sexual predators and social deviants. Predators, SNL jested, must be found among low and middle-income families, for whom then-Senator Obama promised to cut taxes. Likewise, the DNC posited that “Birthers,” as they’ve been dubbed, must be found among opponents of Obama’s health care plan because, after all, all Republicans are mentally unstable.

“Where we disagree, let’s disagree over things that are real,” President Obama said today. But the distinction between facts and non-facts has become blurred, not for the critics of the legislation, but for the legislation’s highest profile supporters in the previous weeks.

In the interest of wresting control of the debate on health care from those who disagree over trivial matters, like the president instructed, I will give an example of a fact and a non-fact. A fact: As early as 2003 and as late as 2008 President Obama supported a single-payer health care system. A non-fact: Republicans are reflexively partisan and chiefly stand in opposition to the President’s initiatives for an unsubstantiated belief in his Kenyan birth.

President Obama, if you’re interested in meaningful disagreements in the debate over health care, rein in your allies first. Call off the SEIU thugs and put an end to the hateful “un-American” rhetoric. Then, and only then, come talk about a meaningful dialogue. It also might serve you well to decide if you are in favor of “single-payer, universal health care coverage,” too.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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Scott displayed his temper during a question-and-answer period when David Hill, a local resident and doctor, questioned the congressman over his support of President Barack Obama’s proposed single-payer health care system.

“Why are you voting for a health care plan that is shown not to work in Massachusetts and why are you going to institute that in a nation-wide manner?”

With a look of confusion on his face, the congressman first quietly asked an aide, “Is that the type of bill they got going on?” Then, reassured by staff that the bill Hill referenced was, in fact, the bill before Congress, Scott proceeded to respond, insomuch as the Congressman’s angry tirade may be called a response.

“I’m listening to my constituents, OK,” Scott said, with a heavy and awkward emphasis on “my.” “These are people who live in the 13th Congressional district, who vote in this district. That’s who I’ve got to respond to, OK. Right, alright.”

Grimacing and sternly brandishing his finger at Dr. Hill, Scott’s anger intensified, as did his rhetoric.

“So what you’ve got to understand, those of you who are here, who have taken and came and hijacked this event we dealing with here, this is not a health care event. You made the choice to come here and take advantage of this meeting that these people in Douglasville worked hard to put together to deal with this road,” Scott said, referencing the relocation of a local highway in Douglassville, GA.

“You chose to come and to do it on your own. Not a single one of you had the decency to call my office and set up for a meeting, OK. Do that. Do that!”

Local Atlanta NBC affiliate WXIA-TV reports that Hill, a verified resident of Georgia’s 13th district, has attempted, on multiple occasions and all in vain, to secure sit-downs with the incensed Congressman, however.

Before yielding the microphone to a staffer, Scott gave an austere warning to Dr. Hill and others present: “Don’t, don’t come and take advantage of what these individuals have done. You want a meeting with me on health care, I’ll give it to you. You come on August 24th. On August 28th.”

Scott’s aide told the crowd to pay close attention to the website for details on the health care town hall, but no such details have been made public on the Congressman’s website and emails to the Congressman’s staff have not been returned.

Scott’s veiled suggestion that the concerned doctor was not a “resident of Georgia’s 13th district”—ostensibly rooted in the fact that Hill is white, while Scott represents a district with a large African American population—and the contention that Hill had somehow “hijacked” the town hall is another matter altogether.

As a voter of the neighboring district in Atlanta, Congressman Scott, I must say, white voters like Hill and myself are not out to hijack your health care events, and we are certainly not out to hijack substantive health care reform – for which the same can be said of doctors. Voters are, however, out to prevent the creation of a single-payer health care system, a system you support, albeit a system you supported only after aides reminded you.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

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