Blue America Candidate Alan Grayson's New Ad for Florida Seat
By Nicole Belle Friday Jul 25, 2008 9:45am
Hell yeah, that's the kind of ad all Democrats should be running. Howie has more:
Blue America-endorsed candidate running against garden variety rubber stamp Republican Ric Keller in an Orlando district that has been turning blue. Early balloting started this week for Florida's primary election and Alan has been the only candidate with a TV ad up-- and what a TV ad! If every Democratic candidate had an ad this powerful to run, we wouldn't be talking about 12-20 House seats; we'd be talking about 30-50. Of course, not every candidate has a story as compelling as Alan's. [..]
If you'd like to see Alan keep this running, please consider donating to his campaign at the Blue America ActBlue page.
Matt Stoller has more at Open Left: Alan Grayson on Iraq Reckoning: "We'll Put People in Prison"
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Almost makes me wish I lived in FLA. The dude seems to rock!
It would literally require divine intervention for the Dems to lose, and having good candidates only makes the divine intervention harder, doesn' it?
Is there a National list of close contests for Congress? Time to support all progressive candidates if they have the same stuff as Grayson.
Sheesh, now thats a great ad. and the briefcase being slammed shut is brilliant! like keep your money grabbing hounds out of the US treasury cookie jar..slam! elect him now.
any democrat who loses this year either....1....is an asshole and should leave the party.....2....isnt trying
IF THE DEMS WOULD PLEASE STAND UP AND LET THEIR JUNK DROP
WE COULD OWN THIS COUNTRY...
AND WE KNOW.... DEM is HALFWAY to GREEN.....
Yes
For a dictatorship, we sure do spend a lot of money on elections.
Ah, remember the good old days, when it was Republicans who were supposed the be the fiscally responsible ones? If Democrats can keep their traditional values, and add 'fiscal responsibility' to the platform, they will take a large bite out of the Republican voting block.
It's an effective ad. Is he telling the truth? Or is it just "get me there so I can get my cut of the pie" ? There were quite a few "trust me I'm working for you" types in the "impeachment is off the table" crew too.
i'll take the .99 gas and take my chances with the republicans... i mean alciaduh.
curtilingus @ 7:
So does China, and even Zimbabwe. Your point would have been valid in the 19th Century, but this is the 21st, where even the most brutal dictatorships such as the Equatorial Guinea one or Zimbabwe or Belarus or North Korea have to pretend to have an election. The American government could hardly get away with fraud on the Zimbabwean magnitude or the Belarusian one, so.....
what was your point again?
General_Rennenkampf @ 11:
I guess my point is that if we are so close to a dictatorship, and the election process is quite rigged, we should not be spending so much money on elections. It occurred to me when watching the above video that besides war, our elections waste a hell of a lot of money that could be used on all the nice things the candidate said he would spend the war money on.
Last I checked, TV air time does not cost as much in Zimbabwe as it does in the US. This election will cost over a billion dollars, and that is just the presidential campaign. If you changed the cycle to 8 years, which it has been 3 of the last four presidents, we would cut our election expenses in half!
curtilingus @ 12:
Heh, TV airtime doesn't cost as much in Zimbabwe as it does in the US only because Mugabe has less access to resources. The people in the PRC can only elect the Communist Party, there, and that has done all of jack and shit to stop spending on elections that is rather wasteful, from your perspective on what the US's dictatorship should be doing. For that matter, the USSR had elections routinely, and spent billions of rubles on them.
This is the 21st Century, abolishing elections in the manner you state doesn't work anymore. Now if this was Europe in the 30s or 19th Century Earth, then yes, it would work like that. Not in the 2000s.
general, The original comment was sarcastic because the US is not a dictatorship, yet.
Did I say abolish elections? I proposed doubling the pres term would cut costs in half. Money is at the heart of our political corruption and has created a symbiotic relationship between candidates and media companies, rather than an objective one.
What is your proposal? Continue spending un-abated? Allow candidacy to individuals that can afford to spend 1 million for a 30 sec spot?
Perhaps you would like to hold a presidential election every year, that would make us an uber-democracy like no other.
curtilingus @ 14:
My proposal for the future of the US would be to decentralize the monster the Cold War created. Alas, my proposal is impossible to achieve, so...
US elections are wasteful, yes, and spending should be curtailed so that average citizens, not just the multimillionare aristocracy can have a prayer of running. The easiest thing to have done would have been for those Yanks attracted to the CS-style presidency (one six-year term, no re-election) to have actually done something with it. Six years is long enough that they can actually spend time running the nation, but not short enough to encourage more than average corruption.
NADA: Is he telling the truth? Or is it just “get me there so I can get my cut of the pie” ?
Alan Grayson has already made a pile of money from the lawsuits he has won against contractor fraud in Iraq and in other work as an attorney.
There is very little chance he is in this for the money.
What I think is interesting is something he stated in an interview about what he can not reveal about those cases. Most of it is under a gag rule. Supposedly as a member of Congress, that restriction would be lifted, and he says he would then publicly reveal all the evidence of abuse and fraud that various contractors and war profiteers have committed in Iraq. Again, that sounds like a guy with progressive ideals, not a guy with a corrupt agenda who is out for himself.
While he can't lead an impeachment charge alone, he can reveal more evidence that may sway other people to hold the administration accountable.
He also helped write and signed on to the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, at a time when such an idea wasn't exactly hugely popular.
He definitely suffers from low name recognition, and so his campaign is mostly self-funded. The guy running against him in the Democratic primary will try to make a big deal of that, I'm sure. In comparing his website to the other Democratic challenger Charlie Stuart, it seems Grayson is a lot more progressive on several issues (environment, energy, iraq, etc.)
I live in this district, and I think polls unfortunately still show the Republican incumbent has the lead. Considering the bizarre way these districts were created (and guess which party handled that process?), it will tough for either Democrat to win. There are just too many stubborn rubber-stamp republicans living here still.
Tim, the Enchanter @ 8:
The good old days...
“I have never seen more Senators express discontent with their jobs….I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices in doing something terrible and unforgiveable to our wonderful country. Deep down in our heart, we know that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected.” — John Danforth (R-Mo)
jim@17
Thank You jim for that quote by Danforth. I copied it and posted it @ polipundit. I'm just waiting for the sparks to fly now.
I also want them to taste reality, so it depresses them. So maybe they won't turn out to vote this time.
Testify brother! Damn. Good. Ad.
The ad has already been pulled from YouTube. :(
Yanked faster than a video catching John McCain in yet another slip up.
dems have never been fiscally irresponsible, they just believe that monies should be spent differently
and the waste in social programs pales in comparison to what has occured during the past 7 years
we are talking the largest robbery of all time here people
there are kids in college who are on food stamps and going to food pantries...that is unconcionable
and that is one heck of an ad....kudos to the ad guy who came up with it
Mugsy Says:
The ad has already been pulled from YouTube.
I just played it again, try refreshing your browser.
Grayson's morally over-qualified for Congress. He looks more like an Attorney General to me.
Good stuff!
That almost gives me some faith again, but is quickly undone when I realize that it's up to Florida to do the right thing.
A friend of mine from the Tampa area just recounted (no pun intended) events in the panhandle from 2000. He said that in highly Democratic areas (again, no pun intended) there, the police set up roadblocks as "safety checkpoints" on election day to ensnarle traffic there. Of course there was never an investigation.
That message alone will assure he doesn't get "elected" to the house. Remember FL is the same state where 80,000 democratic voters were kicked off the voting rolls. Until something gets done about reinstating those legal voters, there will be little democratic progress in FL.
What an absolute badass! Florida you'd better vote him in or else! *shakes fist*
Now thats a campaign add. I give him one million points for that one.
Better hope Nancy and Harry don't see it. They will kill it before it leads to a liberal democratic landslide in November!
{FIFY, SiteMonitor}
Having an election every year would be one of the best things I could think to do for this country. Do you think Bush would have had time to go to Iraq if he spent all of his time campaigning?
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