If Palin Was A Pitbull With Lipstick, Cindy Was Trying Hard To Be Well Decked Out Big Bird

Last night John McCain's Republican Party showed us what it is made of. Their hope for the future, an inexperienced, nasty, unvetted ex-beauty queen laid it all out on the table. Glenn Greenwald called it The GOPs cheerful viciousness and even the severely Republican-biased was A.P. forced to admit that Palin lied her way through the whole speech. No one knows what a cutthroat sleazemeister Tucker Eskew is more than John McCain but McCain put Eskew in charge of Livin' Palin. What a monster! And I mean McCain, not poor Palin or vile Eskew. He had that worst-of-America speech written for her and then helped her practice deliver it with relish and venom.

My closest friend is a school teacher in Compton. He's a hero every single day, I've known him more than half his life and we've traveled all over the world together, from Morocco and Egypt to Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka. I've been trying to help him buy his first house. Thanks to anti-regulatory Republican ideology the housing market crashed and the one silver lining in that cloud is that houses are more affordable for big city school teachers who make around $50,000 a year. But not a lot more affordable. We've driven around and around some pretty sketchy neighborhoods looking at an awful lot of 2 bedroom, one bath fixer-uppers.

Last night we watched Laura Bush dragging what we thought was someone dressed up as Big Bird across the stage. It turned out to be the daughter of a Mafia connected bootlegger and jailbird who left the McCains hundreds of millions of dollars. Her outfit cost quite a bit more than the houses my friend is trying to figure out how to afford.

Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000–$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown: $600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100

My friend got really angry. It didn't cheer him up when I mentioned that the cost of the entire Big Bird costume was 60 times more than the tax-credit that John McCain is proposing to give families to cover their health care for a year. And you know what? It isn't just John and Cindy McCain. It's the whole stinking, corrupt party. Like all right-wing parties throughout history, they represent the interests of the haves, especially the haves-a-real-lot. The entire idea of "conservatism," means keeping power and economic wealth in the hands its in now.

A friend of mine who has been watching the congressional race in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley between Bush rubber stamp Charlie Dent and progressive community organizer Sam Bennett, sent me an interesting campaign flyer this morning, one that fits in well with Cindy McCain's $280,000 diamond earrings.

In a story called “What They Make,” the Morning Call reported Sunday on the wealth gap right here in Lehigh Valley, detailing the millions of dollars local CEOs earn. And who do they give to politically? The $13 million-a-year CEO of Air Products, John P. Jones, and $5 million-a-year CEO of PPL, James H. Miller, each give Congressman Charles Dent thousands of dollars. Meanwhile, the Vice Chairman and former CEO of Mack Trucks, Paul Vickner, which will cut hundreds of Lehigh Valley jobs, will still cut checks of thousands of dollars to Charles Dent. [opensecrets.org]

“At a time when Lehigh Valley families are struggling to fill their gas tanks, we need a representative in Washington who listens to working families, not multi-millionaire executives,” says Kathryn Seck, Bennett Campaign Manager.  “Dent takes more than $150,000 from Big Oil and Big Pharma and more than $100,000 from Washington lobbyists. Two more years of Congressman Dent-- unaffordable.” [opensecrets.org]

Dent repeatedly votes against the interests of workers and for the benefit of ultra rich executives and Washington lobbyists whose money Dent refuses to return.
 
• Dent votes AGAINST the Employee Free Choice Act [Vote #118, HR 800, 3/1/07]
• Dent votes AGAINST stopping unfair trade agreements like CAFTA [Vote #443, HR 3045, 7/28/05]
• Dent votes AGAINST fully raising the minimum wage [Vote #319, HR 5672, 6/27/06]
• Dent votes AGAINST equal pay for equal work [Vote #768, HR 2831, 7/31/07]

“Sam stands up for workers and working families while Dent stands with millionaires. Even the Morning Call’s report shows the pay gap for middle class Pennsylvanians is growing," says Seck.

“Someone earning the state's minimum wage of $7.15 an hour would have to work 899 years to match Jones' overall annual compensation,” according to the Morning Call.  “In 2007, the average CEO with large companies was paid $10.5 million, or 344 times what the typical American worker earned, according to a study by United for a Fair Economy...  The group cites union membership erosion as one of the key factors in the widening pay gap between executives and workers.”
 
Sam Bennett has received the support of 29 labor unions and other groups that represent the concerns of working families.

I want to tie this all together today with something that Pastor Dan wrote at Street Prophets this morning.

The GOP as it is currently constituted may talk the talk when it comes to faith and democracy, but they will never walk the walk. They can't stand the idea of faithful people working to make a difference in their world, of citizens bettering their communities, because it is too threatening to the corrupt and authoritarian system they have built. In Gov. Palin the McCain campaign has found a perfect representative to demonstrate to its core constituents that they have embraced fully the legacy of George W. Bush: nihilist, apocalyptic, and rotten to the core. They have utterly no idea of what they could do to move their nation into the future, and they are utterly contemptuous of anyone who tries. They have no faith, no hope, and no love.