Obama Resigns...

Effective Sunday, President-elect Barack Obama - the junior Senator from Illinois - will relinquish his seat. Under state law, Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich will name Obama's replacement for the remaining two years of his term. Blagojevich has said he expects to make a decision by year's end. Obama, elected in 2004, is currently the only black senator.

Potential candidates to replace Obama include Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, and Tammy Duckworth, a disabled Iraq war veteran and currently the Illinois veteran affairs director.

In a statement, Obama said:

"My four-year term was one of the highest honors and privileges of my life and the people of Illinois will stay with me as I leave the Senate to begin the hard task of fulfilling the simple hopes and common dreams of all Americans as our nation's next president."

Vice President-elect Joe Biden also is expected to resign his seat representing Delaware at some point between now and the Jan. 20 inauguration. Democratic Gov. Ruth Ann Minner presumably would pick the successor. Several Democrats have said Biden's son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, is interested in succeeding his father in the Senate. He is on a yearlong deployment to Iraq with his National Guard unit. As a result, Democrats have discussed a plan under which an interim successor would be named and would step aside in 2010 so the younger Biden could run in a special election to fill out the term.

As a result of these resignations, the lame-duck session of Congress will meet without Obama or Biden.

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In other news, despite his felony conviction for filing false U.S. Senate financial disclosure forms, Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska insisted he was innocent, did not to step down, and went ahead to run for his seventh term as Senator. On election night, he was ahead. But as absentee and provisional ballots have been counted, he has fallen behind his Democratic contender, Anchorage mayor Mark Begich by close to 1,000 votes (as of November 13).

With nearly two-thirds of the absentee votes now tallied, Begich has taken the lead. An estimated 40,000 ballots have yet to be counted – a majority of them from the area of the state that includes Anchorage, according to state elections officials.

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Read the AP article about Obama's resignation from the Senate.

Read the New York Times article about the Obama-less & Biden-less lame-duck Congress.

Read the articles about the Alaska Senate race here and here and here.

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plez sez: the news cycle slows to a crawl in anticipation of the OBAMA inauguration... but you gotta wonder what was going on in the minds of those alaskans who voted for a convicted felon to be their senator.

one can only thank GOD that those people's governor isn't preparing to go to washington as vice-president!

St. Louis, Missouri Debate: Biden vs. Palin

As the families of Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) and Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) ascended to the stage after their debate on Thursday night, the entire McCain campaign and every last one of their supporters let out a huge sigh of relief. They had sat intently watching the previous 90 minutes, holding their collective breaths in hopes that Gov. Palin didn't further screw up McCain's fading campaign to become the 44th President of the United States.

Surprisingly, even to plezWorld, Ms. Palin availed herself quite well! Even though the bar was pretty low and most of the watching public was waiting for her to fall apart under the pressure of an unblinking 90 minute debate. By that standard of very low expectations, she stood up to the challenge and delivered.

Mind you, the woman has a minimal grasp of the issues, facts are not her friends, she has no analytical skills, it is obvious that she has no familiarity with the Constitution of the United States, she presents no historical contexts, and she has an over reliance on coaching and talking points. I wouldn't count on her being to navigate her way out of a brown paper bag, much less the nuances of navigating the complex structures of Washington politics... I have no doubt that she is well suited to run the vast tundra of Alaska and its sparse population, but she would be a mere "pip squeak" on the national scene.

Gov. Palin brazenly announced that she didn't respect Sen. Biden nor PBS's Gwin Ifill (the moderator) enough to answer the questions that were posed... she would only speak to the American people (I guess those two aren't Americans). She proceeded for 90 minutes to bob and weave around pointed questions, never answering any to the satisfaction of THIS American.

Sen. Biden was in total command of the facts, figures, analysis, and historical context around every single issue that was presented. While Palin persisted in rattling off noted and memorized talking points and one-liners, Biden offered sound judgement, reason, and qualified responses. While Palin offered misquotes and mischaracterizations of Sen. Barack Obama, Biden laid into the spotty, right-leaning background of Sen. John McCain. Biden used sound judgement in responding to questions, Palin refused to answer them and went immediately to the well-worn talking points that had drummed into her dullard of a brain over the past 2 weeks (at times, she gave responses that weren't even related to the question).

The story of the debate was that Palin didn't screw up and caused no harm to McCain's flagging campaign. After her disastrous turns with reporters Gibson and Couric, it was a relief to the Republican pundits that she didn't offer up the trifecta!

Unfortunately, Biden was relegated to a side show... his total command and domination of the woman in this forum was lost because of the low expectations that were set for Palin. No gaffes from Biden. No major slip-ups by Palin.



Read the entire CNN.com wrapup of the debate here and here and here and here.

Read the debate wrapup in the New York Times here and here.


plez sez: the early line was a third round knockout of palin by biden. he won in a unanimous decision that had to go the judges' cards. even though he outperformed her by a large margin (it wasn't even close), she never laid a glove on him, but since she was so over matched, by all accounts, the debate was a draw! neither presidential candidate can expect a bump from last night's debate and lucky for mccain, he doesn't have to worry about any erosion to his support because of it, either. she undoubtedly quashed the calls for her to step down from the ticket.

see what low expectations will get you?!?

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i watched the debate twice last night. and something occurred to me during the second viewing, plezWorld figured out why palin does so poorly in face-to-face interviews with reporters. when she doesn't know what she's talking about, she has to resort to B.S. and her rudimentary knowledge of the talking points that have been given to her. it is awful hard to lie and B.S. someone to their face. so when sitting face-to-face with gibson and couric, palin literally became a blubbering idiot.

if you look at the debate, she never looked at biden nor the moderator (pbs's gwen ifill) while giving her full answers. she looked into the camera. the camera doesn't give a reaction, the camera's "eyes" aren't looking back at her saying, "b-word, you don't know what the hell you're talking about do you? as a matter of fact, you don't even understand the question i just asked you!" especially with couric (and at times with gibson while peering over the top of his glasses at her, "do you agree with the Bush Dotrine, governor?"), palin had that moment when she was in high school trying to come up with enough B.S. on an essay in hopes that the answer is written down somewhere - anywhere - on the paper!

by looking directly at the camera, palin could be herself. she wasn't held up to the scrutiny of her obvious lack of knowledge or lack of nuance or lack of analysis. she was coached for the debate to not look at the other two on stage, and she was able to perform quite admirably because of it.

because of this fact, it is pretty obvious that she won't be doing any more one-on-one conversations with any but the most faithful supporters over the next 4 weeks. more than likely, she'll be limited to large audiences and joint appearances with mccain.

A Sarah Palin Primer for the Debate

Later this evening, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) will join Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) in the only vice presidential debate for this election cycle. It has the potential for high theater.

Sarah Palin is Sen. John McCain's running mate. She is currently in the middle of her first term as governor of Alaska. She has had very limited media exposure and her few forays with journalists (Charles Gibson of ABC News and Katie Couric of NBC News) before a television camera have been providing belly laughs for the electorate for the past two weeks. Her lack of exposure, lack of domestic and foreign experience, lack of world view, and general ignorance have defied her ascension to the top of the Republican party.

Joe Biden is Sen. Barack Obama's running mate. He has been in the Senate since 1972 (when he was only 30 years old). Although, he possesses a wealth of knowledge and experience, he can be volatile and gaffe-prone... often going "off message."

In preparation for the debate, plezWorld thought it would be prudent to hear some unbiased commentary on John McCain's running mate prior to the debate on Thursday evening. I have decided to include a few clips from the ever popular "Cafferty File" on CNN...

Jack Cafferty delivers a Sarah Palin commentary


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Jack Cafferty asks, "should Sarah Palin step aside?"


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Jack Cafferty delivers his unvarnished opinion of Sarah Palin

Read the CNN.com article about vice president debate preparation here and here.

plez sez: the popcorn will be popped and the soda poured!

i wouldn't miss this debate for a $700 billion bailout!

29 Seconds With Sarah Palin

Gov. Sarah Palin (AK-R) was in New York City on Tuesday to finally meet her first foreign leader - Afghan leader Hamid Karzai. And the press was given exactly 29 seconds to observe the event!

She also met with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. The press was given about 20 seconds to observe this meeting.

What follows are excerpts from the CNN.com article about the Palin-Karzai meeting:

McCain-Palin campaign officials shifted course Tuesday after being informed by television news organizations that they would not broadcast footage of Sarah Palin’s meeting with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai Tuesday in New York — the Republican VP nominee’s first with a foreign leader — if a reporter was not allowed in to observe the pair. CNN does not send cameras into candidate events where editorial presence is not allowed.

CNN, which was the pool network for the event, informed the campaign of its decision. The network was then told a CNN producer would be allowed in the room to act as a media representative, just minutes before the photo op was scheduled to take place. However, print reporters and wire services were not allowed to observe the meeting, as they have been able to do at similar McCain events in the past.

The press only caught a brief glimpse of the vice presidential nominee. Palin was seated in a large chair a few feet from Karzai, with a table in between them. Seated slightly behind Palin were campaign foreign policy advisers Steve Biegun and Randy Scheunemann, who are accompanying the governor in her motorcade today.

After 29 seconds observing the meeting, CNN and other photographers covering the meeting were escorted out of the room.

Later, McCain-Palin press representatives chalked up the restrictions to a “mix-up, a miscommunication among staff.” The full pool — a print and wires reporter, along with a television producer — was then allowed in to observe Palin’s meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe for 15-20 seconds.

As a contrast, Sen. Barack Obama engaged in over 20 debates while he ran for president over the past 18 months and Sen. Joe Biden has had over 80 meetings with the press since he was announced as Obama's vice president nominee. Sarah Palin has given exactly TWO interviews with the press since she was announced!

Read the entire CNN.com article about the lack of press access to Sarah Palin's first meetings with foreign leaders here.

Read the entire CNN.com article about Sarah Palin's meetings with foreign leaders here.


plez sez: ...the farce continues. how dumb can you republicans be? how much McCain Kool-Aid can you people drink?

this woman is so sad, so uninformed, so un-wordly, so "out of it", such a friggin' hick, that the mccain camp can't trust her around the press for a minute. a friggin' minute! HELL, plezWorld could engage ANYONE for 10 to 15 minutes with a little briefing.

some honesty for you... if Barack Obama had pullled some Sarah Palin *ISH* like this, i swear, there is no way that i would able to vote for him. and if Obama even acted like he wanted to "throw caution to the wind" and pick someone in spite of his/her ineptitude, he wouldn't even be in the race!

the president is the leader of the free world, dammit! if john mccain wins, this inept woman would be in line to succeed the OLDEST man to ever assume the mantle of president. john mccain's decision to pick this woman is affront to ALL americans, because in the unlikely event that he wins, he will be the president of all americans. we deserve much better.

on the other hand, this is disrespectful of sarah palin to parade her around like this, when every man, woman, and child who takes a hard look at this woman will see that she AIN'T ready to be john mccain's backup.

if this "little game" by the mccain camp around these meetings with foreign leaders doesn't scare you about mccain's decision making ability, then i don't know what will!

Deconstructing Obama's VP Decision

plez sez: To my way of thinking, the process of making decisions is as important as the decision itself. This has always been an endearing fact about Sen. Barack Obama, he is a thoughtful and deliberate and intelligent man. His openess to learning and curiosity belies that rampant ignorance that has characterized George W. Bush over the past 8 years... you get the feeling that Bush doesn't give a damn about facts.

In reading the New York Times, I ran across an interesting article about the thought process that went into Obama's decision to pick Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate. Although, it was a deeply personal decision, the decision came at the end of a carefully deliberate process.

One thing to note while reading the article, there is not one mention of Sen. Hillary Clinton. I read in another article that she asked Obama not to vet her if she was not going to be his selection for vice president. Now, we know why she wasn't vetted!

In Obama's Choice, A 'Very Personal Decision'
By Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenburg for NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — In the beginning, Senator Barack Obama was not entirely sold on Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. And Mr. Biden told friends that he was pessimistic of his chances of becoming Mr. Obama’s Democratic running mate.

Over the course of two months, as the dynamics of the presidential campaign and world events shifted quickly, Mr. Biden’s stock rose through one of the most rigorous vice-presidential vetting processes that Democrats could recall. It was a process in which Mr. Obama applied intense secrecy, careful pragmatism and political input from a team of internal and external advisers that have guided his campaign from the start. And it ended Thursday with a phone call from Mr. Obama, who reached Mr. Biden as he was at a dentist’s office where he had taken his wife to have a root canal.

On Saturday, as the two men embraced before a crowd in Illinois, the new Democratic partnership made its debut. Yet in a moment that could have showcased Mr. Obama’s decision-making, his top advisers made a concerted effort not to disclose how he made his choice, instead choosing to showcase the life stories of the two men on the ticket and to present Mr. Biden as a forceful new critic of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

“It’s a very personal decision,” said David Axelrod, the campaign’s chief strategist, in a brief interview Saturday. “He approached it in a very serious, sober and reasoned way.”

Mr. Obama reached the decision about 10 days ago while on a weeklong vacation to Hawaii. That week, Mr. Biden’s strengths in foreign policy were highlighted by the conflict between Russia and Georgia, giving his prospects a further boost. Associates of the other main possibility on Mr. Obama’s list, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, said Mr. Obama cited the situation in Georgia in breaking the news to Mr. Bayh late last week that he had chosen Mr. Biden.

But people involved in the process said it was not just foreign policy that tilted the balance. They said Mr. Obama’s decision had as much to do with Mr. Biden’s appeal among white working-class voters and compelling personal story, and his conclusion that the Delaware senator was “a worker.”

The plans for the announcement began to take shape in early July. Until the end, aides said, a small team inside the Chicago headquarters planned for four possibilities: Mr. Biden, Mr. Bayh, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. Speeches were written, media plans were made and private planes were at the ready to take any of the four to Springfield, Ill.

Mr. Biden was hardly considered a likely pick at the start of the process. His reputation for verbosity was Washington legend. While he impressed at the debates by defying expectations with his brevity, his presidential campaign foundered and ended quickly.

“I think in his heart of hearts he thought in the end he wouldn’t get it,” said Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a friend. “During the vetting process you mostly hear why you wouldn’t be a good candidate,” he added, naming “the change issue” and “some of the things he said during the campaign.”

But Mr. Biden had some powerful patrons in his corner whose opinions Mr. Obama respected, like Mr. Rendell; Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus; and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts — not only a respected Senate lion but also uncle to a senior member of Mr. Obama’s vetting team, Caroline Kennedy.

As the vetting team sorted through Mr. Biden’s financial statements, political statements and medical records, Mr. Obama’s top political aides — Mr. Axelrod chief among them — reached out to friends in Mr. Obama’s orbit to get a sense of what sort of politician Mr. Biden was. The results belied Mr. Biden’s reputation. Reports came back that he was not only potentially more energetic and disciplined than widely known, but also that he had a distinct appeal suited to the areas throughout the industrial Midwest where Mr. Obama had struggled in the primaries.

But Mr. Obama was seeking a running mate with whom he would be comfortable governing for four or eight years, a bit of advice Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts had given him.

“I get the sense that he was quite serious about thinking through about the nature of who his partner will be there and, I think, the role of the vice president as a future partner in government,” said David Wilhelm, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who worked on Mr. Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign and is close to Mr. Obama.

“I think it’s easy to give that sort of thing short shrift,” he added, “so ‘what kind of partner I’m getting’ mattered quite a bit.”

Much of the process unfolded in silence as dozens of lawyers completed their tedious assignments for the vice-presidential vetting team. They conducted lengthy sit-down interviews with at least six Democratic prospects, and they demanded thousands of pages of documents, including copies of speeches delivered more than two decades ago.

In addition to the four ultimate finalists, Democratic officials said, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut were also among those who received extensive consideration. Teams of lawyers, at least 10 for some candidates, were assembled to inspect finances, medical histories and political backgrounds of the prospective candidates and their families.

In an interview Saturday, Mr. Richardson said that Mr. Obama called him soon after he claimed the nomination on June 3 to tell him that he wanted to put him on his list of prospects. But, Mr. Richardson said, Mr. Obama warned him that it would be an intensive process, and asked him to consider whether he was up for it. (After checking with his wife, Mr. Richardson said, he called back to say he was.)

Mr. Obama called to check in with him midway through the process, Mr. Richardson said, before his vacation to Hawaii. As always, Mr. Obama dialed Mr. Richardson himself from his cellphone. Mr. Richardson said he told Mr. Obama that he had not seen his name on lists in the news media, and Mr. Obama responded by saying, “No, you’re in this thing.”

Mr. Richardson was alerted weeks later that his vetting process had gone well, he said, but late last week — he would not say exactly when — Mr. Obama called to thank him and tell him, “I’ve made up my mind, and we’re going in another direction.”

In the waning days, several people close to Mr. Bayh said he remained upbeat over the possibility that he would be Mr. Obama’s choice. He had met with Mr. Obama several times, and the amount of information Mr. Obama’s staff had asked for was beyond anything Mr. Bayh — who has been in contention for the vice-presidential position at least twice before — had experienced.

Mr. Biden, meanwhile, was viewed as undercutting himself with his own behavior as reporters staked out his Delaware residence. When Mr. Biden returned home in his white pickup truck from a garbage dump and made an off-color joke to camera crews last week, an e-mail message circulated among Mr. Bayh’s closest associates that read, “Keep talking Joe, please keep talking.”

He did not.

Read the New York Times article the deconstructs Obama's selection of Joe Biden here.

Read the CNN.com article Obama's selection of Joe Biden here.

Text Message from Obama Campaign

Photo courtesy of my Palm Treo 680

BarackObama.com (8/23 3:12 am): Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on http://www.barackobama.com/. Spread the word!

(actual text message received by plezWorld)

Joe Biden Gets Veep Nod

A few minutes ago, CNN reported a scoop that Sen. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr. (D-DE) was selected by Barack Obama to be his running mate in November against John McCain.

Democratic sources leaked the information to CNN reporters. So much for the MOBILE BLOG from my Palm Treo... well, maybe I'll do it anyway when I get the text message in the morning!

plezWorld is mildly surprised: no more than a few hours ago, I was seriously thinking that Hillary Clinton would get the position, in light of her tenacity and good showing during the primaries.