Katie Goes PUMA Hunting
By Al Giordano
This is priceless. Our very own convention co-blogger runs into that endangered species known as "PUMAs" and opens up a big can of deadpan on them. They're clueless and crazy, of course.
Later I'll share my own Hitchcock moment at getting stuck waiting for a broken elevator when a PUMA came waddling up the hall begging me for a ride to the convention, but for now I gotta get my ass over to Mile High Stadium to report on the largest phone bank in human history and what it is about to do.
Consider this an open thread.
Update: Saved by a commenter. See the first comment, below: If the NY Times is correct, the giant phone bank crashed on the reefs of the city's limited cell phone capacity. So I039;ll be here blogging a bit longer before heading on over to the stadium. No reason to rush out, now, at least until I'm able to confirm if that's really the case.
Update II: If you haven't been checking and refreshing the Field Hands' Denver Posse blog, head on over there for eye-witness reports and photos galore from the Big Tent and other convention hot spots.
Update III: I linked to this yesterday, but in light of today's mass phone bank crash, our July 19 scoop about the Obama campaign's plan to roll out an unprecedented voter registration drive later today. Here are more details:
Offering a glimpse of Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field tomorrow in Denver, a top campaign official said Obama will announce an unprecedented effort to enroll new voters before the November election. Obama's Latino Outreach Director, Temo Figueroa told Feet in 2 Worlds, "You're going to be hearing tomorrow from Barack Obama the kick-off of the largest voter registration drive ever in a presidential campaign."
Figueroa's remarks followed a presentation to the Hispanic Caucus this morning in Denver where he characterized the resources the campaign will put into the program as, "mind boggling."
"Tomorrow (in his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination) you are going to hear Sen. Barack Obama talk about voter registration and he's going to mention some numbers that we're going to be spending on voter registration through the month of September that will be mind boggling. That's going to be a focus of his speech at Invesco," Figueroa promised.
Figueroa also told FI2W that unlike past elections, the campaign will not "contract out" the job of registering voters.
"But we're doing it in-house. We're doing it with our own volunteers, with our own staff," he said.
"We're already making a dent," he said. "The numbers are already showing what we're doing in Virginia, what we're doing in New Mexico, what we're doing in Colorado and Nevada. It's amazing."
Update VI: The Obama-Biden post-convention bus tour schedule is coming into view. They'll be at Irvine Park in Beaver, Pennsylvania (outside of Pittsburgh) on Friday, and at Dublin Coffman High School in Dublin, Ohio, a Columbus suburb, on Saturday.
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Comments
Re: Phone Bank
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:00 pm by Jason YoungSupposedly the phone bank thing has been abandoned due to logistical reasons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/us/politics/28stage.html
On another note, there's going to be a march in Detroit tonight to the spot where MLK gave a version of his I Have a Dream speech. Really wish I could make it to that.
katie - thank you!!!!
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:07 pm by Suzy Shurekatie
fantastic! speaking of 'low information voters' and you played your part so well. We owe you a drink, and a hug!
Phew!
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:21 pm by Joel WiensWow, you barely escaped with your life. Good thing you were Obamo-flaged.
looooooooooooooooool
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:22 pm by Stan (not verified)Katie is going places, that was amazaing.
She's even better compared to certain other co-bloggers Al's had to endure.
Dang that was good
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:23 pm by James HaygoodKeeping a straight face for the "What war did he serve in? World War 2?" is some high-level straight-face keeping. Hilarious.
Column-gate
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:24 pm by Joy (not verified)While the republican operatives and their friends in the media are busy trying to push the "Temple of Doom" meme, on some freudian level they seem to be aware that the "doom" of which they speak is their own. Mwahahaaa MWAAHHAHAHA!!!!
Welcome to the Colloseum Bitches!!!
Link
Re: Phone Bank
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:33 pm by Allan BrauerI wonder about this.
As a former employee of Verizon, I know that we routinely deploy COWs and COLTs to events where large numbers of people are expected, or into areas where the local infrastructure has taken a hit (e.g. New Orleans post-Katrina).
COW = Cells on Wheels
COLT = Cells on Light Trucks
The former is a trailer that houses a cell site, the latter is a light truck with a cell site built in.
If the Obama campaign has been planning this for weeks, as they did with the text-message for VP campaign, I am confident that they are in direct and frequent communication with Verizon, ATT, Sprint, etc. as to their plans. That message was sent at 3 am ET/midnight PT precisely because those are the lowest hours of activity and the messages were best able to get through promptly.
Those companies had plenty of notice to anticipate the additional demand and bring in the portable equipment and beef up their infrastructure to accommodate the event.
i don't think i need to say
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:35 pm by jmp (not verified)i don't think i need to say how silly these people look.
they support mccain, but are wearing hillary shirts to the dem convention?
the video cut it off, but i imagine the end of her quote would be "i don't have time to talk to someone who's sarcastic, because burger king stops serving breakfast at 11."
I find it hard to believe they were ever Dems
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:35 pm by I_love_you_Al (not verified)Voting 3rd party as a protest is something that I can understand, but voting for the polar opposite of your own candidate before she got knocked out of the race?
Contortionists
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:47 pm by bonkers (not verified)I wish these PUMAs would just be honest and admit why they hate Obama so much, instead of hurting their brains with all the pretzel logic...
They have melanin-envy. No need to keep dancing around this issue.
WOW Katie!!!
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:54 pm by harpmick (not verified)Even though The Daily Show's in Denver, that's the funniest coverage I've seen all week.
I believe it's called hoisting them on their on petard. It's so much more fun seeing someone ridicule themselves than having to go through the trouble of doing it yourself.
Between Obama-flage and PUMA hunting, you're closing out the convention in style.
They completely gave themselves away
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:55 pm by Jeanne in AZ (not verified)Funny how any questions about Hillary were brushed aside, yet they were eager beavers to talk up Johnny TenHouse. Methinks the PUMAs are not and never were Democrats. But then... we already knew that. Thanks for confirming.
Maybe once we pass universal
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 2:57 pm by gizmo (not verified)Maybe once we pass universal healthcare we can provide some psychological counseling to the PUMA's.
LOL
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 3:32 pm by Olivia Warneckei cant stop laughing.
"he should probably talk about that more".
these people make my blood boil AND they can't pronouce Vietnamese.
Oh Jesus
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 3:53 pm by Erin RosaGet these people out of my city.
Obama and O'Biden in Detroit on Monday!
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 3:57 pm by Pamela Hilliard Owens@ Jason---as per tradition, the Democratic Presidential Candidate will appear at the official Labor Day Parade held in Detroit--true-blue union town, of course--every year.
They'll be at Hart Plaza @ 11 am...just before the International Jazz Festival...
Jason, come on down!! Believe me, Kwame will NOT be introducing...it'll probably be Jenny...
waterprise2 AKA Pam
Liberal with a Capital L!
Health Care
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 3:59 pm by Pamela Hilliard Owens@ Gizmo..McLost said Americans already have access to universal health care: they can go to the emergency room! No really, he said that!
waterprise2 AKA Pam
Liberal with a Capital L!
Campaign commercial
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 4:20 pm by Deborah (not verified)Combine his economic advisor's opinion that the country's only economic problem is being a nation of whiners with his health care advisor's opinion that we have full medical coverage because you can apparently get your kids vaccinated, your annual pap smear, and your cancer treatment by going to the emergency room. These are two easy-to-understand formulations that most Americans will recognize as rather wrong-headed.
Really looking forward to the post-convention game. We need some punchy story style criticisms to make (even if Schweitzer isn't campaigning outside Montana, let's put him on it) so that the criticisms of McCain's policies don't come across as "we have a 27 point plan that would work better" but as "here's why he's wrong; tell your friends." Then another spot can say "here's why Obama's right."
Plouffe in the house
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 4:42 pm by Karen DesmondKD
Obama in Detroit - Labor Day
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 5:00 pm by Joe LIsboa (not verified)Hi Pam, thanks for the heads-up. According to the latest Freep.com story, though, Biden will NOT be appearing with Senator Obama in Detroit on Monday, just the O-man.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080828/NEWS15/80828050
Here's hoping they move it from Hart Plaza to WSU / New Center (as they're discussing) if only for the selfish reason that the party will (literally, in the Biden sense) be in my own backyard. :)
@Pam re:labor day parade
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 5:01 pm by Jason YoungHot damn, I'll be in Detroit Monday anyways!
Maybe Biden will blow a kiss at me.
Thanks for the tip!
Say WHAT?
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 5:02 pm by Eliot (not verified)Katy..Wow!
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 5:23 pm by Chris Rich (not verified)These people are obviously redneck hick McCain minions in fake Hillary outfits. "Vietmanese"... whee! Look at how runny the old mullet woman gets when she starts the finger jab jabber of "You don't know what John McCain... and the "John McCain" part of the utterence gets this added kinesic oomph like the way a die hard Catholic would say "Pope John Paul".
I'm starting to see it as evidence of the difference in 'grassroots' work between McCain and Obama. The McCain cohorts see 'grassroots' as trolling the living shit out of various comment sections in nearly every 'progressive' blog around and are particularly odious in the ones with minimal moderation like 528. Another variant is this false flag redneck pile in fake Hillary suits in Denver.
The Obama crew sees grassroots as real grassroots, pounding the pavement and talking to humans.
grassroots
Submitted August 28, 2008 - 7:20 pm by Kristina (not verified)A TPMEC poster -
Submitted August 29, 2008 - 3:37 am by Agoram MuthukumaranPUMA - Party Unity Mission Accomplished
amk
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