The Barack Obama campaign formally announced the release of a new 60-second ad that mentions the space program, at least in a historical context, at the very beginning:
The campaign claims in a press release that the ad is “the first by either presidential candidate to highlight the space program”. However, as you can see, it repeats an anecdote from Obama’s youth shown before Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, and mentioned by the candidate other times earlier on the campaign trail.
More telling is the continued push in the language of the press release that continues to try to differentiate Obama and John McCain on space policy, particularly on budgets:
Obama has pledged to increase NASA funding to save Florida jobs and maintain America’s leadership in space. Senator McCain has pledged to freeze discretionary spending in his first year, which would negatively impact the space program.
To draw attention to the growing space gap between the candidates, Obama’s Campaign for Change teamed up with the Space Coast Labor Council yesterday to phone bank Space Coast residents and contrast Obama’s plans to invest in the region with McCain’s spending freeze. Prior to the phonebank, the campaign held a press conference with two workers recently laid off at Cape Canaveral. Rick Rinaldi, 58, and Kelvin Davis, 43, explained that they’d both been the victim of “budget cuts,†and were concerned about supporting their families and maintaining their quality of life. Davis told reporters of Obama’s plan to invest in saving Space Coast jobs, “my family and other families that have been affected by these layoffs, an these cut backs, would highly appreciate it. and would like it.†Rinaldi added of McCain’s plan to freeze spending, “how can you grow jobs if you are freezing government spending?â€
I am pleased to see this coming from the Obama campaign.
Way back on August 7, 2008 (gosh, that is a loooooong time ago) I posted a diary at Daily Kos suggesting that Obama use space policy to attack McCain in Florida.
Good politics will include these objectives:
(1) Avoid (minimize) the spaceflight gap
(2) Preserve jobs and skilled worker infrastructure
(3) Do more with less money;
(4) Make Florida voters happy.
Lacking a preview button to verify my HTML syntax, I add the naked link here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/7/132828/6355/925/550307
Hooray for Obama. Keep the program going. I just hope that Stuff Shirt doesn’t win. He’s about as stiff as Frankenstein.
“I just hope that Stuff Shirt doesn’t win. He’s about as stiff as Frankenstein.”
There’s no reason to label Presidential candidates, or anyone else, with derogatory names. It’s especially despicable to denigrate a veteran’s appearance, which was caused by wounds suffered while a prisoner of war in service to our country.
You should apologize, Mr. White. And if you can’t stick to issues of space policy, then take your ignorance and/or slime elsewhere.
Ick…
Frankenstein was a doctor, a scienctist that was ahead of the curve over any other. He used that knowledge to try and do an experiment that surpassed what any other medicial scienctist had ever tried. A leader in the scientific field.
What Dr. Frankenstein ended up CREATING was deemed a monster. So were you calling McCain a leader in pushing NASA and the scientific envelope or because you feel McCain is going to turn NASA into a monster?