As we step into the final few hours of the US Presidential race 2008, here are a few hilarious moments of the campaign that was.....
Terrible economy, huge losses in wars, racial and sexist prejudices, swing states, undecided people, experience, divas, Obamican (a Long time Republican voting for Obama), Muslim, Socialist... a very variegated race, but one thing that has been invariant, is the humor..... Here are unquotable quotes by the hopefuls - McCain, Palin, Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton.
John McCain
"I was looking at the Sturgis schedule, and noticed that you had a beauty pageant, so I encouraged Cindy to compete. I told her [that] with a little luck, she could be the only woman to serve as both the First Lady and Miss Buffalo Chip." --on the annual Miss Buffalo Chip Pageant, which features topless (and occasionally bottomless) contestants, Sturgis, South Dakota, Aug. 4, 2008
"Across this country this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners. And the same standards of clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent." --Bethlehem, Penn., Oct. 8, 2008
"You know, I think you may have noticed that Senator Obama's supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about Western Pennsylvania lately. And you know, I couldn't agree with them more. I couldn't disagree with you. I couldn't agree with you more than the fact that Western Pennsylvania is the most patriotic, most god-loving, most, most patriotic part of America, and this is a great part of the country." --Moon Township, Penn., Oct. 21, 2008 - I was reminded of the legendary answer in the 1994 Miss USA pageant - Question: If you could live forever, would you and why? Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,"
- Miss Alabama.
"Our economy, I think, is still -- the fundamentals of our economy are strong." --Jacksonville, Fla., Sept. 15, 2008
"You know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran? Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." --breaking into song after being asked at a VFW meeting about whether it was time to send a message to Iran, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, April 18, 2007
"There was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney. You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one." --referring to Barack Obama during the second presidential debate, Nashville, Tennessee, Oct. 7, 2008
"I think -- I'll have my staff get to you. It's condominiums where -- I'll have them get to you." --after being asked how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own, interview with Politico, Las Cruces, N.M., Aug. 20, 2008
"Make it a hundred...That would be fine with me." --to a questioner who asked if he supported President Bush's vision for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 50 years, Derry, New Hampshire, Jan. 3, 2008
"The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president and, in my view, has betrayed the public's trust. If I were president today, I would fire him." --apparently unaware of the fact that the SEC chairman, as a commissioner of an independent regulatory commission, cannot be removed by the president, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Sept. 18, 2008
"I understand the economy. I was chairman of the Commerce Committee that oversights every part of our economy." --ignoring the fact that it is actually the Senate Banking Committee which is responsible for credit, financial services, and housing -- the very areas currently in crisis, CNBC interview, Sept. 16, 2008
"I might have to rely on a vice president that I select’ for expertise on economic issues." --GOP debate, Nov. 28, 2007
"The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book." --as quoted in the Boston Globe, Dec. 17, 2007
"Sure. Technically, I don't know." --asked if the U.S. is in a recession, "60 Minutes" interview, Sept. 21, 2008
Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin boasted about her foreign policy experience to Katie Couric by saying, "As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border."
"They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." --Sarah Palin, on her foreign policy insights into Russia, ABC News interview, Sept. 11, 2008
"We realize that more and more Americans are starting to see the light there and understand the contrast. And we talk a lot about, OK, we’re confident that we’re going to win on Tuesday, so from there, the first 100 days, how are we going to kick in the plan that will get this economy back on the right track and really shore up the strategies that we need over in Iraq and Iran to win these wars?" --Sarah Palin, suggesting we are at war with Iran, FOX News interview, Nov. 1, 2008
"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media." --Sarah Palin, getting first amendment rights backwards while claiming that criticism of her is unconstitutional, radio interview with WMAL-AM, Oct. 31, 2008
"[T]hey're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom." --Sarah Palin, getting the vice president's constitutional role wrong after being asked by a third grader what the vice president does, interview with NBC affiliate KUSA in Colorado, Oct. 21, 2008
"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. ...We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation." --Sarah Palin, speaking at a fundraiser in Greensoboro, N.C., Oct. 16, 2008
"I would hope at least that those protesters have the courage and the honor of thanking our veterans for giving them the right to protest!" --Sarah Palin, confusing supporters at a campaign rally who had shouted "We can't hear you!" and "Louder!", Richmond, Va., Oct. 13, 2008
"That's exactly what we're going to do in a Palin and McCain administration." --Sarah Palin, elevating herself to the top of the ticket, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Sept. 18, 2008
"I'm very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing ... any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that." --Sarah Palin, after an Alaska legislative report found she had broken the state's ethics law and abused her power in the Troopergate scandal, conference call with Alaska reporters, Oct. 12, 2008
"They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan." --Sarah Palin, speaking at a fundraiser in San Francisco, Oct. 5, 2008
"All of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years." --Sarah Palin, unable to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008
"Nucular." --Sarah Palin, mispronouncing the word "nuclear" twice, ABC News interview, Sept. 11, 2008
"Perhaps so." --Sarah Palin, when asked if we may need to go to war with Russia because of the Georgia crisis, ABC News interview, Sept. 11, 2008
"I have not, and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you." --Sarah Palin, after being asked if she had never met a foreign head of state, despite the fact that every vice president in the last 32 years had met a foreign head of state prior to taking office, ABC News interview, Sept. 11, 2008
"I told the Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that Bridge to Nowhere." --Sarah Palin, who was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.
"As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?" --Sarah Palin, interview with CNBC's "Kudlow & Co", July 2008
"I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you." --Sarah Palin, asked by Katie Couric to cite specific examples of how John McCain has pushed for more regulation in his 26 years in the Senate, CBS News interview, Sept. 24, 2008
Barack Obama
"Let me introduce to you the next President -- the next Vice President of the United States of America, Joe Biden." --slipping up while introducing Joe Biden at their first joint campaign rally, Springfield, Illinois, Aug. 23, 2008
"Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under a McCain...administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change." --Amman, Jordan, July 22, 2008
"How's it going, Sunshine?" --campaigning in Sunrise, Florida
"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."
"I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go." --at a campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon
"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." --explaining his troubles winning over some working-class voters
"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed." --on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people
Joe Biden
"Look, John's last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs." --Joe Biden
"A man I'm proud to call my friend. A man who will be the next President of the United States — Barack America!" --Joe Biden, at his first campaign rally with Barack Obama
"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened." –Joe Biden, apparently unaware that FDR wasn't president when the stock market crashed in 1929 and that only experimental TV sets were in use at that time
"Stand up, Chuck, let 'em see ya." –-Joe Biden, to Missouri state Sen. Chuck Graham, who is in a wheelchair, Columbia, Missouri, Sept. 12, 2008
Miscellaneous
Clinton's Bosnia Adventure
The number one biggest gaffe of the 2008 Presidential election was Hillary Clinton's dramatic exaggeration of her landing in Bosnia in 1996, "under sniper fire." Was it an attempt to bolster her "experience" claim? Or was it a legitimate "misstatement"? We may never know for sure, but the video of the actual event sure did contradict much of her very descriptive story.
Clinton refers to RFK
'My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it,' she said, dismissing calls to drop out."
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