UPDATE 3: Video of Memorial Day NM Obama Visit Up…Local Press TOTALLY & SHAMELESSLY COMPLICIT in Boosting Obama

Wow, I’m totally stunned by what’s going on in the local press. I knew the press would be complicit, since no one but they and the Obama supporters knew about the town hall rally.

I have never seen VIDEO of an entire political event put up for any candidate before. I’ve attend events for Kucinich, Edwards, Gore, Kerry and Clark in the recent past, but never have I seen such a push for a candidate.

Click here for all videos which show the entire event. (These are OFFICIAL “Las Cruces Sun-News” videos, too, not just links to video that someone posted on their own.) The banner on the page I chose is titled “Reaction to Sen. Barack Obama’s speech to veterans at Farm and Ranch” and the true believers are on tape and ready for a campaign ad. I’m not sure, but I guess that’s a flag pin on Obama’s suit today…

I am utterly disgusted by how this has been handled…the secrecy, cutting out the public, Richardson, and, of course, the total COMPLICITY of the press. On a day when we’re supposed to be “honoring those who have fought for our freedoms” we see a re-enactment of a BUSH-ROVE type of event, barring the public and a press corps that is not asking any questions. Hey, “progressive bloggers”–you now like a candidate who packages events like the old Soviet Union??

NOTE: I am all blogged out this weekend…so I may be off for a day or two as I catch up on things I need to do!! I also have to recover from hearing Richardson describe Obama’s IMPECCABLE CHARACTER and his being a man of PRINCIPLE and a “ONCE IN A GENERATION LEADER” who is a PATRIOT and who loves this country with ALL HIS HEART. He ends by speaking in Spanish, but works in JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY in plain English. Oh, please…

UPDATE 2 on Obama in New Mexico, Memorial Day–Nothing Like an “UNBIASED” Press…

Obama has left the rally. He shook hands for about 15 minutes before leaving at around 2:20 pm local. He apparently did take a few questions from the audience, which was not exclusively VETS. I am guessing that they had to combine the “Vets Only Town Hall” with the “few other stops” as reported originally so that they could create a big enough media event. The blogger in his first post reported only about 100 vets out of a total of about 300 people.

The event is “reported” over a series of 10 short posts. A couple of them are devoted to Obama’s speech, which is quoted. One has to wonder if it is really transcribed or if it was handed out to the media before the event–because, after all, ONLY THE PRESS and the SELECT AUDIENCE was told of the venue ahead of time! I would guess the blogger plugged it into the report verbatim from a text handed to him.

Overall, It sounds like pretty typical campaign stuff on military issues, tied into thanking the military.

“I speak to you today with deep humility,” Obama said. “I don’t know what it is like to march into battle, as many of you do. … I am the father of two young girls, and I cannot fathom what it is like to lose a child.”

“Our sadness today is mixed with pride” for our veterans who gave their lives.

(I hate to be snarky, but he doesn’t seem to care about what his two girls hear at church…)

The questions that were REPORTED on by the Times blogger were about the VA, Blackwater, the economy, and “ballistic missles versus language training because in our current war, we didn’t have people to speak the language of our foes or allies.” Obama apparently didn’t foul up like he has before on the language actually spoken by local translators. He kept his answer nice and generic.

Here’s the part of this report that is really questionable. This is how the blogger/apparent reporter for the El Paso Times signed off from the blog…

Obama shook hands for about 15 minutes, then left to cheers. That’s all I have for now. I’ll give you more when I return to the office.

In closing, Obamanos!

What’s that all about?? Is it supposed to be PERSONAL?? As in, we ALL love Obama?? And he’s reporting??? Or is that the secret code word for all the Obama supporters in the area? (Don’t forget, Clinton won NM…)

No reports of swooning, or if there was any, it was most likely due to heat prostration or sunstroke…

Tomorrow I will see how the local sister paper plasters this all over the front page and report on that, too.

PS–It will be interesting to see if anyone calls into the “Sound Off” line with a comment about how disrespectful it was to turn a “Veteran’s town hall meeting” into a rally on Memorial Day…especially when we are supposed to honor those who “fought for our freedoms” which apparently DOES NOT INCLUDE allowing the general public to attend!!

UPDATE 1 on Obama in New Mexico, Memorial Day

News is starting to dribble in about the Obama event here in Las Cruces. Seems that the touted “Vets Only Town Hall” wound up with fewer vets than supporters contacted via the phone-chain. And it sure isn’t all about the vets…or the general public….I guess I could go over, but I’m afraid of what the Obamatrons would do to me…and, of course, there is the HEAT!

From the El Paso TImes blog at about 12:30 pm local time:

There are about 300 people here at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum waiting for New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Although it is billed as an event for veterans, it looks like only about 100 of the folks are actually veterans.

Although most people are in their chairs, there are more and more people retreating toward the closest shady area. I’ll be curious to see how long Obama speaks in this heat. But I suppose he’s in good shape.

You bet they’re looking for shade…it’s blistering hot in the noonday sun in these parts…

Next report in about 1 pm:

The mayor of Las Cruces, Ken Miyagashima, began the festivities about 12:40 p.m. He mentioned the heat and the lovely backdrop of the Organ Mountains. After thanking the veterans in the audience, the crowd stood for the Pledge of Allegience. “I want to thank the veterans for their service to the country,” Miyagashima said. “We will never forget your service.”After a few more references to “our next president, Barack Obama,” he was done.After that, it was back to waiting. It’s about 1 p.m. now, waiting for the action to start.

I voted for Ken Miyagashima for mayor and knew him slightly from the Clark campaign. I was pretty ticked off when he personally helped open the Obama office here, just after he was elected in a very close election. As mayor, he’s been very low-key. I felt that it was inappropriate for him to be so partisan so early on. And, he’s still at it. This may not help him in the future if he decides to run again, because his original high-profile campaign office appearance, complete with picture in the paper, did miff a lot of people. He does have a nice contact list, so I’m sure lots of people at the RALLY (not the advertised TOWN HALL MEETING WITH VETS ONLY) are from that list.

By the way, I heard a national radio report on McCain’s ABQ appearance, which was at 9 am local. I guess the evening news will be full of video on Obama…

More Later…

Obama Holds Memorial Day Vet Visit in Secret….McCain visits ABQ in PUBLIC

Well, it appears that part of what I said to my mother yesterday was correct…that PRIVATE was the most key word to describe the Obama visit to Las Cruces today.

As it turns out, it seems that EVERYTHING today is completely private…right down to there being a NEWS BLACKOUT! I don’t know if there will be “other events” as was originally reported but the main event has been carefully scripted.  (And if there ARE any other events, you can bet they’ll be in homes or another secret venue and money will be flowing.) As I told my mother yesterday, the paper announced the visit, then the cell phone calls, text messages and emails went out to Obama supporters to create a nice media event for the press to fawn over.

Yesterday’s Las Cruces Sun-News had a headline across the top heralding Obama’s visit, with very few details. (See my post from Sunday, May 25.) Today, I expected to see more news about this trumpeted on page 1.

But there was NO MENTION of Obama. I listed to the oldies station, which does local news, and heard…nothing! There was nothing updated on the paper’s website or on radio station site (although I did find an interesting poll there, which I’ll comment on in a moment). I visited a couple of New Mexico political blogs…just the old news of the original announcement. I searched Yahoo News and came up with the old news from the Sun-News and sister papers. Finally, on Google News I found an El Paso Times story (one of the sister newspapers) that was 5 hours old:

Obama, McCain to spend Memorial Day in New Mexico

Times staff report

Article Launched: 05/26/2008 07:51:04 AM MDT

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama will be in New Mexico today at separate Memorial Day events.Obama will join New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson at a Memorial Day Veterans Town Hall in Las Cruces. It is an invitation-only event.

McCain will join Sen. Pete Domenici at a memorial ceremony in Albuquerque honoring fallen military men and women. The public event starts at 9 a.m.

Interesting that McCain is in the state today, too, and his event is PUBLIC.

Meanwhile, I finally found the blog at the El Paso Times with this info:

…And though the event is not open to the public, you can read about all the action as it happens right here at Best of Times. Later today, elpasotimes.com will have stories, photos and video from the event, as well. Check back here for continuous coverage beginning about noon.

I will be checking back to see the reports which, I bet, will be GLOWING. This whole arrangement…closed event in front of select audience, no general PUBLIC allowed, the press seeing only positives to report (or in this case, probably not reporting on any tough questions asked by vets and vet family members) REEKS of Bill Richardson. As I observed a few weeks back in a post on this blog about “Richardson’s Rules,” Richardson has organized this sort of event before. That one was to drum up for the spaceport-welfare program for Richard Branson, using school kids and their parents by holding an assembly in a school which the public was NOT ALLOWED to attend. Scuffles and police were the result.

I can only recall that 4 years ago, when Wes Clark visited here a couple of times, there was press information and PUBLIC events. I was working on his campaign and made calls to Democratic voters and a couple of the volunteers who were vets reached out to local posts. We were a little band of about 10-15 people who worked our butts off and the party regulars themselves also put out the word, while the Clark campaign figured out the venues. This time around, Richardson is doing his specialty—CLOSED and SELECT, and engineered for the press to be complicit.

Now, back to that interesting poll on 101 Gold. Totally unscientific, of course, but interesting anyway…sorry the little graphs doesn’t copy….

Hillary Clinton has all but lost her chance at the top of the ticket, although Barack Obama doesn’t yet have enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination for President. What do you think
Answers Votes Percent 1. She should have gotten out long ago 23 20% 2. She should get out now 8 7% 3. She should stay in until the convention 30 26% 4. I don’t want either Hillary or Barack in the White House 10 9% 5. How about Obama/Clinton ’08 3 3% 6. How about Clinton/Obama ’08 3 3% 7. John McCain all the way, who cares what the Democrats do 40 34%

Look who’s winning….John McCain. Not unexpected, given the huge military presence in this area. Next, Clinton should STAY IN.

Stay tuned….I’ll be updating…