Palin by comparison

Well, I’m two for two in picking VPs …

Of course, I never actually predicted Gov. Sarah Palin would be McCain’s pick, just said I wondered if he would go that direction.

Ah, what the heck, close enough. I rule!!!

To use a tired cliché, what we have here is two candidates swinging for the fences. The reviews suggest that Obama hit a home run Thursday night, and judging from the conservative blogs, the Palin pick seems like a solid hit at least. But I wonder about the long-term effect.

As I noted before, Palin has some upside. And she might be a better matchup than some others in a VP debate with Biden. Despite her being inexperienced in foreign policy, Biden will have to tread carefully in the debate. It won’t be a repeat of the Bentsen-Quayle debate.

However, over time, I can’t help but believe that people are going to start thinking about that big “what if?” What if Sarah Palin becomes President of the United States due to something unfortunate happening to McCain? He’s not a young guy, he’s had health problems. People should and will ask that question. How will that prospect sit with people?

Obviously, McCain’s camp has decided to double down on “maverick” and double-fault on “inexperienced” as campaign themes. It’s a risky and bold move. Or desperate. Probably depends on your point of view.

There's a lot of discussion on how the Obama campaign should "attack" the pick. My thought is that they shouldn't spend too much time on it at all. People aren't voting for the VPs. They're voting for the top of the ticket. And this pick is significant not for what it says about Palin's experience, but for what it says about McCain's judgment and decision-making.

Other random thoughts:
Funny that the Republican candidates for president and vice president can’t stop talking about how great Hillary Clinton is.

Gotta feel for Tim Pawlenty. He worked very, very hard for McCain. Not much of a payoff.

5 Reasons Why My Head is Exploding

1. Who are you, and what have done with Pat Buchanan???




2. Most serious case of political whiplash in the last 50 years:

Last night: McCain camp slams “meager record” of Obama. “Barack Obama is still not ready to be President.”

Today: McCain names his VP pick: 44-year-old Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska for two whole years. Before that: Mayor of Wasilla. Ready on day one, right?


3. Great speech aside, Barack Obama sums up a winning rationale for his candidacy in one word:

“ENOUGH!”


4. Thanks to TPM, a potatoe-worthy moment from the McCain Store. (image taken from McCain Web site, spelling since corrected.)



5. Gaffe Riots: They’ve been waaay overshadowed by everything else, but a couple of R bigwigs have said some monumentally dumb things in the past two days. Karl Rove says that because of things like inconvenient hurricanes, Republicans can’t catch a break. (The people of New Orleans feel for you, Karl.) And a guy that helped write the McCain health care policy (there’s some dispute about his exact relationship to the campaign) says that we can solve the health care problem of 45 million uninsured people by simply not calling them uninsured anymore. After all, he says, they can always go the emergency room.

History

Remember when we were wishing for the primary season to be over and that the Dems would finally, finally settle on a candidate?

Well, they have.

"DENVER — Sen. Barack Obama was nominated by his party on Wednesday to be the 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African-American to receive a major party nomination.
With a unanimous vote, the freshman senator from Illinois defeated the first family of Democratic Party politics with a call for a fundamentally new course in politics.
It brought to an end an often-bitter two-year political struggle for the nomination with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, standing on a packed convention floor electric with anticipation, moved to halt the roll call in progress so that the convention could nominate Obama by acclamation."
Adam Nagouney, NYT

I spent the evening cooking dinner, trying to get my kids to eat, cleaning up dinner, getting their DVD started, taking out the garbage, and putting them to bed. My wife was working her second job until after the kids were in bed. Just an average day for us, but a very significant day in American history.

I didn't see any of the speeches, but heard a little today on NPR. In order to keep from clogging the blog with video boxes, I'll just put one up. Bill Clinton was very good, from what I heard. John Kerry got rave reviews from the left, don't know how he sounded to others. And if you get a chance to see Beau Biden's short intro to his dad's speech, that's good too. But the one I was most interested in was Joe Biden's. Here it is.

“Let’s never forget, we’re the real story, not them.”

“What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance... Just a tiny bit.” – Aaron Altman, Broadcast News

I was thinking of Broadcast News last night, because I was more or less fuming at the empty suits the major networks are using to cover the DNC.

Now, I’ve gone out of my way in the past to defend the media. It’s an easy target that everyone likes to pick on. When you feel strongly about a party or a candidate you’re bound to see bias in the way that the media covers elections. It’s pretty much human nature. So I don’t buy the “the media has a political axe to grind” conspiracy theories for the most part.

But last night was a shining example of how it’s not the bias, it’s the stupidity that is the real problem with television news coverage of politics.

I was trying to watch the gosh-darned convention, and I couldn’t because these plastic people were talking nonstop, telling me what I should think about the convention. On six out of the seven channels, the pundits were blathering on over the speakers. At one point, one of them was saying, “The Democrats should be attacking McCain more!” I then turned to PBS (the one channel that seemed to actually allow us to see the convention speakers not named Clinton) and the guy at the podium was bashing McCain! At the very same time! If the pundit had turned around and listened for one minute, he’d have seen the very thing he claimed was missing!

And then there was the reaction to Clinton’s speech. I turned to Fox News and they were somberly saying how she didn’t seem to “really” praise Obama and support his candidacy. I then turned to CNN and they were saying what a great job she did in praising Obama and supporting his candidacy.

It just goes to show how useless these pundits are. Let’s be honest, most of them are paid to look good in a suit and speak clearly. They’re not great thinkers. They don’t even have to be well-informed, obviously.

So why are they on my television??

If you missed it, here’s Sen. Clinton and Mark Warner. Warner’s speech was more low-key, but a good message for Democrats, I think. “This election is not about liberal versus conservative. It’s not about left versus right. It’s about the future versus the past.”

Michelle Obama's Speech

I thought it was good.

Morning, Joe

So, we just got back from a few days on the North Shore, far from the city, jobs, internet connections, etc.

Did anything happen over the weekend?

Oh, that. Well, I can now crow about how I correctly picked Biden as Obama's VP choice. Me and about 4 billion other people.

I think it's a good choice; every candidate would've had strengths and weaknesses, but I like Biden's working-class background and lengthy foreign policy resume. All indications are that Biden will make an effective attack dog--and there seems to be some consensus around the idea that Obama needs one.

As I mentioned below, I also think the selection of Biden complicates things for McCain in picking a VP. Going with Pawlenty, who I think was a top contender, seems a little more dicey now because Biden might really take him apart in the VP debate, and might seem more "vice-presidential" in general. I'm kind of a fan of Pawlenty, but I really don't see that comparison working too well for the R's.

But then who does McCain go with? Romney was the other strong contender, but this whole "housing confusion" issue has got to make the McCain camp skittish about picking another ultra-wealthy guy. So now what? The Lieberman/Ridge trial balloon has not gone well for McCain, the R base is just not going to go for a pro-choice VP pick. Who does that leave?

You got me. I wonder if McCain might pick Sarah Palin or Carly Fiorina. One of the big problems demographically for McCain is that women break strongly for Obama (and in general for D candidates). However, with the Hillary issue, McCain seems to think he has an opening to pull in a few more women voters who are dissatisfied with how the Dem. primary came out. I personally doubt that the Hillary issue is that big of a deal, but McCain has been pushing that button pretty hard. So maybe go with a woman VP? That would also make it harder for Biden to dominate the VP debate--he would have to worry about coming on too strong against a female candidate and generating a backlash.

The problem for McCain is that most of the likely women contenders have their own downsides (lack of experience, for one). Hey, maybe he'll pick Michelle Bachmann. She's about as pro-life as you can get, a very gung-ho supporter of the military, and a poster girl for the religious right. She's also a little crazy, but in a pleasant, photogenic way.

Come on, John. Shake things up a little! McCain/Bachmann 08!

Always a Risky Tactic

"In one sense, the grand experiment at the heart of the Obama campaign is an effort to win the election by speaking to the voters like adults."

From a post at TPM.

Recipe for a Landslide: Let Obama be Obama

People on the Obama side of this year’s election are little stressed right now. The polls are starting to look better for McCain (he’s up five points in one poll today), and there’s the whole slimy “Obama is a celebrity” attack ad phenomenon—which reminds people of Swiftboating and seems to be working, unfortunately. Plus the Georgian crisis plays into McCain’s strengths. And now that “Saddleback” forum, where McCain got good-to-glowing reviews, has a lot of people worried. Shocking, isn’t it, that a conservative evangelical forum, where McCain tells the audience what it wants to hear and Obama doesn’t, turns out to work better for McCain?

I understand the anxiety. But the campaign really has barely gotten out of the starting gate at this point. We have VPs to pick, conventions to get through, debates, and any number of new, unforeseen developments ahead of us as the race progresses.

To me, the odds are still strongly in Obama’s favor. In fact, if I were to bet, I would bet that Obama will win decisively in the fall. Keep in mind, I’ve been very wrong before. But just looking at the challenges before both candidates, I like Obama’s chances much better. And I think the key to his chances is to let him be himself.

Town hall meetings are fine, and Obama should keep doing them. But he also needs to do rallies, speeches, and big events to fire up his base and get the attention of independent voters. Let the McCain campaign call him a “celebrity.” Ronald Reagan was a celebrity. John F. Kennedy was a celebrity. Obama should stand up in front of 50,000 people and say, “Are you here to see a celebrity, or are you here because you want to see a better tomorrow for this country?” And put the response in every TV ad he broadcasts.

People in this country want change. They need to be reminded that John McCain, despite his maverick image, has come to embrace Bush Republicanism. That is a tragedy for McCain, and it will be a tragedy for our country if we vote for four more years of it.

The polls at this point are not meaningless, but they are not at all a good guide for the outcome in November. Barring torrential rain or a Clinton meltdown, Obama should get a good bounce out of the Democratic convention. I think the debates will also be better for Obama than some might suspect. And Obama’s ground game, the enthusiasm gap, the number of new voters, all of this gives him advantages that no other Democratic candidate has had in recent memory.

There’s a long way to go. McCain’s doing better than expected. But things really are just getting started. And Obama is a proven winner.

Biden, His Time

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I could not resist...

OK, so it's looking more and more like Obama's pick for VP is going to be Sen. Joe Biden. Of course, nothing's for certain. Bayh is a possibility, as are a couple of other people. But just looking at the way things are going right now, I'm thinking Obama wants to send a signal that he's going to have an experienced, well-respected foreign policy guy at his side. Biden's the best fit for that.

So what's interesting to me is: what McCain does do in response, assuming that Joe B. is the guy? Obviously, he doesn't need to shore up his foreign policy credentials (oh, we could get into that, but I'm not gonna). So does he pick the Pride of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty?

He could do a lot worse. Pawlenty is a very likable and smart politician. He doesn't come across as extreme or inflexible. He could appeal to younger voters while not alienating older voters. People say his lack of a national profile is a minus, but as someone who's been following his career, I've seen him on the national stage in various capacities, and he does allright in the spotlight.

But how does picking Pawlenty look if Biden is the VP candidate on the other side? I’m wondering if memories of Dan Quayle will scare off the McCain team. Now, Pawlenty is no Dan Quayle, far from it. But will they give him a chance to prove it?

Obviously, McCain doesn’t need an older, experienced hand as No. 2; he’s got the old, experienced thing down pretty cold. Still, when the VP debate rolls around in the fall, are they gonna want the relatively inexperienced Pawlenty to go up against Biden? Or will they see such a matchup as a plus?

EFT on the Turnabout post

EFT has commented on the Turnabout post below, but Blogger apparently is having issues ... so I'm just reprinting it as a new post. I'll probably have a response in the comments section. Thanks for the feedback!

from EFT:

That video is a partisan, one-sided case of fear-mongering. And its hypothetical pro-Republican/anti-Democrat counterpart would be as well. That's not to say that it doesn't leave us some points to ponder.

Looking at history, it's difficult to find a well-known president who isn't associated with a war or tough guy image: Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt(s), Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, etc. Sometimes a president's military training is the source and sometimes it's circumstances, but either way it seems that strong, memorable presidents are linked to war and it certainly shaped their policies and politics. I don't know if that's necessarily good, but it's a fact that those are the leaders that stand out in the history books. BTW, those same history books usually fail to point out that even after a victory, the US maintains a military presence in the country-sort of an occupying force though that's not the term used. We have bases in Vietnam, Korea, Germany, and now Iraq. Apparently, it's easier to keep an eye on your former enemy if you're closer to them--and there's over 60 years of evidence to show that, despite changes in administration.

Being a Cold War kid, I have always been suspicious of Russia-regardless of how many times that country is classed as our friend or ally. As a nation, they have allowed their nuclear arsenal to be distributed to their former republics and rogue nations...seemingly without any concern for passing along the knowledge, restraint, and guidance needed to handle those weapons responsibly.

It's kind of like having a gun in the house. If the owner isn't responsible and fails to make sure that everyone with access has been properly trained, then it's just a tragedy waiting to happen.

But, to answer your last question, I do feel lucky. The election this fall pits a former POW against a candidate who is truly free of military influence. Either way we'll win. If McCain is in, then we'll have a president who understands deeply what can happen when things go awry in a war. If it's Obama, we'll have, for the very first time, a president untouched by war as a veteran or a draft dodger...a clean slate if you will. Both bring a fresh perspective to the questions surrounding the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Middle East situations.

Biden for VP?

There's some talk of it amongst Obama watchers. I think that would be great. He has experience, plenty of cred in the foreign policy field, is old, and is really pretty down to earth. I don't think you can hit him with the "elitist" tag (he rides the subway to and from work every day, according to WaPo), and yet he's smart and talks to people like grownups, something the current prez and Sen. McCain don't always do.

I think it's fair to say that people want change with this election, but they are still needing some reassurance about Obama. Biden helps him with that, more than a lot of the names that have been thrown about. Maybe more than anyone. Oh, and he's Catholic, too, so there's another voting bloc checked off the list. (I realize the D's won't get all the Catholics. But Biden could help.)

What else is going on? Republicans are supporting Obama.

Also, there's a campaign, to put the Obama logo on barns in Ohio, which I think is cool. Who knows how it will affect votes, probably not much, but it's good to see the Dem candidate's campaign trying to appeal to rural voters and being creative about it.

Turnabout: Fair Play?

Republican candidates in recent years have been pretty straightforward with the equation--A Vote for a Democrat Endangers America. I mean, they don’t always come out and say it just like that. But that’s pretty clearly the message at times. At other times they do come out and say it just like that.

Well, here’s a twist on that approach.



At first, I felt this video could be dismissed as a partisan, one-sided case of fear-mongering. One can make the case that the McCain statements quoted here are just typical Republican tough-guy posturing that’s necessary to win the nomination.

But hold on a minute. Isn’t typical Republican tough-guy posturing kind of the point here? Hasn’t that been, at root, a large part of the problem that has led us to disaster in Iraq and impotence elsewhere?

It ‘s pretty clear that McCain is surrounding himself with Rove and Cheney apostles, who believe that saber-rattlin’ and war-presidentin’ is both good policy AND good politics. A frightening combination, in my opinion.

One thing is beyond doubt: the threat posed by what might happen if someone like Bin Laden somehow someday gets ahold of nuclear materials is drawfed by the threat posed if a nation with thousands of nuclear weapons and high-tech delivery systems is suddenly back in an antagonistic posture with the United States.

And here is McCain, talking very belligerently about Russia. I guess the question that remains is: do you feel lucky, nation?

Well, do ya?

Deja Vu All Over Again

I recognize that it’s not only possible to get too caught up in McCain’s attack ads from last week, it’s probably exactly what the McCain campaign wants us to do. But I do think it’s worth a little further comment, since last week was really pretty remarkable both in what happened and what it suggests for the campaign to come.

What we seem to be seeing is the McCain embrace of Rovian, Atwater-esque, good-old fashioned GOP attack politics.

We’ve seen it clearly in the past few presidential elections. In the mid-summer of 2000, the “Al Gore is an exaggerator/liar” theme was introduced and became the conventional wisdom of that fall, even though it was based on very little of substance. In mid-summer 2006, we saw the Swift Boat smear get its start, and the “Kerry is a flip-flopper” theme take hold. The Swift Boat stuff was despicable and dishonest, the flip-flopper theme, unfortunately, was not entirely without substance. One can argue that anyone in the Senate could be hit with that tag (and McCain is a great example of this), but Kerry’s difficulties in communicating well and acting decisively was a gift to his political opponents.

So now the GOP candidate is once again seeking an angle to attack. And so here in mid-summer, the “Obama is an elitist/celebrity” theme has been unveiled. And really, for the McCain camp, you have to say, so far, so good. Obama’s poll numbers seem to be going down a bit, the media is jumping all over itself to examine the signficance of what kind of tea and salad Obama prefers, and as an added bonus, Sen. McCain was able to grasp the thin reed of “I don’t look like the presidents on the currency” remark and turn it into The Race Card, thereby claiming victimhood. It was a solid week for him.

Of course, it was also Exhibit A of why we should all be embarrassed and angry over what our electoral politics have become.

So what should we expect in the coming weeks? Well, it would be easy to say “more of the same.” And I expect there will be more of the character attacks on Obama. But will it be effective in the long run? It could backfire on McCain; he’s obviously taking a bit of a beating over this strategy from at least some pundits.

Say what you want about celebrity, it was John McCain’s celebrity with the media that allowed him to build his image as a bi-partisan, reasonable, fair-minded politician for all these years. This strategy puts all that at risk.

Obama has a very fine line to walk between responding in a strong, effective way, and sounding angry, bitter, etc. But based on how he’s handled stuff so far, and on his performance against HRC, I’d say he’s better equipped to deal with this than any Dem presidential candidate since at least 1996.

Note for comparison Obama’s hard-hitting ads released this week, which do criticize McCain, but over a legitimate policy difference with real implications for voters.

Maybe Americans would rather talk about Paris Hilton and arugula than the issues. I hope not.