Being a student at Northwestern, located deep in ObaManiac Headquarters, I’m trying to figure some stuff out. Namely, how on earth is Obama so damn good. The answer is that he has completely controlled political discourse, at least among 18-25 year olds. I ask why people support Obama and it’s all about “GDeorge W Bush’s failed policies”. Yea, I get that. The economy blows, Iraq was (probably) a mistake, Osama is still at large, and gays can’t marry (it’s not that I don’t think gay marriage in California or Massachusetts should be delegalized. It’s that I think anyone in California or Massachusetts should not be entitled to federal funding that results from marriage.). I won’t bother arguing whose fault it is. The, albeit correct, argument that Democrats are responsible for Fannie and Freddie mess is too indirect and convoluted to be effective. The argument that the surge has worked is irrelevant to those who opposed the war all along and think pre-emptive defeat is an adequate response to pre-emptive war.
McCain’s inability to find his message has kept dominated him. The only times he has surged in the polls were when he bashed Obama on being a celebrity over the summer and when he got Palin as his VP. It’s finding a message and delivering it. Since June we have seen: celebrity, foreign policy experience, maverick, Obama tied to Ayers, and now we get Joe the Plumber/taxes.
There are many roads to Rome (or the White House), but you have to actually take one. To borrow some of the brilliant Jay Cost’s analysis, I’d love to see McCain run this ad a lot more:
10. Sarah Palin has named her kids Bristol, Piper, Track, Willow, and Trig.
9. She has taken on corrupt Alaskan bureaucrats. She has angered Senator Ted Stevens and strongly supported her Lieutenant Governor’s bid to unseat 18-term congressman Don Young in the Republican Primary.
8. In light of McCain’s health problems: Sarah Palin runs marathons.
7. She is a moose hunter. Not a Bull-Moose hunter, but actual Moose. (Mooses? Meese? Moosen?)
6. Palin’s husband works as a commerical fisherman and is in a labor union…can’t much more blue-collar than that.
5. Palin’s husband is a champion snowmobile racer, winning the Tesoro Iron Dog, billed as the world’s longest snowmobile race, four times.
4. Her eldest son, Track, will be going to Iraq with the US Army next month, not unlike the other VP candidate
3. In 1984, Palin was named Miss Wasilla and runner-up as Miss Alaska.
2. Her youngest son, Trig, was born in April with Down’s Syndrome. Palin has made a point to talk about her son and her decision to not have an abortion despite knowing about Trig’s condition during pregnancy.
And….the best thing about Sarah Palin is:
Her parents were called this morning by their son-in-law to listen to the radio for a special announcement. They almost missed hearing about their daughter’s VP nomination because they were *drumroll* CARIBOU HUNTING.
Lest there be no doubt: the GOP has returned to the party of small government, increased transparency, and support the working-class!
I recently lamented the fact that Rachel Maddow got her own show. I was pretty upset that the channel which once bisected CNN and Fox News moved to the left of CNN in the past year through Olbermann’s transformation into leftist wacko and bringing on his sidekick, Maddow. Worse, supposedly non-partisanThe channel has gotten great ratings from Olbermann and Olympics coverage, so it’s not a bad business move. I won’t suggest that the media has a “higher calling” because I have sufficient faith in the viewers and the free market to promote effective, popular media.
MSNBC’s lone conservative, Joe Scarborough, was talking earlier about John McCain’s recent accomplishments in polling. Objectively speaking, Scarborough makes two valid points: a few months ago, the McCain campaign was dead in the water facing a double-digit deficit nationally AND the Obama campaign thought it was impossible to lose this race. Keith Olbermann has an open mic and blasts Scarborough:
The next morning, Scarborough was clearly angry. He had David Shuster, who is liberal, on his show. When Shuster hits Scarborough for not being critical enough of McCain, Scarborough loses it:
I don’t think the tirade was necessary or appropriate, but I can understand it. Scarborough has criticized Republicans and is wildly mocked among “conservative” circles. Also, Scarborough must be upset that Tim Russert passed away (Russert was known as a peacemaker and stabilizing force among network anchors), Andrea Mitchell has become an Obama surrogate without telling anyone, Olbermann has turned himself into a hitman, and Rachel Maddow now gets David Abrams’ timeslot in primetime. For Shuster to claim to be Indpendent was the final straw. Scarborough never wanted to be the token right-winger on the network. He wants to be a small-government former congressman who calls them as he sees them. The network he signed onto no longer exists.
I don’t think this is the end of MSNBC. I don’t think this will hurt ratings. Actually, it should improve ratings as people wait to see what train wreck will happen next. As sad as it is to see Joe completely lose it, hopefully this dispute will get people talking about MSNBC’s shift to the left. More likely, MSNBC’s leftists will further the unfair characterization of Scarborough as a bitter Republican who is watching mainstream America shift to the left.
Despite being John F Kennedy 2.0 (or so we’re told), Barack Obama makes a few too many mistakes. And by “mistakes” I don’t mean calling Pennsylvanians desperate voters who cling to guns and religion. I mean actual mistakes. Things that he doesn’t believe in, but inadvertently says or suggests.
For whatever reason, Barack seriously struggles with the locations of his speeches. Last night he did it again, unclear which city in Missouri he was in (hint: there are only two! it’s 50/50, Barack!) Here a few of his recent missteps:
1. Joe Biden will be elected president (interesting)
2. Obama visits 57 states (Heinz varieties or US states…they’re so damn similar!)
2A. Eau Claire, Wisconsin is actually a state…(does this count to the 57 or is it the missing 58th?)
3. Obama’s uncle liberates Auschwitz (actually, Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets and Obama’s mother never had a brother. So an imaginary uncle joined the Red Army. Somehow, I’m not surprised)
4. Obama on Iraq (Not even Two-Face could make heads or tails of this one)
5. Last night, Obama couldn’t decide if he’s in St. Louis or Kansas City (note: he needs his daughter to ask him what city he is in so he can get his facts right). I’m not sure which I’m more concerned about: Barack taking advice from Michelle or Barack NEEDING advice from a 7 year old.
6. Obama suggests that having a baby is a punishment (Some parents ground their kids. Others use spanking. Barack forces pregnancy)
7. Obama makes myriad “mistakes” and suggests he is not ready to run for president in 2008
I think I finally figured it all out: it’s because his name isn’t really Barack OBAMA. It’s actually:
I’m currently sitting between two of my liberal buddies and figured I should document my thoughts.
(note: one of them comes up with, “I consider myself progressive, thank you very much”. The other comes up with, “I’m a socialist, if anything”.)
Nancy Pelosi: I only caught the tail end of it, but I heard a lot about Barack Obama being right and John McCain being wrong. It was kinda funny, actually. The crowd was very quiet…I’ll cut the Dems some slack and say that they are too busy eating their organic, tri-color food in organic packaging. (Reminder: I’m not kidding. The DNC has strict rules on food being 70% local and/or organic and at least 3 colors must be represented…but Obama is BI-racial, not TRI-racial. Perhaps he isn’t as progressive as we were told)
highlight: Pelosi says that Obama has brought bi-partisanship back to Washington. WHEN? The ethics bill and …um….well….
Oh, yea. I forgot. History doesn’t matter in Obamaland!
Tribute to Jimmy Carter. Democrats haven’t realized they should pretend he never existed? Democrat is elected in a very weak economy, facing a global scourge by an enemy of the US, and facing an energy shortage and then absolutely makes it worse? THIS is the image? Go for it, guys!
Jesse Jackson Jr.: His attempts to channel his father and Barack Obama fall a bit short. He tried hard. And if we know anything about liberal ideology, if you try, that’s good enough. We can always add a government subsidy to hook him up. Somehow his father’s goal of physically emasculating Obama goes unmentioned.
Highlight: Jesse Jackson Jr. talks about great moments in American history; Lexington & Concord, Appomattox (apparently not the courthouse), Selma, and Denver. Really? Revolutionary War. Civil War. Civil Rights movement. Obama’s nomination.
it’s official, they’ve gone off the deep end.
Caroline Kennedy comes out to introduce Ted Kennedy. She is a train wreck of a speaker. She seems awkward and uncomfortable. She also makes the obligatory comparison of Obama to JFK.
Random list of “Democratic” accomplishments that she is attributing to Ted Kennedy.
“If your taxes are about $5,000 too much because of unnecessary government, Teddy is your senator, too!”
Highlight: There are about 16 camera cut-aways to Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy Clan. No Schwarzenegger, thankfully. Is this a reminder that there are other living Kennedys? Or is it to suggest that Arnie doesn’t support Obama.
The tribute to Ted Kennedy is odd. It’s more documentary than tribute. There is an odd infatuation with the ocean…I guess too much of a hardened conservative to get this. Ted fought for better equipment for troops. DIDN’T OBAMA OPPOSE FUTURE SPENDING IN IRAQ? Wow. The Democrats are now officially supporting stances on key issues that their own Presidential nominee proudly opposes?
Let the cannibalism continue!
Ted is alright. The speech is pretty good and is a thinly veiled attempt to recreate Reagan’s “Morning in America” theme. It’s rosy. It’s optimistic.
lull in the action as commentators talk about Ted Kennedy’s legacy and the attempts to humanize Barack Obama. Does it bother anyone else that Obama needs to be humanized? Shouldn’t all presidential candidates be human, anyway? Unless, of course, he is *drumroll* MANCHURIAN!
Highlight: “The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years towards regulating values”. Wait, wait, wait. The Democratic Party is the one that DOESN’T regulate values? Was that before or after Democrats waged a war on trans fats, SUVs, and the minimum wage while supporting hate crime legislation and Affirmative-Action. ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?
enter: some random former Republican congressman from Iowa. This guy is a vanilla speaker and clearly there to prop up the notion of Barack’s bipartisanship. Is this the best they have? They think this guy, who was never famous and will never be famous, is the answer? Damn, even the Republicans didn’t pretend to be bipartisan in 2004 and they had this guy:
Claire McCaskill: Senator from Missouri
She starts off way too cheery. It’s a little creepy. Is this how Obama wants Clinton? A Stepford Senator?
She tells her story and her husband’s story and calls Barack’s and Michelle’s American stories. She skips out on when Michelle became a racist in college and Barack was supported by William Ayers and married by Jeremiah Wright.
On second thought, her creepy smile isn’t so bad. She is doing a nice job providing a “pragmatic” and “friendly” view of Obama. I could see middle-aged mothers seeing themselves in McCaskill and playfully agreeing. This might be the best speech of the night. The only hitch for Democrats is that McCaskill will only make the contrast between her and Michelle that much more obvious.
Here we go: Michelle Obama!
Here is her bio pic. It’s about her love for South Side. This attempt to humanize her is really laying it on thick. Michelle loves her kids (I’d hope). She has reached out to others (unless they are proud Americans. Then they’re ignorant). She makes people feel better (unless they are greedy capitalists. Then they should become teachers)
She is introduced by her brother, who happens to be the basketball coach of Oregon State (Go beavers?). There is a series of odd basketball analogies. I’m a sports fan, and even I think this is bs. He tries to deliver this line on Michelle and Barack helping the American people and it comes across flat. He doesn’t even believe his own crap!
Here’s Michelle! She is wearing a kelly green dress-like thing. There is some sort of broach (brooch? breach? I’m not sure what its called) at the neckline.
How many times she has said “change: 1
9:39 CST - she plays the humanizing card with jokes and sentimentality about her family
9:43 CST - give dignity to strangers (the same bitter American strangers or the friendly, self-righteous Princeton undergrads who hate black people?)
9:44 CST - America should be a place where you can make it if you try (unless you support an expansion of unemployment programs and government entitlement programs, then you don’t have to try)
9:45 CST - “We settle for the world as it is, not as it should be” (life lessons from Ray Nagin!)
9:46 CST - Obama channels woman’s suffrage and MLK…in case we couldn’t tell she was a black woman (my “progressive” friend smirks as he reminds me that Switzerland did not have woman’s suffrage until 1979).
9:47 CST - Michelle Obama supports Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. The Clinton reference gets a huge ovation (the contrast between Michelle and Hillary is too clear to be overcome, sorry speech writers)
9:49 CST - “I love this country” - THIS BRINGS A STANDING OVATION FROM THE CROWD. In case you haven’t figured it out yet: the Democrats are definitely in trouble when there is surprise and excitement to hear that a potential first lady loves her country.
9:51 CST - “Give each child a world-class education”…by throwing money at the problem? by supporting the federal government’s incursion into education? The same federal incursion that Democrats condemn in their staunch opposition to NCLB? Hypocrisy: it’s in the air.
9:54 CST - She’s almost crying talking about how Barack wanted to give his daughter a father’s love. (soooo we ARE allowed to talk about how Barack had an absentee Kenyan father who had scores of children through multiple women. Including one child who currently starves to death Kenya, only meeting his famous half-brother twice in 30 years?)
9:55 CST - “A girl from teh South Side can..” do whatever she wants. (Was that the WHITE values of success and high-paying jobs in law firms? I can’t keep her racist tendencies straight)
9:57 CST - Barack shows up via live feed from Kansas City. He shows some comedic chops with the reference to his courting of Michelle and his “persistence’.
My thoughts: I think Michelle gave a good speech and played up the Trophy Wife that Americans expect from a First Lady. She gave a nice look at Barack Obama as a person, but Barack still has serious (and legitimate) obstacles to be seen as anything other than elitist socialist. David Brooks had great analysis saying that Michelle missed the opportunity to make Barack a person, not just a savior.
I hope to be live blogging each night of the DNC and provide a post each morning on a DNC-related topic. So log on here each night this week for all sorts of shenanigans.
The rhetoric will get more ridiculous, but I’ll be sure to stay Pragmatically Political
While we were hyped up about Michael Phelps’ chase of athletic immortality, McCain and Obama had interviews with Evangelical Superminister Rick Warren. Warren interviewed Obama for an hour while McCain was held in a green room. He then interviewed McCain with the exact same questions. (More on the media bias and Meet the Press’ Andrea Mitchell’s uncritical report of a lie perpetrated by the Obama campaign forthcoming.)
This style of debate completely levels the playing field, as no candidate has the benefit of suiting his answer based on his opponent’s particular response. At the same time, it does dilute some of the quality, since candidates can’t respond to each other and show the actual clash of opinions and policies.
In any event, by all accounts outside of Obama’s camp, McCain won. And he should have. Even though Barack Obama is seen as the gold standard of political rhetoric (apparently his 2004 speech was enough to ordain him as president), he has struggled in impromptu environments. McCain isn’t the most inspiring orator, but he benefitted from not sharing a stage with Obama, which would have made the oratorical, and aesthetic, contrast much clearer. McCain was playing with a home-field advantage. Evangelicals are one of the largest, most committed demographics to the GOP. McCain’s conservatism, espeically on abortion, made him the fan favorite.
In order to win this election, McCain has to do two things: mitigate Obama’s popular support among starstruck political neophytes and emphasize his values.
1. The incredible effectiveness of the celebrity ad is paying dividends for McCain. Hillary used “elitist” as the buzzword, but McCain couldn’t get it to stick. He went for elitism’s hotter, younger sister “celebrity”. I have a hunch that most Americans were a bit confused about Obama’s trip to Europe and the Middle East. They couldn’t put a finger on why, but they were a bit uncomfortable. McCain filled in the blanks and labeled him as a self-involved, celebrity who doesn’t understand what it means to be president. “Country first” may seem a bit hokey as a campaign slogan, but it fits McCain. 20 year olds who are voting for the first time in a presidential election aren’t going to be wooed by patriotism (except for yours truly). McCain knows that it doesn’t matter. The more hysterical and extremist McCain can paint Obama and his groupies, the better off he’ll be.
2. Obama’s biography is largely confusing. He is bi-racial, born in Hawaii to a bigamist father. He then mysteriously spends a few years in an Islamic school in Indonesia. And then he’s Ivy-league educated Chicago community organizer. There isn’t a narrative there. I’m sorry, Democrats. The tale of a mysterious, elitist globe trotter isn’t that appealing.
John McCain’s narrative is much better. He is a true war hero, enduring years of torture. He has spent decades in the Senate, working tirelessly as he sought to build coalitions of like-minded politicians, regardless of party affiliation. In 2000, he was ruthlessly smeared by the Bush campaign and did not sink to Bush’s (read: Rove’s) level. He adopted a child from Bangladesh in 1993 and housed foreign children in need of medical care.
McCain was fantastic this weekend, in showing off of his values. While it wins over the religious right, touting pro-life credentials will tick off half the country. However, his response to two questions in particular were deeply moving and introspective. First, he explained that his greatest moral failing (go to the 3 minute mark of this video clip) was the failure of his first marriage. McCain took the issue of divorce and his presumed infidelity head on. I applaud him for bringing it up and not trying to hide from it. Second, he addressed his most agonizing moral decision (9 minutes, 25 seconds) was when he accepted continued torture in the face of an offer to be set free. As the son of a high-ranking officer, McCain did not foresake his fellow POWs.
In comparison, Obama seemed young and inexperienced. Somehow drug use and “selfishness” pale in comparison to divorce in terms of moral failings. Worse, Obama’s claim that the decision to not go to war (1 minute 50 second mark) was an agonizing decision is odd because he didn’t make a decision! Obama wasn’t in the US Senate and had no sway over American foreign policy in late 2002! What decision did he have to make? He never voted on authorizing war! Even if we pretend (as Obamaniac Tim Kaine is apt to do) that Obama’s force of personality can will things to happen or not happen, voting for war seems a bit meek compared to enduring additional years of torture as a POW. Nearly every American president has made a tough choice on whether to engage in a particular conflict. Few have shown the intestinal fortitude necessary to endure torture and contrition over a failed marriage. That is the difference in this race. One candidate talks about morality and war, the other has experiences them.
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