Look, I was never a Clinton (for president this year) supporter. And I came to hate the way she and Bill muddied up the water in the primary. I felt they wouldn’t acknowledge where the mood was and that the mood called for Barack Obama. But I have to say, it works.
It really works, it is exactly what we (the anxious transition watchers) were looking for. I’ve come across few people in Washington who have been feeling absolutely one candidate fits the bill. John Kerry, very accomplished, endorsed Obama at a crucial time. Bill Richardson, also very accomplished, endorsed Obama at another helpful moment, and is rumored to have a lot of ugly skeletons in his closet. Chuck Hagel, fun to interview for the press, very accomplished, principled, tough and would cross from the right and meet Obama in the middle, usefully. But it still just doesn’t fit perfectly.
Clinton brings bravado, finally in a very good way, starpower (it can intimidate, and awe), a symbolic political healing, especially with white women, and the satisfaction of the so-called Pumas, those stubborn women who felt violated and would not yield to the party’s choice. And she also brings an incisive studiousness, a seriousness and capacity (so they say) to absorb and learn incredibly quickly. And she’s poised, ready (youbetcha!) on day one, and it bears repeating, tough. She’d be a great Secretary of State.
And as I just heard Pat Buchanan envisage, with the challenges on the table in 2009, nobel peace prize could be in her grasp if she shows the extraordinary leadership she might possess. It’s just what she would look for if she were open to the opportunity and able to accept the loss (I think she has, if not Bill as much). She’d also be a good liaison for President Obama to John McCain if he plays a central role in our policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, and elsewhere. The only drawback I see is that for a Clinton to be Obama’s envoy to the world, does that suggest a Clinton years redux in foreign policy.
Wait, there is one drawback, for it’s for Clinton herself. Taking the job would take her out of political rotation for a while, as Andrea Mitchell put it on Hardball tonight, she wouldn’t be out campaigning for people, collecting chits and so on. And, Chris Matthews rightly noted
She’d be an asset. And I think they both know it. This announcement will be something to see, people. Maybe they’ll cut to Bill wiping a tear from his eye.
The Kremlin has, not shockingly, turned down the recent U.S. offer to “mitigate some of the Russian concerns” restarting an arms race – with a missile shield in Russia’s backyard – by allowing Russia to allow representatives tour the launch sites.
“Russia is ready to cooperate with the United States on European security but considers the proposals that were sent are insufficient,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted an unidentified Kremlin source as saying.
“We will not give our agreement to these proposals and we will speak to the new administration,” said the source, who was quoted by Russia’s three main news agencies, an indication the remarks reflect official policy.
Thing is, the chances of actually deterring a missile, launched from who knows what corner of the earth, are so miniscile as to make spending billions of dollars on a missile defense shield in Europe. I can’t honestly figure what makes Republicans presidents (Reagan, Bush 43) tilt after missile defense shields, other than that billion dollar technology can be cool, if not effective.
But President Obama is going to find himself in the uncomfortable position of slashing and burning the federal budget to make it through the spending, deficit and taxes gauntlet next year. And no single line item offers as much give for the take as missile defense (or, Star Wars, if you’re feeling nostalgic for the 1980’s). President-elect Obama must be asking himself, do we really need it?
Getting the U.S. to scrap or even just freeze the Bush plan for a European missile shield (again, is there evidence that it really will protect anyone?) is about as big a priority for Russia as deterring Iran’s nuclear ambitions is to the U.S. It has become the Kremlin’s #1 international priority. In fact, you have to wonder how much more cooperation we could get out of Russia on the world’s most pressing crises – starting with Iran – and is it worth slashing a program that is years away from ready anyway? Could keeping a U.S. military presence out of Poland and the Czech Republic be so vital an interest that Russia would consider backing off of Georgia and Ukraine, for good, in exchange?
Whatever Putin’s intentions may be these days, I’m guessing that he doesn’t want to or can’t commit the resources it would take to catch up to the U.S. missile shield plan. Maybe we could just outspend the Russians (or maybe they could play dirty, like with stateless terrorists). It’s like the earth fell down a rabbit hole and we are reliving a Cold War and an arms race with Russia, twenty years after the end of the Cold War, on totally new ground.
I’m sick of reading and talking about the media’s supposed bias toward Obama, and so let me address the topic in hopes I can exorcise it (next exorcism: Sarah Palin).
The Washington Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, studied the Post’s coverage of the election and concluded that there was an “Obama tilt” to its coverage.
But why would we not expect Obama, who only clinched the Democratic nomination four months after McCain emerged the victor among Republican candidates, to rack up more coverage during that period? Then, once Obama became the nominee, and particularly from mid-September onward, Obama led McCain in most and then all polls.
Greg Mitchell reminds us that more than 1,200 Post stories simply covered the horse race; around 500 covered issues. Readers can criticize the media for this imbalance. But that, and not playing favorites, likely explains a perceived Obama tilt. By virtue of being ahead in the horse race, Obama was more than twice as likely to net positive coverage. Mitchell concludes:
So we will be reading for years about the strong media “bias” against McCain — look at all those “unfavorable” stories about him — when it was mainly (although perhaps not completely) a matter of Obama leading the horse race and getting credit for that by reporters who were, surprise, not deaf, dumb and blind. Does anyone doubt that if McCain had roared to the lead in October and stayed ahead until the end that the results of the studies would have been completely different?
Yes, the press is biased — in favor of recognizing who is winning and stating that (perhaps too often).
Also: Can the media be faulted if one candidate is committing the major share of gaffes or (in this age of fact-check sites) making the most inaccurate statements in speeches and in ads? Is it “bias” to recognize that? Or to vet a candidate for vice president who (we now know) had not been vetted by anyone else?
If you want to talk about lopsided coverage, how about the endless loop of Reverend Jeremiah Wright played for three months this past spring? Who did that nonstop tape favor? Certainly not Mr. Obama. And does anyone believe nonstop coverage of former Weatherman Bill Ayers for the final 2-3 weeks of the general camapign really boost Mr. Obama?
What is so ironic is that McCain himself was long the media darling, and that he only ceased to be once his media availability became more a liability to his campaign than an asset. And there’s no one to blame for that except the candidate, and the campaign.
What’s fair to say, though, is that Obama the candidate was indeed a refreshing change from the waning days of the Bush administration, and a weakened, defensive Republican party. President-elect Obama, and the enthusiasm his candidacy generated, proved exciting to cover. Republicans, listen up: all you really have to do to get the press spotlight back is to make news.
I’ve had a hard time figuring out what to write about the election of Barack Obama last night; it’s just such a stunning leap for America, after the hyper divisiveness of the last 8-16 years. All along I, even as a white American, feared that the politics of race and culture, which were arguably stoked by the McCain campaign in the final month or so of the election, would carry the day.
And then there was the post traumatic stress disorder of the 2000’s – hanging chads and recount battles in Florida. Many, many Democrats believe that election was stolen, not merely by an electoral system that favored geographic diversity, but by the one government body that was meant to be unpolitical- the Supreme Court. And then came voting irregularities Ohio in 2004, calls for Kerry to contest the state. Could the voting machines be trusted anymore? Was this really the greatest democracy on Earth?
So when first Pennsylvania, then Ohio, then Florida and even Virginia were called for Senator Obama without incident or significant delay, and in fact, with comfortable margins, it just didn’t seem real. But not quite believing it didn’t stop Democrats from reveling into the wee hours around this country last night. But it wasn’t just about Democrats; it was really about the man we had elected and what it meant for the country at this time in history. Over at fivethirtyeight.com, I found a great description of the mood here in Washington, D.C.:
America’s only remaining buttoned-downed town, horns were honking in a ticker-tape stream until three in the morning, and strangers black, white and otherwise were hooting and hollering and giving one another thumbs-ups and high-fives as they passed each other on the street.
There was no sense of anger, or rivalry, no sense that the enemy had been vanquished. There was, rather, a tremendous sense of empowerment in the notion that someone more like them was going to take up residence down the street: someone younger, someone blacker, someone poorer, someone who knew that the majesty of America exists not just in the tranquility of its small towns but also in the bustle of its cities.
It was an historic and emotional night for America. There’s no way to know exactly what kind of president Mr. Obama will turn out to be. But his election tells a lot about the electorate who just sent the first black man in the history of our country to the White House. We may not all agree on the politics, but maybe, just maybe, we are not quite as divided as we feared.
If ever an election could give Democrats and Republicans alike a stomach ulcer, this would be it.
This election night, we could all be up waiting, pretty late, for the final call on this race. Why? For starters, California’s 55 electoral votes can’t be counted (or called by networks) until after their polls close- three hours after the east coast polls have closed, and, unless Obama sweeps the east coast, including Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio, he needs California to officially lock it in). And since it isn’t terribly likely that Obama can pull off such a complete sweep, then you have three mountain west battleground states, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, that could all play a down-to-the-wire role for either candidate.
So, for those of you who are frustrated that by 10:00 or 11:00 pm or so, none of the networks have called the race and neither of the two major party candidates has conceded the race, but you really, really want to a) go to bed election night knowing who the next president will be, or, b) go out on the town to revel in your candidate’s impending and assured success, I think I’ve got your answer:
OBAMA WINS: If Pennsylvania and Virginia go for Barack Obama (and the pollsters aren’t wrong on New Hampshire this time), this thing is over, baby. Over. Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico can all go to McCain at whatever hour of the night or morning it takes- won’t matter. Obama still comes out ahead. So, your revelry or bedtime could depend on how close the vote in Pennsylvania and Virginia are, and how long it takes to count them (if it isn’t very close, network statisticians will call the state’s race, and, of course, we’re less likely to see a Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004 mess). Does this seem too simple, too easy, to believe? You can check my math here.
McCAIN WINS: Because McCain is down in so many of the battleground state polls, in many cases by more than the margin of error, it would be very hard to definitively call the race for him early. Because if he wins Pennsylvania and Virginia, that merely shows he surprised in those states, and he will have to surprise in other states to win this thing. Yet, such shockers could indicate a larger trend for McCain, and would give his supporters reason to stay up late to watch to the end.
I’ll make this prediction, for whatever it’s worth: You can call this thing for Barack Obama before midnight election night.
No matter who you are supporting in this election, please, GO OUT AND VOTE.
I live in Washington, DC, so when I see a political ad, I can only assume it is intended to reach crucial swing voters in Virginia. For the first time today, I saw a two minute spot for Barack Obama entitled “Defining Moment.”
The ad is an excellent closer for Obama. Rather than ask the question, are you better off than you were four years ago (Obama, who speaks directly to the camera, says we know the answer to that question), we should ask ourselves will we be better off four years from now. It is an excellent, excellent question. It speaks to people who either don’t want to blame anyone, or have come to terms with the failures of the Bush administration, and are looking toward the future. And when you ask yourself that question, will we be better off, you imagine four years whizzing by of either McCain or Obama in charge.
I’d be willing to bet that a lot of folks’ gut reaction is that they don’t envision things being better with McCain. He is, afterall, closely tied to President Bush, even if he has managed to separate himself a bit more in the last few weeks.
But because Obama is a new face, and his whole campaign turns on the notion that we should recapture hope for this country, viewers might allow themselves to imagine that this new guy could really pull it off. They don’t know enough about him to be convinced he can’t.
Obama also addresses some of the major criticisms he must deflect to win over undecided voters in states like Ohio, Virginia, Nevada (which has the highest home foreclosure rate in the country) and Pennsylvania, where the McCain campaign’s hammering Obama as a tax-and-spender seems to have tightened that race. Obama explains how he will deal with the current financial crisis, promises tax cuts to families making less than $200,000, talks about energy independence and education, and describes how he will pay for his plans.
It is a solid, meaty closing argument, and it ends on a positive note, something which John McCain doesn’t have the luxury of as he tries to catch up to Obama by Tuesday.
I never thought I would see a Fox News anchor go Campbell Brown on a McCainiac. But that is exactly what Shep Smith did to Joe the Iconic Plumber. Take a look for yourself, and see if you can figure out what happened:
I’m guessing that it was this statement from the now famous plumber that most galled Shep: “I’m just going to push it back on your listeners to figure out why I would agree to something like that.” Um, excuse me, did he just get away with that?
In a bizarre twist to the last lap in this presidential election, John McCain has elevated Joe the Plumber to – basically – running mate status. Joe’s out on the stump gladhanding and taking more press questions than Sarah Palin has in the whole general election. The media obediently reports everything this guy says now. But the beauty – or the horror, to a journalist – is that Joe is accountable to no one for what he says on camera (except maybe to his kids, who aren’t old enough to be embarrassed). It’s like he’s Tucker Bounds, except he gets away with it.
It’s all a little surreal. Joe’s now got a publicist (who will keep him from saying such stupid things in the future), and there’s talk of a country music album now. Joe the plumber would be the most famous swing voter in history . . . if he were in fact a swing voter. But, he’s not, and he never was. He made that perfectly clear, even before “endorsing” McCain last week. And now he’s basically become the campaign’s mascot; a formulaic symbol, replicable into Phil the Bricklayer, Rose the Teacher or Tito the Builder (who’s stumpin’ with Sarah the Hunter Palin in Virginia now).
I suppose it was inevitable that someone was gonna knock this guy off the pedestal John McCain has set him on; I just never thought it would happen on the Fox News Network. Well played, Shep. Finally fair and balanced.
Are you a Democrat experiencing night sweats? Then you’ve probably seen the report out of Nevada that some groups – young voters and new/lapsed voters – likely to support Obama haven’t yet overwhelmed the early voter rolls this month.
Those are scary revelations, but is there really reason to be worried? Here’s why I don’t think any of these statistics tell us anything useful:
1) New voters are inexperienced, and are also likely somewhat hesitant, at least when it comes to showing up to vote. That means that they may not realize that they can vote early- and will have an easier time just running with the herd on November 4th.
2) Early voting is generally for the enthusiastic voter (that, and the early bird voter who hopes to minimize their wait in line . . . there have already been 2-5 hour waits in Florida).
3) Young voters are famous for not bothering to vote because, well, they are just a tiny bit lazier than the rest of us (they also tend to not be moved by the candidates). They procrastinate. They write their term papers the night before it’s due. So is anyone really all that shocked that they aren’t first in line to vote early?
This is not to say that Democrats don’t still have reason to worry over turnout. New and lapsed voters have old habits to break and new ones to learn. They are easier to sidetrack, confuse and intimidate. Getting them all to the polls will demand continued attention from the Obama campaign and its volunteers until the polls close on November 4th.
Frankly, the most important thing about early voting numbers this time around is that we want to continue seeing record-breaking turnout. The more folks who vote now, the less mischief and waiting the rest of us will encounter when we get to the polls next Tuesday.
During my two week absence from this blog, I’ve been able to do a slight bit of poking around on the internet. The sense I got from what I have been reading about the US presidential election is that there are those who feel pretty confident of an Obama win, and those who are still on the fence, believing that one can not fully trust the polling data. I find myself jumping back and forth between the two categories.
In the Washington Post, Michael Abramowitz addresses this question: are the polls really accurate? And considering that the national polls right now swing between a 2-point margin and a 15 point margin for Obama. How can that possibly be? And how do we know which polls are closest to reality?
The latest ABC-Washington Post poll might be one. This poll, which gives Obama the edge at 52-45, does not increase African American or under-30 voter turn out over the 2004 level, even though we have reason to believe that both groups are unusually motivated to get out and vote this year. We also have reason to believe that Republican leaning voters are less likely to turnout, due both to lack of interest in the ticket and also perhaps due to a sense that the election is already over.
(The sense that the race is over could also cause some Obama leaners to stay home, which might explain why Obama has been barnstorming pretty safe territory like the state of Pennsylvania and the NBC/MSNBC network, where he will sit for several interviews this week.)
The ABC-Wash Post poll does include a random sample of cell phone-only voters, which gives it a leg up on other polls that do not. And, of course, this poll falls basically in the middle of the latest poll findings. And, while the polls’ margins may be all over the map, the fact is that in more than 50 national polls taken over the last six weeks, Barack Obama has been up in all but one of them (in the first of the six weeks I examined). Shouldn’t such a long and consistent run mean this election is over?
Maybe. But, as Abramowitz notes, the New Hampshire primary really traumatized the Obama campaign and its pollsters. Obama was clearly polling ahead in that state and Hillary Clinton defeated him easily. It is hard to say what really happened. A whole new set of principles and schools of thought on polling will be minted after this year’s election is finally over. Until then, the Obama campaign is probably going to be preoccupied trying to handicap the race very conservatively.
For starters, they have to be worried about the voters who have yet to swing to Obama. If you haven’t gone over to Obama despite the Republican brand being so in the toilet, and John McCain having stumbled and bumbled for nearly eight straight weeks, then I am guessing you must really have a healthy (as in ‘a lot of’) amount of skepticism about the Democratic alternative. The campaign should brace itself for 70% or more of undecideds in these polls to either swing to McCain or stay home. Plus, there are a lot of slightly committed voters out there who are still vacillating, despite having told pollsters and friends that they think they’re going to vote for candidate X.
Of course, ask yourself how much the national polls count anyway, since the race will be won in states like Virginia, Iowa, Michigan and New Mexico.
I agree with Simon Rosenberg at the Huffington Post, who counsels election watchers not to mistake a tightening race this week for a McCain comeback.
My sense now is that McCain is likely to gain 4-5 points in this these final few weeks and return to a respectable level for a credible GOP candidate. Part of what may drive this movement in the next few weeks is McCain bouncing back up from his current below-the-floor position. I mean 43 percent for a major GOP candidate in a two-way race? No way we are going to end up there.
McCain’s gains these coming weeks will be because he had been so dramatically underperforming since his successful convention. His erratic performance in the debates, his very public confusion during that first week of the financial crisis, the cratering of Sarah Palin, have all combined to leave him several points below where he should be at this point. In these next few weeks he will in all likelihood regain ground he should have been occupying all along but lost due to his disappointing campaign. So in many ways, McCain’s likely uptick is more a sign of his current weakness than any newfound strength.
Getting back up to 46, 47, 48 is not the same as winning. My guess is there will be a lot of confusion about this in the chattering classes in the next few weeks.
Remember to factor in a couple of points for Bob Barr and perennial candidate Ralph Nader, and keep in mind that George Bush won in 2004 with just 49 percent of the popular vote. So long as Obama’s national poll numbers hover around and above the 50% mark, he’s in a good position.
Then take into account possible factors like the cell phone vote (who are not really accounted for in most polls) and of course the fabled Bradley effect. Some analysts have also referred to a possible reverse Bradley effect, suggesting that some people who live in communities less likely to vote for a black man may not feel comfortable expressing support for Obama in a phone interview, but might actually vote for Obama once inside the booth. This hypothesis originates in a study done on the 2008 Democratic primary results found that Obama outperformed poll spreads by an average of 7%.
The researchers attributed the inaccuracy of the polls to social influences. For instance, Greenwald said many women told pollsters they were voting for Hillary Clinton but ultimately cast their ballots for Obama.
“I don’t think they’re lying to pollsters,” Greenwald said, explaining that pollsters are contacting people who are undecided and may feel pressure to say they’re voting for the candidate who most closely identifies with them socially.
Greenwald said he expects to see the reverse effect in the general election, but mostly among older voters who say they’re supporting John McCain. He expects many will pull the lever for Obama based, on multiple reasons, including the financial crisis. This trend could determine the outcome of the election, Greenwald said, if Obama’s lead shrinks in some state polls.
Races always tighten toward the end. We are nearing the final sprint in the race, and as Rosenburg points out, McCain’s poll numbers over the last month reflect how badly he and Palin damaged their numbers. Absent further missteps, McCain could get back into the mid to upper 40’s. But he will have to watch out for the “Why bother?” effect on his side: if he looks sure to lose in the final days, some McCain leaning voters may just stay home.
At the same time, Obama needs to make sure his supporters don’t get complacent, and he has warned as much. Obama’s numbers will also be affected by whether his campaign has been able to get out the early vote, when voters were comforted by his calm demeanor through the financial crisis and McCain was cratering. This year is an important test, as well, of whether the Democrats can get their new and less-likely-to-show-up voters to the polls. For all their disadvantages this year, the Republican party is typically quite effective at turning out its vote through churches and neighbor-to-neighbor contacts.
Obviously, the election doesn’t come down to the national popular vote tallies. In my opinion, Obama’s clearest path to the White House runs through Virginia. If he can hold this state, it is nearly impossible for McCain to win (Obama stands at 286 electoral votes with the Virginia, New Mexico, Iowa and New Hampshire battlegrounds in his column). The Obama campaign’s effort to court a host of red and newly purple state voters – North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada – is smart because it forces McCain and Palin to spend precious time in these states. Plus, if these states do actually swing to Obama, then he’ll walk into the White House with not just a Democratic Congress but with a mandate.
This excellent editorial from the Chicago Tribune, endorsing a Democrat for the first time in the newspaper’s history, Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race, is worth a read. The Tribine has known Senator Obama for more than a dozen years. They have watched him and come to know him. It is all the more credible and sound an endorsement:
On Dec. 6, 2006, this page encouraged Obama to join the presidential campaign. We wrote that he would celebrate our common values instead of exaggerate our differences. We said he would raise the tone of the campaign. We said his intellectual depth would sharpen the policy debate. In the ensuing 22 months he has done just that.
Many Americans say they’re uneasy about Obama. He’s pretty new to them.
We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.
We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.
. . . We know first-hand that Obama seeks out and listens carefully and respectfully to people who disagree with him. He builds consensus. He was most effective in the Illinois legislature when he worked with Republicans on welfare, ethics and criminal justice reform.
The Trib has admired John McCain in the past, but like some others, finds the man much changed, for worse, since his last run for president. It will certainly be worth reading what John McCain’s home state newspaper, The Arizona Sun, will have to say about his hand at the tiller.
When the subject of hate speech at McCain and Palin rallies over the last few weeks came up in the final presidential debate, McCain had this to say:
Let me just say categorically I’m proud of the people that come to our rallies.
But to somehow say that group of young women who said “Military wives for McCain” are somehow saying anything derogatory about you, but anything — and those veterans that wear those hats that say “World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq,” I’m not going to stand for people saying that the people that come to my rallies are anything but the most dedicated, patriotic men and women that are in this nation and they’re great citizens.
McCain has shrugged off some of the worst hate peddlers as “fringe” people. Now, you’d certainly think that by far most people at these rallies are there because they are proud of their nominees. And yet, if you were to watch a video such as this one below, you don’t hear anyone yelling out things like “Military wives for McCain!” or “Proud of Palin!”
This video gives you the impression that the phantom fringe is all there is (which I know cannot be true; of course there are dignified, thoughtful people who support McCain). Why are these people more audible, why does their energy seem to dominate the mood? Perhaps the media is just feeding off of and amplifying them? But this video captured the vitroil without any filter at all.
Many Americans found themselves repelled by the ignorant, divisive and rascist tilt of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons. It strikes me as only logical that people should be just as disgusted with the ignorant, rascist venom countless “fringe” people have expressed at McCain Palin rallies. In fact, the rallies seem to be the place to go and vent their hate.
I’m proud to be an American. But I am ashamed of Americans who would embrace this hate. If McCain can’t bring himself to say, “I categorically do not want the support of anyone supporting violence against my opponent,” he has no business running for president. Luckily, that is something on which more than fifty percent of Americans can agree.
I don’t think there is much doubt that Senator Obama came off a little flat tonight. And John McCain came out fighting, canned attack lines at the ready, and passionate certainty on display.
Obama was professorial tonight. Too many “ums” and “uhs”. But he didn’t make any serious mistakes that change this race. At most, he might have lost a couple points of support in the polls, among people who will likely continue to bounce back and forth for the next two weeks anyway.
McCain was more forceful, armed with more detailed information than he has been in the past debates in a broader array of issues that we’ve seen from him so far on domestic policy. He finally – and literally – distanced himself from President Bush, with a catchy, if overly smug/canned retort: “I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.” But McCain’s forceful, over-long attacks and interruptions also made him appear nasty and juvenile. He also has yet to rein in that horrible sneering smile that I bet gives many other viewers the same willies it gives me — particularly when he flashes it to denigrate women have to get an abortion because their “health” (McCain actually used air quotes for snide emphasis) is at risk.
So, all told, McCain might have gained at most a couple of points with his performance tonight; but I would guess it’s mostly with male fence sitters, not with women.
The most important line I think Senator Obama delivered – one of few memorable one-liners he delivered – was after he explained in plain English his connections to Bill Ayers. Obama then pivoted deftly to point out the vacuum that is McCain’s campaign, given that Ayers recently became the “centerpiece” of their campaign, and that this focus, to the exclusion of the real issues in this election year, says more about John McCain than it does his opponent. (I’d quote directly but don’t have the rush transcript yet)
All in all, I think that Barack Obama did enough, though didn’t dazzle as much as he could have. It’s worth noting though, that because McCain and the media have made this election about Obama, and whether people can truly imagine him ready for the presidency – a threshold Obama has seemingly leapt over in the last few weeks – all he needed was to hold steady. John McCain did the best he could have. It was his strongest showing by far, which doesn’t say much. But I don’t think it was enough.
Over the next few days, keep a close eye not on the national polling data, but on the polls in New Mexico, Colorado and Virginia. If New Mexico and Colorado hold, and no other currently blue states turn purple, Obama’s got a lock on it. Same is true if Obama can hold Virginia and New Mexico. This year, the election doesn’t have to be all about Florida and Ohio.
This week, I’m having a hard time motivating myself to blog about the election. It just seems like every story just keeps repeating itself. Obama’s still ahead, and by a little bit more every couple of days, in the national and battleground state polls. John McCain still needs to turn his campaign around on a must-win debate performance, only this time it really is his last chance. And, while McCain says “There have been statements made that I’ve had to repudiate by certain GOP operatives or apparatchiks,” in the heat of the campaign, the operatives and apparatchiks just keep throwing logs on the fire.
Nothing really surprises anymore. John McCain continues to say one thing, and then do another. Take his steadfast repudiation of all divisive and unfair personal attacks.
After a straight week of the smarmiest political rallies of this campaign season, when Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists,” and warm-up speakers referred to their opponent as “Barack Hussein Obama,” the venerable civil rights icon John Lewis (a longtime congressman from Georgia), had had enough.
“George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional rights,” Lewis said. “Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed one Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.”
McCain quickly fired back with his own statement, defending his audiences and calling upon Barack Obama to repudiate Lewis: “I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I’ve always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track.”
McCain was unwilling to let the issue go today, today calling Lewis’ comment,”the most outrageous and disgraceful thing that I’ve seen in American politics.” Really?
So, when the head of the Virginia Republican party advised campaign volunteers to connect Obama to Osama Bin Laden when they knocked on doors, McCain naturally repudiated his words in the strongest of terms, right? Wrong.
QUESTION: The chair of the Republican Party in Virginia has said, quote, in Time magazine, “both Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden have friends that have bombed the Pentagon. That is scary.” Is that appropriate for a state party chair to be saying?
MCCAIN: “I have to look at the context of his remarks. I have always repudiated any comments that have been made that were inappropriate about Senator Obama. The fact is that William Ayers was a terrorist and bomber and unrepentant. I don’t care about that. But Senator Obama ought be the candid and truthful about his relationship with Mr. Ayers in whose living room Senator Obama launched his campaign and Senator Obama said he was just a guy in the neighborhood.”
And then there is this backhanded non-repudiation:
“While Barack Obama is associated with domestic terrorist William Ayers, the McCain campaign disagrees with the comparison that Jeff Frederick made.”
Is this campaign over yet? Because watching John McCain stoop to the same new low is really getting old.
Just in case John McCain’s flashy, nutty, new bailout plan doesn’t catch fire (and it most certainly won’t, even among his staunchest supporters), McCain and all his surrogates are trying desperately to sow last minute doubts about Obama’s character in voters’ minds. This line of attack is all over the news, but to McCain supporters’ chagrin, it just doesn’t seem to be sticking to Obama.
The conservative columnist George Will, who now compares McCain – Palin to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, sums up why the attacks don’t stick:
But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts — telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans’ accounts have recently shed. In this context, the McCain-Palin campaign’s attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama’s Chicago associations seem surreal — or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, “like being savaged by a dead sheep.”
I just got my envelope in the mail today. I’ve lost 15% of my 401 (K) savings in this last quarter. I don’t give a crap who these two candidates know, used to know or ever wanted to know. I just want this economic meltdown to stop. I’m freaked out. I’m worried about the job market, the housing market, the (health) insurance market. And I can pretty much guarantee the candidates that all voters want to hear from them is a convincing grasp of the problem and its solutions.
My guess is that team McCain will continue their irrelevant line of character attacks through Sunday, when the media will have tired of reporting on the character fight and will turn instead to McCain’s last-chance-debate narrative. If, at that point, his poll numbers continue to slide or flag, he’ll abandon this too for some other shiny new tactic he hopes will save the sinking ship.
