Tag Archives: Obama

snakes and end times

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Bloodlines? I’m thinking this election may be all over but the shouting. Ben Smith posted this video today from a liberal Ohio blogger. As I watch it I’m thinking that the folks I see are not representative of Americans as a whole, as some believe, and that the current McCain/Palin strategy is pretty desperate.

Obama needs a mandate: In contrast to the views expresssed in the video, I’m remembering especially a young couple with whom my beloved and I stood in line last winter before an Obama rally here at the Edward Jones Dome. They had driven all whe way from Oklahoma with their two small children to attend. They are farmers, though one has a day job (guess which). As we talked it became clear that they are also quite knowledgable about issues and quite definite about why Obama is their candidate. Their chief concerns are schools and health care, though they seemed excited about Obama’s uniqueness and about the Obama movement, too.

These days, the McCain/Palin strategy, in real danger of being overwhelmed by Obama voters nationally, seems to me to be aimed at garnering enough votes at the margin to tip the balance in critical swing states. But I don’t think it’s going to work this time. For one thing, the election isn’t close enough. And the Republicans are betting that there’s more of a racist pushback against the idea of an Obama victory than I think there actually is. The real question now may be whether Obama can achieve the mandate he will need to accomplish very much in his first term.

For a contrary view and some good discussion of the Bradley effect, read here.

McCain deconstructed: Rolling Stone is carrying a serious examination of the McCain myth by columnist, Tim Dickinson. It’s called “Make-Believe Maverick.” Dickenson marshalls a wealth of fact and anecdote to deconstruct the familiar McCain story — what was on display at the RNC. “Few politicians have so actively, or successfully, crafted their own myth of greatness,” Dickinson writes.

In McCain’s version of his life, he is a prodigal son who, steeled by his brutal internment in Vietnam, learned to put “country first.” Remade by the Keating Five scandal that nearly wrecked his career, the story goes, McCain re-emerged as a “reformer” and a “maverick,” righteously eschewing anything that “might even tangentially be construed as a less than proper use of my office.”

It’s a myth McCain has cultivated throughout his decades in Washington. But during the course of this year’s campaign, the mask has slipped. “Let’s face it,” says Larry Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. “John McCain made his reputation on the fact that he doesn’t bend his principles for politics. That’s just not true.”

Read the whole piece here. And speaking of strange videos, how about this one from the Wasilla Assembly of God?

markets (but not all) and McCain gone sour

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Financial markets may be in the tank, and luxury cars may be an embarrassment to hucksters, but capitalism is alive and well in niche markets where small-time entrepreneurs find ways to take advantage of fads du jour. Ben Smith today notes the following examples of campaign chic:

Maybe Jewish voters are warming up to Sarah Palin. For a mere $295 more than a John Edwards haircut, an Orthodox wigmaker is offering the “Sarah P.”

Meanwhile, a Park Slope hair salon is doing an “Updos for Obama” fundraiser.

But some sort of prize has to go to this one, for which I am grateful to my friend Dale Cannon. Dale sent me a video that I can’t now get to, but here’s another.

There are three versions of the Palin doll. Read all about them here. Too bad if you need one fast. Apparently they’re sold out.

Meanwhile, as Palin rallies continue to have all the charm of lynchings, McCain advisers are worried about their guy’s demeanor. All the negative campaigning is getting to him, some believe. He’s grumpy, seems angry all the time. Others are pooh-poohing the idea and urging that McCain reinvent himself as Ronald Reagan — ah that magical name — advising that the negative campaigning be left to Palin and the ad blitzes. One could almost feel sorry for McCain. Having run an increasingly filthy and dishonest campaign, he has put his reputation and his legacy as a public servant in jeopardy.

have we hit bottom yet?

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It’s a reasonable question, what with Sheriff Mike Scott of Lee County, Florida stroking the mob with this gem: “On Nov. 4, let’s leave Barack Hussein Obama wondering what happend! (sic)” The divine Sarah, when she arrived at this rally, would stroke the mob still further by evoking the ghosts of Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, claiming Obama’s associations with these men to be proof positive that her “opponent” is not a real American.

Of course. this tactic is designed to play into the racist hate campaign that has been waged against Obama on the Internet since the beginning of his rise to prominence, and there are apparently some voters who might still be persuaded. At least since the Nixon years, a substantial part of the Republican equation has required persuading some Americans to vote against their own economic and political interest. So, nobody should be surprised.

But I always am — surprised, that is. I wish that the Obama campaign had not felt it necessary to bring up the Keating Five. But I suppose that retaliation, or some other evocation of McCain’s complicated past, was required. What’s more interesting than that, though, is the way McCain seems to be trying to reinvent himself, sort of any which way he can. Here are some of Ben Smith’s thoughts about that.

I’d always thought McCain’s great strength in defending the Keating affair was that he’d acknolwedged making a huge mistake, and spent his career repenting by recasting himself as a reformer.

So when his campaign puts his lawyer on the line with reporters to contest the details of a congressional inquiry that, largely, let McCain off the hook, doesn’t that cloud the sin-confession-atonement dynamic a bit?

In Halperin’s account, McCain lawyer John Dowd described McCain’s “former relationship with Charles Keating as ‘social friends,'” and called the situation a “classic political smear job on John.”

Dowd also “thinks that the committee went too far in suggesting that McCain�s intervention with regulators was poor judgment,” Halperin writes.

But if so, what’s this giant mistake that transformed McCain into a reformer?

bailout fails

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All the news services have carried the story. The bipartisan bailout of the nation’s largest financial institutions has failed in the House of Representatives by 13 votes. According to CNN:

The measure need[ed] 218 votes for passage, but it came up 13 votes short of that target, as the final vote was 228 to 205 against. About 60% of Democrats voted for the measure, but less than a third of Republicans backed it.

John Carney, at ClusterStock, followed the vote as it developed and the stock market plummeted. House leaders held the question open for a short time hoping to persuade some members to change their votes.

Republicans supplied less votes than Democrats had expected, convincing Democrats to vote against the bailout bill so as not to put their seats at risk. Both parties [tried to negotiate] vote trading, with the Democrats arguing the Republicans should get at least 9 more of their members to vote “Yea,” bringing the Republican favorable votes up to signficiantly. At issue, many on the Hill believe, how many seats each party should put at risk by voting for this deeply unpopular bailout.

In the end, however, it was all for naught. During the voting, the DOW fell 700 points, finally closing down 777.68. Huffington Post calls the vote “an extraordinary gamble on the future of the global economy.”

According to the Associated Press, Barack Obama has called on the House to “get it done,” arguing that the country needs to avert crisis in the short term: “Democrats and Republicans in Washington have the responsibility to . . . make sure that the emergency rescue package is put forward that can at least stop the immediate problem we have.” Meanwhile, Republicans, who defeated the bailout, are blaming Nancy Pelosi.

I love it. Republicans with their feelings hurt! Though in fairness many Republicans apparently voted against the bailout because it violates their free market ideology, and I’m reading a deal of comments from like-minded folks, saying in effect: “Let the banks fail.” I’m guessing that Americans who are steadfastly opposed to the bailout think the crisis is being overblown in Washington. Apparently, President Bush has called a high level meeting to discuss what to do next, and John McCain is blaming Obama, having taken personal credit for the bailout bill before the vote failed.