October 10th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The tone of the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has begun to trouble some moderate Republicans and some other Republicans. Note this piece from the Grand Rapids Press:
He endorsed John McCain in the presidential primary, but now former Republican Gov. William Milliken is expressing doubts about his party’s nominee.
“He is not the McCain I endorsed,” said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. “He keeps saying, ‘Who is Barack Obama?’ I would ask the question, ‘Who is John McCain?’ because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.
“I’m disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues.”
Milliken, a lifelong Republican, is among some past leaders from the party’s moderate wing voicing reservations and, in some cases, opposition to McCain’s candidacy.
Some conservative Republicans will dismiss his criticism as “well, he’s just a RINO!” which is part of the problem: the Republican Party under George W. Bush, as engineered by strategist Karl Rove, has marginalized moderate Republicans who have now become people almost without a party — dismissed as people who are “just” RINOs. McCain had retained the respect of many moderate Republicans up until this White House run because the pre-2008 version of McCain didn’t strictly adhere to the conservative base line.
Milliken is not alone:
During a stop in Grand Rapids on Thursday, Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican U.S. senator from Rhode Island, said he’s voting for Obama and urging others to do likewise.
McCain campaigned for Chafee’s unsuccessful re-election bid in 2006, but Chafee said he is concerned McCain has swung to the right, a divisive strategy that could make it difficult for him to govern.
“That’s not my kind of Republicanism,” said Chafee, who now calls himself an independent. “I saw what Bush and Cheney did. They came in with a (budget) surplus and a stable world, and look what’s happened now. In eight short years they’ve taken one peaceful and prosperous world, and they’ve torn it into tatters.”
As for McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his running mate, “there’s no question she’s totally unqualified,” Chafee said.
He had similar reservations about Obama’s lack of experience, but said the Democrat’s handling of the campaign convinced him he’s ready to lead.
Chafee said he has spoken with several other moderate Republican leaders, and “there are a whole lot of us deserting.”
October 10th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The political Quote of the Day comes from the Washington Post’s always-solid columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr., who makes the case that the 2008 Barack Obama versus John McCain election has echoes of the 1932 FDR versus Herbert Hoover election. A key quote:
Obama and McCain are giving us a clear sense of who they are and how they would lead. It would seem that Obama has been studying the 1932 campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The key to Roosevelt’s victory was not a big program but a jaunty sense of optimism in the midst of despair that led to his signature inaugural line — “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Less famously, Roosevelt declared in his acceptance speech that “this is no time for fear, for reaction or for timidity.”
In recent days, Obama has painted himself as calm, pragmatic, open and hopeful. He seemed to be channeling FDR when he told a crowd in Indianapolis on Wednesday: “This isn’t a time for fear or for panic. This is a time for resolve and steady leadership.”
As for McCain, his campaign is trying to sow fear and panic about Obama. That’s exactly what Herbert Hoover tried to do with Roosevelt. Days before the 1932 election, Hoover attacked Roosevelt’s “inchoate New Deal.” He predicted it would “crack the timbers of the Constitution” and warned voters to beware of the “glitter of promise.”
Hoover stopped short of declaring Roosevelt a celebrity. But Donald A. Ritchie reports in his excellent 2007 book, “Electing FDR,” that Hoover saw Roosevelt as “his weakest and most vulnerable” foe and “did not respect him as a political rival.” McCain conveys unmistakably that he feels the same way about “that one” running against him.
It’s too early to predict that the 2008 campaign will turn out like the one in 1932. But history suggests that in American elections, the candidate who underestimates his opponent often loses, and hope almost always beats fear.
It’s also notable what fear each candidate seems to be raising, intentionally or (giving them the benefit of the doubt) otherwise.
McCain and his supporters are raising fears about Obama’s trustworthiness, some charge about Obama’s race (via code words), his patriotism (associations), his trustworthiness (is he really a far leftist?), his competence, his seriousness, and his accomplishments. Obama is raising fears about McCain continuing more of the same (that he’ll be Bush Lite — or Bush on Steroids, depending on your view), some charge he’s indirectly raising the age issue. And Obama is raising fears about McCain’s stability (erratic).
On the latter point, Obama doesn’t have to raise it. In recent weeks a pundit and some people I met while traveling all asked the same question: Can you imagine what might have happened if McCain had been President during the 1960s Missile Crisis? They’ve concluded that McCain is hot-headed and impulsive.
Both camps are raising fears about perceptions out there and seek to accentuate them.
But Dionne is talking about an overall campaign narrative of hope. McCain’s campaign is now seemingly consumed with pressing the warnings about Obama. That sucks up air time, ink time and bandwidth that could be otherwise devoted to policy suggestions and statements assuring America that it’ll come out of the dark days ahead. Obama has hammered home the theme that Americans can come out of this although it might not be easy.
The larger question is this: what happens if a candidate who has spent the final four weeks of a campaign raising fears wins? What kind of power and mandate does he have if he gets into office? What happens if he gets into the White House but this message didn’t resonate beyond the Presidential race, so Congress is overwhelmingly controlled by the other party? What kind of clout will this President have as he tries to navigate the United States through two wars and the worst financial crisis in several generations?
And what if it turns out that the election isn’t a re-run of 1932 but of 1928, when Democratic Presidential candidate Gov. Al Smith lost, partially because voters weren’t ready for a Catholic as President? What happens if polls going into Election Day show Obama with a 5, 8, or even 10 point lead — which doesn’t materialize as a win on Election Day?
October 9th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
More bad news for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain — but will there be an attempt in the closing weeks of the campaign to make sure the worst doesn’t happen? Right now he’s in danger of losing the Hispanic vote by a landslide:
Despite championing immigration reform in 2007, John McCain is poised to lose the Hispanic vote by a landslide margin that is well below President George W. Bush’s 2004 performance.
Polls show Obama winning the broadest support from Latino voters of any Democrat in a decade, while McCain is struggling to reach 30 percent, closer to Senator Bob Dole’s dismal 1996 result than to Bush’s historic 40% four years ago.
McCain seems to have wound up with the worst of both worlds: He appears to be getting no credit from Latino voters for his past support for immigration reform, while carrying the baggage of other Republicans’ hostility to illegal immigration.
And he’s been unable or unwilling to attack Obama—who was once thought to have taken a lethally liberal stance by supporting granting drivers licenses to illegal immigrants—from the right.
As October puts four states with large Hispanic populations - Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico - at the center of the presidential contest, what appeared at first to be a possible strength for McCain has emerged as a profound weakness.
There still is another debate next week. Will McCain try and find a way to use this issue to his advantage and break the likely vote outcome? Or will it recede like so many other issues in the face of continued horrific news each day about Wall Street’s and world markets’ latest lows? Or is the issue too shaky a tightrope for him to dare try to walk so close to Election Day?
October 9th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
This isn’t just the kitchen sink: Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s campaign seems to be throwing in the bathtub, shower, all the backyard shrubs, and the house cat, too. And it doesn’t just come from some marginal surrogate but from McCain’s campaign co-chair:
Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a McCain campaign co-chairman, edged up to an explicitly racial attack on Barack Obama on Thursday, describing the Illinois Senator as a “guy of the street” before raising his youthful drug use.
Appearing on Dennis Miller’s radio show, Keating charged that the Democratic nominee was covering up his “very extreme” record, and urged Obama to be more honest with Americans. “He ought to admit,” Keating said, “‘You know, I’ve got to be honest with you. I was a guy of the street. I was way to the left. I used cocaine. I voted liberally, but I’m back at the center.’”
Keating began to address Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright — a topic that John McCain himself has said should be off-limits — but Miller interrupted him to return to the discussion of cocaine.
Keating’s comments are basically a way of making the charge in a way so he can claim he himself never really raise the issue in a way to make a charge. It provides plausible deniability (even though its intent is clear).
Two things: a) This will go down as one of the dirtiest campaigns in modern history and b) McCain will have problems if he wins with these kinds of tactics — and will have lost far more than just the election if he loses. It’s one thing if comments such as this came from Howard Schmidlap talking off the cuff in Rhode Island. It’s another if it’s a McCain campaign co-chair.
This election really is a classic battle between fear and hope. All Palin and McCain are offering right now is more fear: fear of a black man, fear of terrorism, fear of the other, fear of Iran, fear of the future, fear of Islam, fear of the truth. And above all: fear of defeat. On that last one, they’re rational. Which side are you on?
October 9th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
A new Gallup poll suggests that the “race” issue may be a double-edged sword for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama — one that could actually turn out to be a plus in terms of votes:
While 6% of voters say they are less likely to vote for Barack Obama because of his race, 9% say they are more likely to vote for him, making the impact of his race a neutral to slightly positive factor when all voters’ self-reported attitudes are taken into account.
The question that will be argued is whether voters “reported” attitudes can be trusted when it comes to answering pollsters’ questions…
At the same time, 6% of voters say John McCain’s race will make them less likely to vote for him, with 7% saying it makes them more likely to vote for him, leading to the same basic conclusion: McCain’s race, like Obama’s, is on balance neither a plus nor a minus.
These conclusions are based on eight dimensions potentially affecting the vote for both candidates.
At the end of the breakdown Gallup offers this:
The potential impact of Obama’s race on the election has been the more scrutinized this year. These data, taken at face value, show that if anything, his race could be a net plus, in the sense that it makes slightly more voters want to vote for him than not want to vote for him.
October 9th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Late yesterday there was much new and old media buzz about rumblings that the McCain campaign supposedly was planning to resume the high road, drop it’s emerging push on using the Ayers story and get back other substantive matters — such as talking about the economy plus other issues that polls indicate worried voters’ care about.
Yours truly got an email from a co-blogger and two emails from readers about a story in The Politico about the McCain campaign changing its strategy. Some of it is covered in this post here.
But as of today there are no signs that the McCain campaign plans to do that at all. In fact, it’s just the opposite.
This morning on the Today Show a McCain spokesperson started out by saying voters don’t care about the Ayers story and then launched into charges about the Ayers story, using as the argument — in effect a lawyeristic cover story — that until Obama answered the questions about the issue she said no one really cared about ….the issue that the McCain campaign is raising that no one cares about in ads, rallies and on TV….this issue that really doesn’t matter will be out there.
In fact, MSNBC’s First Read says this is part of an ongoing debate within the McCain campaign, according to Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Carrie Dann:
The McCain campaign seems to be having a bit of an internal struggle about how much to push the Ayers story. Today, it’s up with a Web ad, hoping for some viral pickup and free media attention. But yesterday, it was notable that Ayers wasn’t mentioned at any of the McCain-Palin rallies. But that didn’t mean character attacks on Obama were missing; the campaign decided to up the ante a bit and have Cindy McCain hit Obama, on Iraq. But as we’ve asked before are voters listening at all to these attacks as the Dow continues to plummet and as newspapers continue to run headlines like this one: “U.S. May Take Ownership Stake In Banks To Ease Credit Crisis”? And this is the dilemma: The McCain camp is trying to tie Obama’s answers about Ayers to what voters can believe about him regarding the economy. The problem for McCain is that every minute he spends on Obama is a minute he’s not spending talking to voters about the economy and the issue is just that big right now for the electorate. Is anyone outside the base responding to the Ayers stuff?
1. Whoever wins the White House will, in effect, get a consolation prize. The odds are good that he’ll serve one term. Former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta recently said: “It’s close to an impossible situation. The next guy, whoever he is, will be a one-term president — if he is lucky.” If McCain wins using these “scorched earth” policies which are clearly intended to win the election by convincing voters that Obama is dangerous — that is indeed the thinly-veiled subtext — he’ll take office having a large chunk of the country personally furious at him and Democrats not inclined to reach across the aisle to help him out. He would take office as a highly polarizing figure who won on raising his foe’s character negatives rather than on his offered solutions.
2. Many believe McCain has effectively lost his 2000 “brand” and there is some debate as to why this happened. Some Democratic strategists now see a landslide in the making, although Campaign 2008 has provided many examples of how confidently-asserted pundit and political pro predictions later proved simplistic and inaccurate. The question would then become: who would a post-election John McCain be if he loses?
More often than not, candidates who lose (Democrats Al Gore, John Kerry, Republicans Barry Goldwater, Bob Dole) walk away with their integrity intact, perhaps being blasted by some partisans for not doing enough or making some key strategic mistakes. McCain is now obliterating any vestiges of his 2000 brand — a brand that earned him the adoration of independent voters and many young people on campuses who saw him as a person of substance and principle who would never sell his soul to do things to win an election. Were those who supported him in 2000 just a bunch of gullible idealists?
Meanwhile, the McCain campaign’s attacks are also helping the Obama campaign — with money. Obama’s campaign is using them to raise funds. Note the smart strategy of asking for even $5 in donations. Here’s part of an email sent out under Vice Presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden’s name:
The poll comes in the wake of an accelerated McCain push to take the focus off the economic issue and put it on raising doubts about Obama’s character — and one day after the debate which few felt was a barn-burner for either candidate, and some pundits called one of the most boring and worst-formatted presidential debates ever. But the new poll numbers suggest McCain’s new negative strategy hasn’t significantly reversed his southwards polling trend and isn’t winning over non-Republican voters:
The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking report shows Barack Obama with a 52% to 41% lead over John McCain.
These results, based on Oct. 5-7 polling, are the best for Obama during the campaign, both in terms of his share of the vote and the size of his lead over McCain.
Nearly all interviews in today’s report were conducted before Tuesday night’s town hall style debate in Nashville. Any movement in voter preferences as a result of this debate will be apparent in coming days.
Voter preferences seem to have stabilized for the moment, as Obama has held a double-digit lead over McCain in each of the last three individual nights of polling.
October 8th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Just how challenging is the political and economic context for Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain in his battle against Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for the White House? Two recent Gallup polls tell the tale.
A Gallup poll finds Americans’ level of satisfaction is now at 9 percent — a record low that exceeds how dissatisfied Americans were during the administration of Democratic President Jimmy Carter. It’s the lowest satisfaction rating in Gallup history:
The previous low point for Gallup’s measure of satisfaction had been 12%, recorded back in 1979, in the midst of rising prices and gas shortages when Jimmy Carter was president. Gallup has recorded a 14% satisfaction level at several points — once in the senior Bush’s administration in 1992, and several times earlier this year.
The reason for Americans’ extraordinarily low level of satisfaction is straightforward: the economy.
President Bush’s job approval rating is at 25% in the latest Oct. 3-5 Gallup Poll, the lowest of the Bush administration, and only three percentage points above the lowest presidential approval rating in Gallup Poll history.
Bush’s previous low point was 27%, measured about a week ago. The 25% approval rating is one point higher than Richard Nixon’s lowest job approval rating of 24% measured in the summer of 1974, and it is just three points higher than Harry Truman’s all-time Gallup low job approval rating of 22% measured in 1952. No other presidents have had job approval ratings of 27% or lower in Gallup Poll history.
The political impact of this is clear.
McCain is unlikely to veer his campaign back into a lead in the polls unless he quickly and aggressively refashions it to hammer home what he could do differently on the economy than Obama and Bush. A mostly-negative personal campaign aimed at raising questions about Obama is unlikely to work, especially because two debates now allowed viewers to see the flesh-and-blood Obama, versus the political caricature. Obama could still make a gaffe that sparks a loss of mass confidence in him. And there could be foreign events or terrorism-related events that surface that could have an impact.
Meanwhile, serious doubts about Obama linger in some key parts of the electorate and there is continued speculation about how the race issue will impact voting. But these numbers suggest the electorate may be poised for a classic “throw the bums out” move come Election Day — unless McCain can convincingly and substantively convince Americans that Obama will create new problems and worsen existing ones and that he can offer specifics to tackle growing problems.
In that context, charges that Obama is “palling around with terrorists” steps on the central message McCain actually needs if he wants to win more than just his existing Republican base and conservative talk radio hosts and fans.
Many analysts now talk about McCain needing a “game changer” (the 2008 overused phrase which now joins phrases such as “defining moment:…:home run”…”change the subject”..and “the smell test”) at next week’s final debate. But, in reality, if he wants to truly change the game, he’ll have to do it earlier than that.
October 8th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
A general consensus is emerging in the new and old media — even among many Democrats and some Republicans — that Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain failed to get the game-changing event out of his second debate with Democratic Senator Barack Obama.
In fact, on CNN Republican bigwig and former adviser to Presidents of both parties David Gergen called McCain’s debate performance “a missed opportunity.”
News reports varied in how they described the event. Some called it bland. Others, spirited. But the most memorable moment in the event — the sound bite that will be played over and over in this era of “high concept” and politics-as-emotion — is when McCain dismissively referred to Obama as “that one” while an unshaken Obama stood by and watched. And it’s not a plus for McCain:
Weekly Standard’s Matt Continetti: “I was struck by a few moments in this debate, where McCain, in trying to make a case for himself made a case for Obama.” McCain mentioned “his hero Ronald Reagan” multiple times. “But at the end of the debate Obama made the Reagan case” by asking, “Are you better off?”
More Continetti, on speaking softly and carrying a big stick: “The problem is” that McCain’s “initial response to the financial crisis was erratic. One moment he was saying ‘the fundamentals are strong,’ the next he is saying it is a mess. … It was Obama who had the steady response in the financial crisis.”
Washington Post’s EJ Dionne: I don’t think that McCain shook the race up. … There was a lot of speculation that in order to shake the race up McCain was going to get real personal.” As VP nominee Sarah Palin has done on the trail recently. “You can’t blame the Weather Underground for blowing up this economy. … It is quite obvious that you can’t turn a page on the finance crisis in this campaign.”
–Glenn Reynolds:”NEITHER ONE OF THESE GUYS IS REALLY ON HIS GAME, but Obama, for all his uhs and ahs, is looking like he’s having fun. McCain looks like he’s already bored with the whole thing. Hey, McCain, you asked for ten of these!” Reynolds also has a roundup.
10.33 pm. This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. I’ve watched a lot of debates and participated in many. I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater. I debated dozens of times at Oxofrd. All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out.It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. It reminds me of the 1992 Clinton-Perot-Bush debate. I don’t really see how the McCain campaign survives this.
Anyone watching CNN on a hi-def TV could see the dial focus group of a bunch of Ohio undecided voters. And throughout the night, it often seemed that Obama would break the darn meter, his ratings going through the roof. McCain, on the other hand, was the king of the flatline. I swear, you could see the downticks every time McCain said “my friends” — a tell to the audience that he was about to serve another heaping dish of b.s. It was painful. According to the Republican pre-debate spin, McCain was supposed to use “humor” to soften the blow of his mighty attacks, but 1) did any of his attacks connect? and 2) can anyone say, in all seriousness, that McCain delivered a single effective laugh line? And earmarks? Does McCain still think anyone outside of the wingnutosphere give a damn about “earmarks”?
For all the pre-debate stuff about the townhall benefitting McCain, Obama looked far better here. He is at his best when he can speechify, and that’s what he was able to do here. And really, Obama is the picture of “cool”. The side-by-side comparison isn’t kind. But even on substance, it wasn’t close.
–Pajamas Media’s Stephen Green did his famous live blogging. His conclusion:
8:35PM Instant analysis? McCain won, but not by nearly enough to matter. He was up against a punk kid, and barely came away on points. Barely.
The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking poll shows registered voters preferring Barack Obama to John McCain for president by 51% to 42%.
The nine percentage point lead in Oct. 4-6 tracking matches Obama’s highest to date for the campaign, and the highest for either candidate. Obama led McCain by 49% to 40% near the tail end of his international trip in late July. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
Obama has now held a statistically significant lead since Sept. 24-26 polling and has not trailed McCain since Sept. 13-15, roughly coinciding with the intensification of the financial crisis.
McCain has an opportunity to try to reverse Obama’s momentum at tonight’s town hall style debate in Nashville.
Two things that will be interesting in future polls by Gallup and others:
1. Is the negative campaigning having a negative or positive impact?
2. Are independent voters continuing to break for Obama or is the new McCain offensive attracting them back to McCain? Or are increasing reports about troubling passions being unleashed by McCain and his Vice Presidential running mate (people at their rallies yelling out that Obama is a “terrorist,” calling to “kill” him, yelling “treason” as Palin speaks about him and calling a black soundman “boy”) that are not being defused by Palin or McCain scaring independent voters and more moderate voters away?
All of the above will make tonight’s high-stakes debate more interesting in this volatile election year.
October 7th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
When presidential hopefuls Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and GOP Sen. John McCain debate tonight, the growing conventional wisdom in some circles is that Obama is firmly on a path to victory — but. in reality, polls still show a still-highly-volatile race.
A race where a debate — a gaffe, a well-delivered charge that strongly connects with people, a memorable prepared or spontaneous zinger — can make a difference by causing a shift that could mean another nail-biter election night or even votes breaking one candidate’s way.
A look at the polls this morning confirms the fact that, at this point, neither Obama nor McCain have totally closed the sale. But today’s poll trending, if various polls are viewed as a group, isn’t good for McCain.
And viewed within this context, the McCain campaign’s big negative personal assault on Obama (in effect suggesting that he is a fellow traveler of dangerous terrorists who hate America and an outright liar in an admitted effort to turn the campaign and media focus from the economy to Obama) can be viewed as yet another “hail Mary” pass.
*Zobgy has Obama with a three point lead, within the margin of error with Obama 48 percent, McCain 45 percent. It says the race is “too close to call” and the polls shows a McCain recovery.
*The Real Clear Politics poll chart shows Obama leading by three points in some polls (Reuters/CSpan/Zogby Tracking, CBS News, Democracy Corps (D)), by six points in some others (NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl, Hotline/FD Tracking), seven points in one (GW/Battleground Tracking), and by eight in three (CNN, Gallup Tracking, Rasmussen Tracking). When the polls are averaged, Obama leads by 5.8 percent.
Various state polls increasingly show good news for Obama. Two obvious points have to be factored-in: (1) the increasingly bad news from the economic front and (2) the rather large shifts in some of these polls which suggest either people making their minds up or an electorate that continues to be volatile and could shift the other way if the McCain campaign does convince voters that Obama is a dangerous choice who can make a bad situation worse.
Here are a few of those polls (which can change later in the day):
October 7th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The Glittering Eye’s Dave Schuler is one of the most thoughtful writers in the blogosphere (or as skippy would say in the word skippy invented, blogtopia…). And unlike an increasingly large number of Americans and bloggers, he remains undecided on who he wants for President.
Meanwhile, Schuler — like many Americans — craves for a SERIOUS discussion of SERIOUS issues in campaign 2008, without the typical talk show and blog polemics. So he’s hoping to host a serious discussion among weblog writers. Here’s part of what he proposes:
This Tuesday the election will just be four short weeks away. As an explication of my dissatisfaction, an indication of the yardstick against which I’m judging the candidates, and in the hope of starting a substantive discussion of issues in the blogosphere, over the next few days I plan to post a number of explorations of the issues before us. Here’s my planned schedule Tuesday, October 7, 2008 Foreign policy
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 Fiscal policy
Thursday, October 9, 2008 Economic policy
Friday, October 10, 2008 Health care
Saturday, October 11, 2008 Energy policy
Monday, October 13, 2008 Conclusion
I also plan to solicit contributions from bloggers with a variety of political persuasions; I’m hoping to ignite a cross-blog conversation about the issues. Feel free to pitch in on your own blogs and drop a note in the comments here—I’ll link to all reasonable contributions to the discussion.
Please make your contributions substantive and positive. Not just the regular talking points.
Read his post in full — and participate if you think a campaign should be more than suggesting that someone who you don’t agree with is a closet terrorist who is a danger to America or is an emotional loose-cannon who is a danger to America. Dave wants i-s-s-u-e-s to be discussed. You know: those things that don’t get ratings on most shout-fest talk shows….
Alaska governor Sarah Palin went on the attack today, claiming that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama had longstanding ties to The Weather Channel.
“What does it say about our opponent that he thinks this nation’s weather is so imperfect that he needs to be allied with The Weather Channel?” she asked a crowd in Tampa, Florida. “There’s a fine line between hating America’s weather and hating America herself.”
Gov. Palin said that she learned about Sen. Obama’s ties to The Weather Channel last week “when I was trying hard to read The New York Times.”
“They said that Sen. Obama was hanging out with weathermen,” she said. “Do we really want to elect someone who has been palling around with meteorologists?”
There’s more so click on the link above and read the whole thing.
October 7th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Yet another bar has been lowered in the 2008 Presidential political campaign — or, in this case, the Vice Presidential campaign which in this case is controlled by a Presidential campaign:
Constantly under the watchful eyes of security, the media wasn’t permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park to talk to Sarah Palin supporters. When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head toward the bleachers where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out of nowhere and confront him or her and say, “Can I help you?” and turn the person around.
When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn’t allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written. The campaign wanted to avoid that possibility Monday.
This item from the St. Petersburg Times should be troubling to all Americans. Since when is the press barred from talking to a candidate’s SUPPORTERS? So now Palin is kept under tight wraps by the McCain campaign, giving interviews to a few select mainstream media reporters plus softball p.r. type interviews for Fox News’ mega-partisan talker Sean Hannity…while the press is barred from talking to her supporters.
This is how new standard operating procedure is created. In 2004 the press had lots of stories about how people were screened to enter and in some cases kicked out of George Bush’s political events. Now it’s come down to the press being barred from talking to a candidate’s supporters. And the irony is that speeches at these events will talk about defending freedom….
October 6th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Independent voters and many thoughtful Republicans and Democrats have over the past 8 years decried the deterioration of American national election rhetoric. Now the campaign of Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin seems to be sparking ominous reactions from some supporters.
The two incidents have gotten some press and blog play. What’s troubling is if it reflects an unleashing of passions that might be the kind better left leashed and unprovoked by rhetoric taken by some partisans to mean Obama is dangerous to the United States.
Despite stories and posts characterizing the political scene, the national political context of these incidents remains murky and often contradictory — despite the up or down poll-influenced perspectives of partisans and pundits.
On one hand, there are signs that independent voters are moving towards Obama in greater numbers than before due to the economic crisis and the debates. On the other, a new CBS News poll, taking into account the impact of the Vice Presidential debate, shows Obama’s lead has shrunk from 9 points Wednesday to 3 points.
One shift: there are signs the campaign has now moved into truly ugly — and potentially dangerous - territory.
At a campaign rally, McCain asked who “is the real Barack Obama” and a follower shouted out “terrorist” — which elicits a facial response from McCain but no comment from McCain about how Obama is not a terrorist. Here’s the You Tube:
And at Florida Palin rally, a supporter shouts out a suggestion about what to do to Obama: kill him. No apparent response from Palin:
It was time to revive the allegation, made over the weekend, that Obama “pals around” with terrorists, in this case Bill Ayers, late of the Weather Underground. Many independent observers say Palin’s allegations are a stretch; Obama served on a Chicago charitable board with Ayers, now an education professor, and has condemned his past activities.
“Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers,” Palin said.
“Boooo!” said the crowd.
“And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,’” she continued.
“Boooo!” the crowd repeated.
“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.
Palin went on to say that “Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers’s living room, and they’ve worked together on various projects in Chicago.” Here, Palin began to connect the dots. “These are the same guys who think that patriotism is paying higher taxes — remember that’s what Joe Biden had said. “And” — she paused and sighed — “I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America, as the greatest force for good in the world. I’m afraid this is someone who sees America as ‘imperfect enough’ to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country.”
No one seriously believes McCain really thinks Obama is a terrorist. And no one would seriously believe Palin really wants Obama physically harmed. But in both instances if they heard such rhetoric they could have stopped and tried to push it back a bit.
It’s not illegal. It’s not ethical. But it will likely be a reason why some people who might agree with them on policies will vote against them — particularly if these voters had hoped that in January the U.S. might move into a new era where opponents were no longer labeled dangerous to the Republic. And that the new era would be prefaced by a spirited campaign debate based on critical national issues.
Meanwhile, a new poll finds independent voters are now shifting towards Obama. Will these new attacks on Obama and press coverage of not just the attacks but the apparent strategy behind them — McCain officials quoted as saying they wanted to turn a page on the economy and get the discussion back to Obama — spur on a shift even more? Or will independents be persuaded by the attacks? Will polls tighten even more because negative campaigning works? The poll:
Independent voters are starting to swing behind Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who continue to benefit from economic turmoil and the public response to their debate performances, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
The survey, conducted over the weekend, was full of good news for the Democratic presidential ticket. Sen. Obama increased his advantage over Republican rival John McCain when voters were asked which candidate they prefer to handle economic issues at a time when a growing percentage of voters said that was their top concern heading into the election. More voters said they are “more reassured” by how Sen. Obama was responding to the financial crisis than by Sen. McCain.
Sens. Obama and Biden have a six-point lead, with 49% of registered voters saying they would vote for them, compared with 43% for Sen. McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. That is up from a two-point advantage in the previous Journal poll, two weeks ago, and parallels other recent national polls. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
“McCain has absorbed a very tough one-two punch — the financial crisis, then the debates,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster who conducts the survey with Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart. “These two things have clearly led to a momentum shift in this campaign where Obama has started to slowly stretch his lead.”
Independent voters are among the most important voting blocs because many of them would consider voting for either candidate. In the Journal/NBC poll two weeks ago, independents favored Sen. McCain by 13 points. The new survey finds Sen. Obama leading by four points.
But, the Journal notes, the campaign is hardly over: Obama could still make a major mistake and the polls — polls that have shifted so much this campaign season — could shift once again. For instance, the mainstream media is now finding some bogus Obama campaign donors.
October 6th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Despite the recently signed bailout, world markets are now reeling — and the stock market has now fallen below 10,000:
Stocks tumbled Monday, with the Dow Jones industrial average falling below 10,000 for the first time in nearly four years, as European governments’ rush to prop up failing financial firms underscored the global reach of the credit crunch.
Credit markets remained tight, with two key measures of bank jitters hitting an all-time high. Treasury’s rallied, lowering the corresponding yields as investors sought safety in government debt. Gold rallied for the same reason. Oil dipped. The dollar was mixed versus other major currencies.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost around 400 points or 4% in the early going, and fell below 10,000 for the first time since Oct. 29, 2004. The Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) both lost more than 5%.
Stocks slumped Friday, as the Wall Street’s worst week in seven years ended with President Bush signing the historic $700 billion bailout bill after weeks of contentious debate. The bill involves the Treasury buying bad debt directly from banks in order to get them to start lending to each other again.
In financial terms it means, despite the bailout, the U.S. will have to find ways to do more to not just prop up its own sagging economy, but reassure world markets.
In political terms, the headlines mean the economic issue will remain the dominant one.
