2008 Election

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Columbus Day Musings

The economic crisis is driving the election and Paul Krugman, a self-labled Liberal, has won the Nobel Prize. Is this an omen?  Slate Magazine has just republished a old column of his which explains liquidity in terms that even I can understand.  http://www.slate.com/id/2202165/

John McCain was supposed to deliver a new economic plan today, but instead decided to talk about how

“We have 22 days to go,’’ he said. “We’re six points down. The national media has written us off.’’ (At this the crowd booed loudly.) “Senator Obama is measuring the drapes, and planning with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid to raise taxes, increase spending, take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections, and concede defeat in Iraq.’’

In a stump speech notable for large paragraphs of pessimism, Mr. McCain said: “These are hard times, my friend. Our economy is in crisis. Financial markets are collapsing. Credit is drying up. Your savings are in danger and your retirement is at risk. Jobs are disappearing. The cost of health care, your children’s college, gasoline and groceries are rising all the time, with no end in sight, while your most important asset — your home — is losing value every day.’’

Mr. McCain then said that he, not Senator Barack Obama, had the experience to turn the crisis around.

He offered no specifics, but at least he didn’t mention Bill Ayres and blame him for the economic crisis

Meanwhile Obama was giving a speech in Toledo, Ohio (the home town of the character, Klinger, from MASH) with a detailed plan of what happens next – after the rescue plan is implemented. 

Senator Barack Obama on Monday expanded his economic platform, including proposals to spur new jobs, to give Americans penalty-free access to retirement savings to help them through the downturn, to urge a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures and to lend money to strapped local and state governments.

During his remarks here, Mr. Obama gently scolded all Americans for “living beyond their means — from Wall Street to Washington to even some on Main Street.” His audience of supporters applauded as he said it was a moment in the nation’s history to pull together and sacrifice.

(The McCain and Obama quotes are all from the New York Times)

So the big questions remain:  Can McCain once again be the Comeback Kid?  What role will race play?  Will the debate on Wednesday night make the race closer or seal McCain’s fate?

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Ayres, Keating, and Todd Palin

The Boston Globe had a very interesting little piece this morning in which they outlined the stories of Bill Ayres and Charles Keating.  http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/10/07/character_and_ethics_issues_come_to_the_fore/

Read it and decide which you would rather associate with.  Bill Ayres, like a number of ’60’s radicals, including Bobby Rush who is now in Congress and Tom Hayden who served in the California legislature, became a productive and contributing member of society.  How better to make a contribution than to teach teachers?  And Charles Keating?  He went to jail.

I don’t think Sarah Palin has any clue as to what she is being asked to say.  She doesn’t know Bill Ayres and has no clue about what happened in the 1960’s.  If I wanted to get really exercised about her statements, I would point out that her own husband is/was a member of a radical political party.  Is Todd Palin a terrorist? It appears that the founder of the Alaska Independence Party is.  This quote is from an article today by David Talbot in Salon.com:

“My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”

This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.

Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that’s the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. (“Keep up the good work,” Palin told AIP members. “And God bless you.”)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/07/palins_unamerican/

My take is that trying to associate Barak Obama with terrorism is coded racism. Don’t trust the black man with the funny Muslim sounding name because he secretly is out to hurt you.  I don’t know where this new Republican tactic is going, but I hope and pray it doesn’t lead to an unfortunate violent act.

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Rachel Maddow deconstructs Palin and other thoughts on the election.

Watching this segment on the VP Debate is well worth anyone’s 7 minutes.  Maddow skillfully looks at the quotes Sarah Palin attibuted to others (and throws in one John McCain quote from the first Presidential debate).  Maddow has found the quote from Ronald Reagan for example and puts it into context playing the actual quote.   Palin’s nice speech about losing freedom with the Reagan quote turns out to be Reagan speaking against Medicaid.  Did the McCain Camp really think that no one would figure it out?  And the McCain quote from the first Presidential debate in which he said that Eisenhower left a note offering to resign if the invasion of Normandy failed – not true.  And there is more. Check out this impressive job by Maddow. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553/

This morning’s Boston Globe has an op-ed by Ellen Goodman reminding us that the Supreme Court, which opens for the new session on Monday is at stake in the election:

In the cold world of actuarial tables, the next president is certain to have one choice and probably more. Candidates for retirement are Stevens, the 75-year-old Ruth Ginsburg, and the homesick David Souter. That’s three of the four moderate and liberal justices on a bench that has made an art of 5-4 decisions.

You do the math. If Obama is elected, the court will stay pretty much the way it is. If McCain is elected, Katy bar the door.

McCain, who plays a maverick on TV, promised the court to the right wing. He told the women of “The View”: “I want people who interpret the Constitution of the United States the way our founding fathers envisioned for them to do so.” This prompted Whoopi Goldberg to ask if she should worry about being returned to slavery.

 http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/10/04/supreme_court_at_stake/

I’m pretty sure we don’t have to worry about a return to slavery, but we do have to worry about women’s right to choice and more executive power grabs with Supreme Court approval.

A lot of the Electoral College Maps have Obama at 264 – just 6 votes away.  So he needs one more large state like Virginia or Ohio or Florida or Wisconsin – all states in which he is trending higher.  On the other hand, McCain now needs all the toss-up states in order to win.

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Morning After Reflections on the VP Debate

I’m had about five and a half hours of sleep and when I woke up, it came to me:  Sarah Palin is like one of those yappy, little dogs with lots of energy that look cute.  Ok, Palin is shrewed, but she, unlike that little dog, is really, really scary.  This is a woman who wants to have more power than Dick Cheney.  From the nonrelease of her tax returns to what appear to be abuses of power both as Mayor and Governor (think Troopergate and the Wasilla Librarian), she would be another Dick Cheney.  Even Kit Bond, a Republican, appeared a little startled last night when asked about her statement about wanting more power.  I hope that the Obama campaign takes that and does an ad contrasting her to Cheney – currently one of the most, if not the most unpopular figures in American politics. 

Dana Milbank has an interesting piece in the Washington Post  this morning.  After discussing her need to show that she could answer questions following her horribly funny Katie Couric interviews, Milbank writes,

On the other hand, it wasn’t exactly a confidence-builder. Palin, in her 90 minutes on the stage Thursday night, left the firm impression that she is indeed ready to lead the nation — with an unnerving mixture of platitudes and cute, folksy phrases that poured from her lips even when they bore no relation to the questions asked.

“Let’s commit ourselves just everyday American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation,” she proposed when asked about the mortgage crisis.

“I want to go back to the energy plan,” she said when asked about the federal bailout plan.

“Let’s commit ourselves just everyday American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation,” she proposed when asked about the mortgage crisis.

“I want to go back to the energy plan,” she said when asked about the federal bailout plan.

Biden grew frustrated. “If you notice, Gwen, the governor did not answer the question.”

Replied Sarah Six-Pack: “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/02/AR2008100204250.html?hpid=topnews

Pretty scary.

In the New York Times, Adam Nagourney observies:

“This is going to help stop the bleeding,” said Todd Harris, a Republican consultant who worked for Mr. McCain in his first presidential campaign. “But this alone won’t change the trend line, particularly in some of the battleground states.”

Short of a complete bravura performance that would have been tough for even the most experienced national politician to turn in — or a devastating error by the mistake-prone Mr. Biden, who instead turned in an impressively sharp performance — there might have been little Ms. Palin could have done to help Mr. McCain. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/us/politics/03assess.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Of course, these are two Eastern papers who don’t understand drilling in Alaska.

So I run off to work with two polls.  The Newsvine unscientific poll on MSNBC has Biden winning the debate by 78.2% and InTrade odds are Obama to win the election at 65 to 33.8 for McCain.

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The VP Debate – some initial thoughts

Exactly an hour into the debate, Joe Biden began an answer by saying, “Facts matter, Gwen.”

To him, maybe. To Sarah Palin, maybe not. The pattern, so far, has been one of Biden presenting facts and Palin countering with… saying stuff. Sometimes she throws in a fact, but mostly she seems to be offering a string of approximate policy positions, encomiums to the American spirit, disputed interpretations of Barack Obama’s record and anecdotes from Alaska.

She has a certain charm, but I wonder how viewers are reacting to the way she just declines to answer the question at hand and pivots to more solid ground. I had forgotten how effective Biden can be in these debates. So far, he hasn’t been patronizing or insulting. In terms of working-class street cred, Palin is in a league – or a universe – of her own. (Don’t ya think?) But Biden holds his own.

I confess, though, I don’t know what anybody is making of this. I don’t even know what I’m making of it. This is the strangest debate I’ve ever seen. It seems like an interplanetary exchange, with poor Gwen Ifill trying to keep the Enterprise from falling into the wormhole.

That was Gene Robinson in the Washington Post

Pat Buchanan has just dismissed Sarah Palin’s saying she wanted to expand the role of the Vice President.  I agree with Joe Biden that given the example of Dick Chaney – we need to be very frightened.  I’m with Rachel Maddow who thought that Palin was not very coherent and made a couple of mistakes.

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Political Chatter for October 1

Paul Krugman from Princeton and the New York Times is saying the new Senate bill is worse than the House bill that passed.  He is saying that the Senate bill will pass and than be redone after the election.  Krugman says the bill is designed more to stop the slide than to fix the problem.

The CBS poll is showing Obama up by 9 (49 to 40) outside the margin of error.  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/us/politics/02poll.html?hp   Obama also leads among women and independents, and appears to have narrowed the gap among whites – both men and women.  http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/sepd-elec08.pdf   The InTrade Quote as I write this is 64.1 to 35.7.  Then a new (to me) website has Obama winning by 336 to 202 electoral votes.  http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/today%27s%20polls

I think, I hope, that the McCain campaign is imploding.  I heard on either Rachel Maddow or Keith Oberman that no candidate has ever come back from such a margin so close to the election.  Voting has already begun and the CBS numbers show people have made up their minds.  We shall see if Sarah Palin can make a dent during the debate tomorrow night or of Joe Biden can hurt.

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More on Polls and other election stuff

After posting “reading the tea leaves”, I was checking out AlterNet and ran across several interesting posts.  First was an interesting piece by Joshua Holland about why polls drive us crazy. http://www.alternet.org/election08/99586/why_the_polls_drive_us_crazy_%28and_shouldn%27t%29/?page=1

Holland points out that the daily tracking polls and other national polls, while interesting, don’t mirror how the election will be won or lost.  He argues that one has to look at the individual states – particularly the swing states.

Remember that we don’t vote for president in the United States – we vote state by state for electors who vote for the president.  As I write, [September 20] new polls who Obama up by 9 points in Michigan, 5 points in Pennsylvania and a couple of points in Ohio – all crucial swing states.

He also points out a lot of experts are looking at who can get the voters to the polls on November 4 rather than who is leading in the polls.  So you combine all the new registered voters including new citizens and the new registrants under 35 and get them to the polls and that may be the election.  A lot of the under 35’s don’t have landlines and aren’t polled. 

And what is an election with out some fun?  This link has some great stuff. http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/99057/the_10_most_talked-about_election_%2708_viral_videos_/?page=1  I think my favorites are the Obama/Lion King one by Jon Stewart and the McCain debating McCain one.  Several of the videos are very serious, however, including the one by doctors about the possible state of John McCain’s health.

A few other random thoughts for the day:  When will we get to see Sarah Palin’s  (and Todd Palin’s) tax returns?  Will anyone mention the Keating Five to John McCain?  And since when does thinking about an issue before making a decision as Obama is doing about the Bush-Paulson-Bernanke bail-out proposal a bad thing?  Finally, can the Red Sox clinch a playoff spot tonight?

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Reading the Tea Leaves

 So we are getting to nail biting time in the election and I’m busy studying polls and looking at everyone’s electoral maps.   This week alone we have the revelation the by a slim margin – maybe the margin of the actual election? – more people would rather watch a football game with Obama than with McCain by 50% to 47%.  This morning the Intrade market quotes are Obama 51.5 – McCain 47.3 This is very close to the football poll.  What exactly does that say about us anyway?  The same pollsters http://news.yahoo.com/pollswho did the football poll also found by a larger margin 55% to 44% would prefer to have Obama as their child’s teacher. 

This morning about 5 am when I was unable to sleep, I entered The Fix’s “Pick Your President” http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/4861/ contest.  I can’t embed the link to my map because WordPress doesn’t do Flash, but I will try to describe my electoral vote picks.  Remember they were made at 5 am on a Saturday morning.  The Fix’s picks as of September 9 totaled Obama 289  – McCain 249.  He included Ohio to put Obama over the magic 270.  The explanation was that the total was 269 and they decided to add Ohio.  The strange, to my mind, thing is that they have New Hampshire going for McCain.

The average from all of us kooks who have submitted maps as of this morning is Obama 286 – McCain 252. But my map is Obama 314  – McCain 223.  I added in Montana because I liked the speech Governor Brian Schweitzer gave at the Democratic Convention.  He’s the ultimate rancher regular guy turned Governor.  (Maybe what Sarah Palin could be when she grows up? Nah!)  Plus, they just elected Jon Tester to the Senate.  I added Virginia because I think that everyone is underestimating Mark Warner’s coattails.  And I threw in New Hampshire.  Montana is really a long shot – but if it goes for Obama, my changes of winning the Pick Your President Contest go up.

It will be interesting to see the polls in the next few days given the implosion by the McCain-Palin ticket this week.

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“Lipstick on a Pig”

Is using this saying sexist?  Slate Magazine has two interesting takes on the subject.  First “the Explainer” talks about the origins of the saying.  There have been variations on the theme for many years.  Ann Richards used it against both Bushes, for example.  http://www.slate.com/id/2199805/

And there is video of John McCain using it specifically against Hillary Clinton’s health care plan. http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid271557392/bctid1784628752

I don’t think of the term, given its history in American politics as being particularly sexist.  It simply means trying to dress something up so people might be fooled into thinking it is something new.  I think McCain was using it as a dig at a health care proposal and Obama was using it to talk about Republican policies generally.  It should be noted that he was speaking in a rural area of Virgina where most of his listener probably got the reference and the humor. In neither case was it used against anyone specific.

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Tough Election and Tough Pennant Race

First, the Red Sox.  I haven’t said much for a while, but for the most part they are playing great.  Dustin and Coco are on a tear and inspite of injuries and no consistancy with their pitching (maybe I’ll I exempt Lester), they are hanging in there.  Although they’ve caught up with Tampa Bay, I think its the wild card.

And McCain is tied now with Obama.  I’m trying not to loose too much hope even as all those around me are beginning to panic.  For one thing, I’m not sure what the polls do about all the voters without land lines and it is also my understanding (I might be wrong about this) that many polls target people who voted in the last election.  I think that the voter registration numbers show that there will be a lot of first time voters.  The election will depend on voter turnout.  I keep thinking about Iowa and the kids that turned out even though it was winter break.

A large part of the McCain bounce is clearly due to Sarah Palin.  The Obama campaign needs to get its own message out while trying to debunk the out and out lies from the other side.  The swift boating has begun.  My hope is that when Sarah Palin finally has to meet the press one on one she will be exposed and the bounce will end.  Jack Shafer has posted an interesting list of questions for Charles Gibson – or any journalist worth their salt to ask.  http://www.slate.com/id/2199668/pagenum/all/#page_start

Rachel Maddow had a great quote about Sarah Palin which went something like this:  When you go to Republican rallies with Sarah Palin you feel two things the electricity from the conservative Republican base and the drip drip of the investigations that are going on and you know what happens when electricity meets water.”  I hope she is right.