That's more like it

Every time I think Obama is blowing it, he comes through. Vis a vis my prior post, here's what he said at a rally in Michigan last night in response to Palin's taunting him about his position on habeas corpus rights for detainees.

Calling it "the foundation of Anglo-American law," he said the principle "says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, 'Why was I grabbed?' And say, 'Maybe you've got the wrong person.'"

The safeguard is essential, Obama continued, "because we don't always have the right person."

"We don't always catch the right person," he said. "We may think it's Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it's Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president."

"The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It's because that's who we are. That's what we're protecting," Obama said, his voice growing louder and the crowd rising to its feet to cheer. "Don't mock the Constitution. Don't make fun of it. Don't suggest that it's not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It's worked pretty well for over 200 years."

Ralph

Barak, the Non-Attack Dog

The sudden resuscitation of McCain's campaign by the Lipstick Pit Bull has many people worrying that the Obama campaign is not being aggressive enough in its response. There is a new Obama ad out today that directly contradicts the claim that Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, and questioning McCain/Palin's honesty, since she actively campaigned for it before she was against it. It's good, but Obama in person doesn't like to do that.

He just does not like to go for the jugular. I just watched 16 minutes of an interview with Keith Olberman on MSNBC's Countdown. Olberman tried again and again to get him to do so: asking if he had considered boiling down the economic message to a simple question, like Harry Truman's saying, "How many times do they have to hit you over the head before you start asking who is hitting you?" And KO asked why not use the word "lie" to characterize the distortions that McCain and Palin are making? And he tried to get him to react to GA Congressman Lynn Westmoreland's calling Barak and Michelle "uppity." Westmoreland tried to weasle out, saying he was using it as a synomyn for elite. Come on: I grew up in Georgia. Everybody knows that's only the first half of a common racial slur, and the second word begins with an 'n'. It's a vicious attack on an African-American who "tries to rise above his station." Even David Gergen said so on This Week a couple of Sunday's ago.

Obama just wouldn't go there. He gave wonderful, thoughtful, reasoned answers. But he will not take the angry, outraged simple sound bite when it's handed to him on a silver platter. He just kept saying things like: "We just have to keep telling the American people where we want to take this country, and they are going to make up their minds."

This is pretty frustrating to those of us who have lived through two presidential candidates who took the high road and stayed wonky -- and Karl Rove made mince meat of them. And we are afraid the same thing is happening again.

I think this is partly Obama's deliberative, negotiative, reasonable nature. I think it's also a tactical decision not to present himself as the "angry young black man" and trigger that frightening racial stereotype that has limited Louis Farrakhan's and Jesse Jackson's and Al Sharpton's and Jeremiah Wright's appeal to white people. Martin Luther King was able to find a tone of indignation and gravitas about injustice that was moving and transformative without sounding irrational or out of control. Obama wants to present reasoned answers, stay on issues, and tie McPalin to Bush 24/7 but without sounding angry or, perhaps, uppity?

The risk is that, in trying to avoid scaring Bubba and Rosie the Riveter, he is losing another whole segment who want to hear him stand up to these gross insults and lies -- and may take it as an indication of whether he would stand up to the Chinese, the Iranians, and the Republicans.

I think Obama's temperament is supremely suited to being president. The question is, is it suited to winning the presidency against the Republican attack machine? Maybe they need to unleash Joe Biden and get him on TV more. He's good at those distilled, sound-bite kind of zingers, and he loves doing it.

Ralph

Babies, Guns, and Jesus

The selection of Sarah Palin has the Karl Rove brilliance written all over it. [Please note ironic tone.] They could not have made a better political choice, and I don't believe Rove would have missed that possibility. I think their leaked story of a deadlock between McCain's choice (Lieberman) and Rove's insistence on Romney, forcing a last-minute choice of Palin, is phoney and planted as a smokescreen. The whole thing has Rove's fingerprints all over it. He's probably been planning it ever since McCain became the obvious nominee.

The disaffected religious right wing is now ecstatic. To them, her lack of experience is actually a plus. All that matters to them is summed up in Rush Limbaugh's pithy: Babies, Guns, and Jesus. And on top of that, she's an evangelical Christian and a Warrior Woman who will go up to Washington with her guns blazing. Plus not bad to look at, and she gives a decent speech.

There's no way to win over that group. The Democrats will have to concentrate on their own base, the Independents (a considerable group), and the few moderate Republicans. So far, it's a good strategy: let the surrogates take on Palin's extremism and lack of readiness, and let Obama concentrate on McCain and tie them both to Bush. Notice the headlines: Palin is more like Bush even than McCain.

But I'm getting seriously worried. This is the way Republicans win elections time and again. Find some hot wedge issue (it was gay marriage in 2004; now it's back to abortion), push that and keep the focus away from the real issues (economy, war, health care, environment, energy, education). Democrats are just learning what Republicans knew long ago: people vote with their guts, not their heads.

With Iraq calming down and even Bush coming around to Obama's positions on Iraq and Iran, the war wasn't working as well for them as their political issue. So they had to turn back to social issues. And, man, did they hit the jackpot, all packaged in a good-looking woman who appeals to working people. No experience? Not prepared? Don't worry: the Republican spin-meisters will take care of that.

Please be smart, Democrats. Find the way to fight back without playing their game.

Ralph

bonus post -- on trivia

Anyone notice Cindy McCain's makeover since Sarah joined the team? Before, Cindy looked like an ice princess: all neatly coiffed, in whites or subtle pastels, in the background.

Post-Sarah: Cindy is everywhere in bright, bright day-glo primary colors, obviously very very expensive designer gowns, hair down and often tousled, making speeches, upstaging Sarah with her looks. The picture of the three of them at the Colorado Springs rally was obvious: Cindy was in the foreground wearing a blindingly bright red dress and an equally bright green jacket. She looked like a Christmas tree drawn with crayons. (But I have to admit she also looked stunning, if you like that type.) In the background, standing at the podium, was Sarah in drab brown outfit. Johnny Mc in between, but turned and gesturing toward Cindy.

I can imagine the conversation. Cindy: "OK, Buster, choose that woman for your running mate, but just remember: I'm the First Lady, and I supply the glamour around here. See you later. I'm going shopping."

Ralph

Kiss My *&# or I Won't Talk to You?

What's wrong with this picture? Sarah Palin, according to the Republicans, is ready to step in and be the leader of the most powerful military power in the world, but she can't answer questions from a news reporter unless they first promise to treat her, basically, with kid gloves? Charles Gibson? Give me a break. Has he ever asked a question tougher than, How are you? What, she couldn't find a 5-year-old to conduct the interview?

So I'm assuming, if McCain were to kick off, President Palin would refuse to go to the UN, or sit down for talks with Putin, or Ahmadinejad unless they first promised to be nice? Or maybe she could fire the leaders of every country on our enemy list and replace them with friends from Wassilla?

Yes, she is certainly qualified to face the big, bad dangerous world of Al Queda , just don't let any of those scary reporters near her with their terrifying questions. They might ask some horribly unfair questions like, How can you claim to be against taxes when you increased tax revenues by 38% as Mayor of Wassilla, or How can you claim to be against Big Government when you increased expenditures by 33% when you were Mayor, or How can you pretend to be fiscally responsible when Wassilla had ZERO debt when you took office but $22 million when you left?

Nah, let's just ask her how to field dress a moose. Anyone who can do that is certainly capable of being president.

The Week After

The conventions are over, and the campaigns are in high gear (except for Sarah Palin who has been sent to her room to do her homework). The other three each had a 30+ minute interview on the morning talk shows: McCain with Bob Schieffer, who did not challenge him in a softball interview; Biden with Tom Brokow and Obama with George Stephanopolis, both of whom were tough challengers. And both handled it well, especially Biden who was more forceful than Obama. Biden was especially good at explaining why the surge was only one reason violence is down in Iraq.

Re Richard's post: that report about Hillary not taking on Sarah might be right, but unless it came from the campaign, I'd be suspicious that it's a Rovian attempt to control the news and sew dissent among the Democrats. We'll know tomorrow, when she campaigns in Florida.

I like this from Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog >http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/<. Using Sarah Palin's hockey methphor, he says her role is to be the player who provides game-changing agitation that arouses her own team while provoking the other side to a counterattack. He explains that in hockey it's always the guy who hits back that winds up in the penalty box. "Democrats would be smart to understand her as such, and I see a lot of reaction that doesn't seem to grasp what Palin is doing and the value she's providing. I see a lot of Democrats taking a lot of bait." [i.e., She attacks, Democrats hit back, then they claim sexism, demeaning to small town mayors, elitism, blah blah blah.]

Biden and Obama themselves have not taken the bait, it's mostly the surrogates, the bloggers, and the media itself. The correct response is, as Biden did yesterday, to name the behavior, even to comment that she's good at that tactic, and then shift back to the issues and to linking McCain with Bush.

Although the polls have tightened as they reflect the RNC bounce, Obama still holds a slight lead. That's good news. But it's going to be very tight.

Ralph

Hillary - Palin's Greatest Ally

If what's being reported is true - that Hillary is not going to talk about Palin on the campaign trail, but focus all of her attacks on McCain - then Hillary might as well go on the stump for the Republican ticket. Hillary is the one person who can totally shut down Palin, respond to her point by point, issue by issue, in a way that will be covered extensively by the national media. Sebelious offered a devastating, and extensive, critique of Palin, but that was alrgely overlooked by the mainstream press. If Hillary focused her attack skills on Palin(to the same degree she focused them on her Democratic opponents during the primaries) the effect would be devastating.

This is the one thing Hillary can do for the Democratic Party.

And the one thing she appears unwilling to do.

Why? It makes no sense, particularly given how Palin regularly invokes Hillary's 18 million supporters as if they now belong to her by default. So why won't Hillary put Sarah in her place?

The way I see it, Hillary is still bitter about losing the nomination and would prefer to see Obama lose the election so she can run again in 4 years, probably under the slogan 'I Told You So'. So much for loyalty to the Democratic Party.