With friends like these . . .

Dick Cheney has endorsed John McCain. Wow !!

That's really gonna to shake things up, ya think? You betcha.

Or maybe not, because in fact it was the Obama campaign that gleefully sent out a press notice about it. And here's what Obama told people in Colorado:

I'd like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it. That endorsement didn't come easy. Senator McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it. He served as Washington's biggest cheerleader for going to war in Iraq, and supports economic policies that are no different from the last eight years. So Senator McCain worked hard to get Dick Cheney's support.

But here's my question for you, Colorado: do you think Dick Cheney is delighted to support John McCain because he thinks John McCain's going to bring change? Do you think John McCain and Dick Cheney have been talking about how to shake things up, and get rid of the lobbyists and the old boys club in Washington? . . .

So George Bush may be in an undisclosed location, but Dick Cheney's out there on the campaign trail because he'd be delighted to pass the baton to John McCain. He knows that with John McCain you get a twofer: George Bush's economic policy and Dick Cheney's foreign policy – but that's a risk we cannot afford to take.

With 85% of people saying the country is on the wrong track, and with even George Bush aware enough that he needs to lay low this week to avoid negative publicity for McCain, what possessed them to roll out his endorsement now? Here's a clue: they did it on a Saturday, which is the time you usually try to bury something that has to come out, but you'd rather it didn't.

So I'm guessing that it was not a prized tactical coup but that they had held Cheney off as long as they could. I suppose, if the VP really really wants to endorse you, it's sort of hard to say no.

Somehow I don't think this is going to be the November surprise that turns things around. Or maybe it's only a Halloween joke that arrived a little late?

Ralph

Maybe things will be different . . .

My friend Mickey at 1boringoldman.com (link in our list to the right) has a couple of great quotes worth copying here about what might be the outcome of an Obama mandate. The first is from Eli blogging at firedoglake.com:

Last week I was wondering what the story of the 2008 election would be, and worrying that it would be a reprise of 2006’s Glorious Victory For Centrism narrative. But as David Sirota has repeatedly reminded us, McCain and the GOP have made that impossible by repeatedly insisting that Barack Obama is The Most Liberal Senator Ever, a socialist, a (gasp) wealth-spreader.

By transforming Obama into Karl Marx, the Republicans have transformed his mandate into a socialist mandate, or at least a progressive one. If he wins big, it means words like "socialist" and "liberal" have lost their stigma. It means Americans want better healthcare, education, regulation, and infrastructure, and that they would rather "spread the wealth" than consolidate it. It means that America is a progressive nation, not a center-right one.

The other is from Barak Obama, speaking yesterday in Iowa:

"I expect we’re gonna see a lot more of that over the next four days. More of the ’slash and burn’ ’say-anything, do-anything’ politics; throw everything up at the refrigerator, see if anything sticks. A message that’s designed to divide and distract, to tear us apart instead of bringing us together. You know a couple of elections ago there was a presidential candidate who decried this kind of attacks and condemned these kind of tactics. And I admired him for it. He said ‘I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land.’ Those words were spoken eight years ago by my opponent John McCain. But the high road didn’t lead him to the White House then, so he’s decided to take a different route. I know campaigns are tough, because we have real differences about big issues. We care passionately about this country’s future. Make no mistake, we will respond swiftly and forcefully with the truth to whatever falsehoods they throw our way in these last four days. The stakes are too high to do anything less. But Iowa, at this moment, in this election, we have the chance to do more than just beat back this kind of politics short-term; we have a chance to end it once and for all. We have a chance to prove that one thing more powerful than the politics of anything goes, the one thing the cynics don’t count on, is the will of the American people. We have the chance to prove that we are more than a collection of red states and blue states, we are the United States of America. The voters are in a serious mood. they want to talk about the things that make a difference in people lives. That’s the type of campaign were gonna run and that’s how we’re gonna win on November 4th."

Ralph

Getting Ugly in North Carolina

Things are getting really ugly in NC. This was printed in the High Point Enterprise. It is so willfully ignorant and malicious that there's really nothing anyone can do to refute it. The whole thing is one big lying screed. And I'm not even going to mention the illogical positions and juxtapositions of the bilelike drool that he tries to pawn off as ideas. The type of mind that would produce this is beyond closed. It's huddled in the back of a lightless cave that has been sealed off for centuries. The best we can hope is that civilization proceeds apace and that neanderthals like this will soon die out.

This was published in the High Point Enterprise by Bob McLaughlin a
citizen of High Point in Thursday's paper: 10 Reasons Why People Would Vote for Obama
>
> 1. You are a Marxist. You believe in stifling government
regulation, redistribution of income, confiscatory taxation,
penalizing success, subsidizing failure and promoting dependency.
>
> 2. You are a multi-cultural internationalist. You reject American
exceptionalism. You believe western culture is inferior to others and
America is a "mean" country. You would rather be called a world
citizen than an American citizen.
>
> 3. You are a "religious" environmentalist. You worship the
creation while ignoring the Creator. You accept doubtful climate
change theory without question and believe we should spend billions of
dollars to combat it.
>
> 4. You take a utilitarian view of life and support the culture of
death with it's unrestricted abortion, infantcide, physician-assisted
suicide and ultimately euthanasia.
>
> 5. You are a radical feminist who believes that all differences
between men and women should be suppressed and that the sexes are
interchangeable, not complimentary, even if this undermines the family
structure.
>
> 6. You reject the "antiquated" concept of restricting sex to a
monogamous relationship between a man and a woman and believe that the
homosexual agenda should be promoted even to very young children. You
want Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
>
> 7. You believe that America's enemies are better appeased than
confronted.
>
> 8. You would subordinate the rights of free speech and freedom of
religion to other more important objectives - ie, "hate speech" laws
and sexual orientation equality.
>
> 9. You would rescind or at least ignore the 2nd amendment rights
(owning guns). (That's another subject I haven't proached yet. CJ)
>
> 10. You are not "religious" but believe that all religions should
be tolerated except for Christianity and observant Judaism. After
all, biblical Christianity is too mythical and restrictive, and the
Zionists are responsible for most of the world's problems.
>
>
>

Sarah, please study the Constitution

Either Sarah Palin is woefully ignorant of the Constitution and has a basic misunderstanding of our civil liberties, or else she once again is "just saying things" to rile up fear and hatred in her equally ignorant base.

The latest example is her saying, in a radio interview, that her criticisms of Barak Obama for his past associations with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright are not negative attacks, and she's being unfairly and dangerously accused of it. "If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

How do they do it? What do Republicans put in their children's pablum? How do they learn so thoroughly that: if I do it, it is my God-given, Constitutional right; but if you do it, you're threatening my God-given, Constitutional right?

Salon's Glenn Greenwad explains why this argument is frighteningly wrong:

If anything, Palin has this exactly backwards, since one thing that the First Amendment does actually guarantee is a free press. Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged.

This isn't only about profound ignorance regarding our basic liberties, though it is obviously that. Palin is also giving voice here to the standard right-wing grievance instinct: that it's inherently unfair when they're criticized. And now, apparently, it's even unconstitutional.

According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers. The First Amendment was meant to ensure that powerful political officials would not be "attacked" in the papers. Is it even possible to imagine more breathtaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office?

I think their flawed thinking is even more basic. They simply do not distinguish criticism and censorship. Nobody is unplugging her microphone -- but that's what she wants to do to the press. No one is telling Sarah Palin she doesn't have the right to lie about Obama's associations. By the same token, the press has every right -- in fact, the duty -- to say her statements are untrue, misleading, defamatory, and possibly even inciting to violence.

Obama's "associations?" Palin probably doesn't know of the Supreme Court's long-established precedent that the First Amendment's phrase "right of the people peaceably to assemble" includes "freedom of association." She might not want to go too far down that road anyway, given that her husband has been a member of a political party that advocates rebellion against the United States, a party to whom she has also sent a Governor's warm welcome video for their convention.

So, dear uneducated, prejudiced, arrogant Sarah, please study the Constitution before you run for president in 2012. Your ignorance is appalling.

Ralph

Why polls differ

Polls differ for a number of reasons: How representative is the sample? Do the number of Democrats and Republicans mirror the percentage in the population? Do the pollsters report raw data or used weighted factors to correct for skewed demographic samples? How do they identify "likely" voters? If they don't include cell phone calls, the youth vote is undersampled. How are the questions worded? How big is the uncommitted group? Do they push these people to make a choice? In a binary poll, with only two candidates listed, are third party candidates registered as uncommitted?

What's emerging in this race as a major factor is how the different pollsters decide on "likely" voters. Some pollsters simply ask if you plan to vote and, if so, report your choice. Others also consider your voting history. Have you voted before? With the millions of newly registered voters this time, it makes a difference.

Gallup reports both: that's why on RealClearPolitics the daily polls will have two Gallup results. For today, Gallup has Obama leading by 5% in its "traditional" poll (intend to vote and voted before) but by 7% in its "expanded" poll (intend to vote)

Another source of error is a sample that inaccurately reflects political party affiliation. The Fox News poll out today has Obama leading by 3%, but it's been criticized because they use the ratio of Democrats to Republican party registration from the 2004 election, but that has changed markedly since 2004 with a big shift toward the Democrats.

In contrast, the new CBS/New York Times poll has Obama 52% to McCain 41%. This poll identifies likely voters simply by their stated intention. They have made an estimate that 13% of registered voters will be voting for the first time; in the poll, those voters choose Obama by 2:1. If that holds up, it will be a big win.

**CAUTION** The only poll that counts is the count at the polls on election day.

Ralph

Obama's prime-time 30

Media headlines are calling it Obama's "infomercial," or his "commercial ad," which of course it was. But it was so much more than what was implied by those words. It was the essence of the man and what his campaign is about. It was a taste of what it might be like with this man in the White House. As someone said, "Obama has revived the fireside chat." Only those old enough to remember FDR will quite appreciate that; Jimmy Carter tried, with his cardigans, but he didn't capture the tone. Obama does.

Snarky critics said it was boring, there was nothing new. Of course there wasn't. Everything's been said, and it wasn't meant to entertain Obama's opponents or the jaded pundits.

It spoke to the American people about what they can expect from an Obama presidency, beginning with a man who understands and cares, one who has solutions to propose and a vision to inspire. At a time when McCain, Palin, and Elizabeth Dole are wallowing in campaign mud of the worst sort, he spoke not a word of attack against his opponent. He raised the level of campaign image and language to one we can be proud of.

Norman Ornstein, scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute said:

Was it effective? You bet! It was a great piece of television, flawlessly produced and paced beautifully. It reinforced every theme Obama wants to hit. . . . At this stage of a campaign, control of the message for each day is critical. Today and tomorrow, Obama controls the message. For McCain, the bad news is this: If you are behind with six days to go, you can't afford to lose two of them.

Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics, said:

It was brilliant to end the half hour magazine-show style presentation by moving to a live closing. Realizing the show was suddenly live sent a jolt of electricity through the room in which I was watching; everyone sat up and gasped.

The live ending reflected back on the prior half hour: here was Obama, looking and sounding exactly as he did in the produced segment, and this was real, so what came before must have been real, too. It also sent a very eloquent metamessage: that Obama could time the closing of his talk to tens of thousands of people so perfectly and seamlessly, gave the impression of control, discipline, and breathtaking competence that are exactly what is needed in a leader, especially now.

I only want to add my heartfelt admiration for the campaign that Obama and Axelrod and Plouff have run. This production was the culmination of everything that has gone right. There has never been anything like it: unprecedented involvement of millions of new voters, prodigious internet fund-raising, a message of coherence and consistency, a tone of dignity, family warmth, and humor. It has reflected the candidate himself, who of course is ultimately responsible. Not since the youthful John Kennedy occupied the White House have I felt such pride in my president.

OK. I'm jumping ahead. If that's problem, save it and read it next week.

Ralph

Life imitates art

Not being a regular TV watcher, I only saw a few episodes of West Wing, the popular TV show about a fictional president which ended its run in 2006. Today's New York Times features an article about the origins of the story line of a new election between a rising minority (Hispanic) senator, played by Jimmy Smits, and an older white senator, played by Alan Alda.

According to the article, when the script writer Eli Atti was sketching out the series, he called an acquaintance to get some information about this young Illinois state senator who was running for the U.S. Senate, who gave such a powerful keynote address at the 2004 DNC convention. The man he called was David Axelrod, Obama's campaign manager. They had several long conversations about Obama's refusal to be defined by his race and his aspirations to bridge the partisan divide. All that went into creating the fictional Senator Matthew Santos.

Look back now at the parallels where life has imitated the fictional depiction of how those values might play out:

Santos is a 40-something, coalition building, Congressional newcomer of a minority race, who against all odds enters the Democratic primary for president; and, after a long fought battle against the establishment candidate, wins. One of his campaign slogans is: "I am here to tell you that hope is real !" He also says, "I don't want to just be the brown candidate. I want to be the American candidate."

The general election then pits him against Republican Arnold Vinick, a white-haired, maverick senator from a Western state, with a reputation for delivering "straight talk" to the press, for sometimes bucking the establishment, and for appealing to moderate voters. Others complain he's not conservative enough. One of the show's producers has said that the 2004 McCain (as opposed to the 2008 McCain) was one of the "templates" for the character.

Jokes are made about Vinick's lack of computer skills. Santos' staff want to make videos of him with his "adorable young children hugging their hale and vital dad." Santos delivers a speech on race at a critical moment for his campaign.

Also interesting are the fictional VP choices: Santos chooses a Washington veteran with foreign policy experience; Vinick picks a staunchly conservative governor to shore up his base.

And the Phillies played in the World Series during the election campaign.

Oh, and who won the election? The Democrat Santos, but only after "a grueling election night," where it all came down to Nevada. Hmmm.

Ralph