Month: September 2008

1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

worthy of note

I was going to give my in depth analysis of Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech Wednesday night, but wouldn’t you all rather read what Michael Barone had to say about it?  She had a very strong debut, but she does have more work to do.  The McCain campaign is doing a smart thing by keeping her away from the Sunday shows for now, but eventually she’s going to have to do some interviews and finish off Joe Biden to show that she can handle herself without a script.  I feel more confident about this than I did before her speech on Wednesday, and I am cautiously optimistic that she can survive whatever the media decides to throw at her. The McCain campaign should be wary of casting Palin as a victim, because it’s quite clear that she can take the punches.

About McCain’s acceptance speech — he got through it ok, no thanks to the Code Pink morons who interrupted him at the beginning.  Obama will always have the edge in speechmaking ability, but John McCain’s life story is compelling, and McCain told that story as well as he could.  The McCain campaign does need to be more judicious with the use of McCain’s military service and former POW status in speeches and rallies, because he runs the risk of trivializing that service.  Take John Kerry for example — the running gag is that, by the way, did you know he served in Vietnam?  McCain’s military service is a wonderful example of service to our country above and beyond the call of duty.  I respect it, but he can’t win an election without talking about kitchen table issues in addition to his bio.

Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

rnc: random thoughts from red meat day

Before I get to Governor Palin’s wonderful speech,  there are several other things that struck me as the RNC proceeds forward to the acceptance speech by McCain tonight.  The first is that there aren’t many conservative women in the GOP pipeline contesting Senate races or any higher state offices.  What does it say about this party that the “qualified” women suggested for McCain’s VP pick aren’t conservatives?  Olympia Snowe, Elizabeth Dole, and Kay Hutchison, while they may be conservative enough for some people, don’t bring much to the table for McCain, and it wouldn’t bring in those independent and moderates, or even the Hillary voters.  They would have done even less for the social conservative base than any other candidate on McCain’s shortlist.

There is more work that needs to be done on the grassroots level to recruit more women and minorities.   While it’s a myth that the Republican party doesn’t have anything to offer those two groups and working people,  we have continued to allow the media to push this narrative — and we don’t have much ammo to use even if we fought back against it.  This needs to change.  We do have ideas that work for these groups — at least conservatives do — but the failures of current Congressional Republicans have damaged the Republican brand, and it’s hard for the American people to trust us to deal with everyday problems.

This is why Mitt Romney’s message fell flat last night.  Republicans are part of the problem in Washington.  Many of them have surrendered to Democratic rule, and they have allowed too many earmarks to go through.  They compromised on pieces of bad legislation with the Democrats.  It fires up Republican crowds to talk about all those bad “liberals”, but what resonance would it have with the rest of the American voters?  Mitt isn’t comfortable in the role of the attack dog.  The speech he gave last night was fiery, and full of stuff conservatives like to hear, but I thought that his delivery was slightly over-the-top.  Just a minor style point in an otherwise effective speech.

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10 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Democrats, George W. Bush, Liberals, Republicans

rnc: the end and the beginning

There were three major storylines at the RNC today that had nothing to do with Sarah Palin.  The first was the ceremonial end of the Bush era.  The second was Fred’s red meat speech and his stirring account of McCain’s military service.  The third — Joe Lieberman incinerating those bridges between himself and the Democrats once and for all with his direct attacks on Barack Obama.

The Republicans need to do more to emphasize the differences between Bush and McCain, but they need to do this without completely abandoning Dubya.  There are those in the party who still love the guy, and we need all the votes we can get to defeat Barack Obama.  That’s why the President had to speak at the RNC, no matter how brief the speech would have to be.  I’m not sure that the President did much to advance McCain’s candidacy, but it was nice to give him one last hurrah in front of an appreciative crowd. We also saw a video tribute to Bush Sr. It was fitting that they gave all the Bushes their due at the last convention they will have with a Bush in the White House.  (Unless Jeb surprises us all someday…)

Fred Thompson’s speeches will never approach the eloquence of Senator Obama’s, but he was on fire tonight.

Here’s some of what he said about McCain:

Now, being a POW certainly doesn’t qualify anyone to be President. But it does reveal character. This is the kind of character that civilizations from the beginning of history have sought in their leaders. Strength. Courage. Humility. Wisdom. Duty. Honor. It’s pretty clear there are two questions we will never have to ask ourselves, ‘Who is this man?’ and ‘Can we trust this man with the Presidency?’ He has been to Iraq eight times since 2003. He went seeking truth, not publicity. When he travels abroad, he prefers quietly speaking to the troops amidst the heat and hardship of their daily lives. And the same character that marked John McCain’s military career has also marked his political career. This man, John McCain is not intimidated by what the polls say or by what is politically safe or popular. At a point when the war in Iraq was going badly and the public lost confidence, John stood up and called for more troops. And now we are winning. Ronald Reagan was John McCain’s hero. And President Reagan admired John tremendously. But when the President proposed putting U.S. troops in Beirut, John McCain, a freshman Congressman, stood up and cast a vote against his hero because he thought the deployment was a mistake. My friends … that is character you can believe in.

Zing.  Character matters, at least it does for Republicans.  That’s the main question we have been asking about Barack Obama from the beginning — who is this guy and can we trust him with the Presidency?  Love or hate John McCain — you know where he stands.

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Posted on Conservatives, Republicans

cut it out

So says Barack to the rumor mongers:

At a press avail in Monroe, Mich., Barack Obama on Palin: “Back off these kinds of stories.

“I have said before, and I will repeat again: People’s families are off-limits,” Obama said. “And people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics.”

On charges that his campaign has stoked the story via liberal blogs:

“I am offended by that statement. There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us,” he said. “Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I thought there was somebody in my campaign who was involved in something like that, they would be fired.”

Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

partisan hackery

The new politics of the Obama fans — sheep, I call them — sure looks a lot like the old politics.  Is it too much to ask that attacks on Governor Palin are based on facts and not idle speculation by the Daily Kos and Andrew Sullivan???  I’m not going to give either site the benefit of a link because they should be ashamed of themselves for printing the rumors about Governor Palin’s son Trig actually being her daughter’s child.  No proof here…but why should that surprise us?  If Daily Kos or Andrew Sullivan had any credibility with me before, this stunt would have changed that in a hurry.  Like I said, old politics.  Time for Obama to throw some more acquaintances under his bus.  There should be no place for this in this campaign season.

Now before I am accused of a double standard, let me just say,  I had nothing to do with any rumors that may have been spread about Senator Obama being a Muslim, or terrorist, or any of that.  I don’t believe any of those rumors, and neither do the American people. That’s the point.  As despicable as this is, these rumors won’t stick without proof.  Same with Governor Palin.  The burden of proof doesn’t lie with the McCain campaign, it lies with Sullivan and Daily Kos, because these sites are the ones making these serious allegations.

We can all be partisan without being ugly and resorting to this garbage.

And for the record,  Amanda Carpenter at Townhall reports that:

DailyKos is is wrong on when the photo was taken. It was taken, and published, by the Anchorage Daily News in 2006. Baby Trig, a Down’s Syndrome child, was born on April 18, 2008. That’s a long time for a teen girl to be carrying a “bump” which looks nothing more than the curve of a tight sweater.

Indeed.  I know what to expect from those two sites I mentioned, but I never expected this guy would be part of advancing this fraudulent story.