’08 Election

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Random Musings

oh ye of little faith

Fear not, liberals progressives.  Barack hasn’t abandoned you.  He still believes in all those progressive ideas he started out believing at the beginning of his primary campaign.  Pay no attention to the appearance of centrism you may think that you see.  The progressive Barack is the real Barack…and you can trust him on that.  For the record, I believe him. I think that all these attempts to paint Obama as a flip-flopper on Iraq are misguided, because his position has always been somewhat nuanced…except for the times he implied that he supported immediate withdrawal from Iraq.  This was the position progressives liked very much and many of them supported him over Hillary because they thought he was for immediate withdrawal.  Joke’s on them I guess.  It’s an unusual talent some of these Democrat politicians have — to convince each person that the politician actually shares their values.  Barack is especially good at doing this, and it shouldn’t come as a shock that he hasn’t been exactly what progressives expected him to be.

Those who bought into Barack’s promise of a new kind of politics must not have been around the game long enough to be cynical about promises like that.  It’s still hard to condemn the idealism that all these young voters have brought to the process.  We would all like to believe a candidate that we work for has the ability to be transformative and bring needed change to the Washington establishment.  When we find out that the guy or gal we campaign for isn’t everything we expected, it does cause some to be disallusioned with the process. But in this case, did these progressives believe that Barack was going to continue to speak their language going into the general election against John McCain?  Surely they know deep down Barack is still one of them, no matter what he’s saying right now. If not, they should believe it.  It’s far more likely that Barack will stay left once elected than it is that he will embrace some kind of new centrism that is closer to George W. Bush than it is to Bill Clinton.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

reshuffling the deck chairs

This weekend there were several articles about new and potential additions to the McCain campaign team that could help McCain stem the pro-Obama tide and keep him from suffering a painful loss to Obama in the fall.  If only this simple thing would completely solve McCain’s problems, then I would feel a whole lot better about his chances in November.  It won’t.  There are a few things that the best strategists in the world can’t fix for McCain — although I’m sure that we will see significant improvement over the status quo.

The McCain campaign has blown the head start they had back when McCain first clinched the Republican nomination.  They had the opportunity to define Barack Obama and to explain the glaring differences between McCain and Obama.  Consider this a missed opportunity. They allowed the narrative about Obama to be more about his questionable associations than about his policy positions,  and this was a mistake.  The Jeremiah Wright association raised some questions about Barack, no question, but this by itself isn’t enough to keep voters from voting for Barack Obama.  Much of this lack of contrast should be blamed on McCain’s staff.

It would take some kind of miracle worker to transform McCain into the polished product Obama has become (at least when he’s on script).   McCain can hire all of the brilliant strategists he can afford and keep reshuffling the deck chairs on the campaign team, and maybe he can improve enough so he’s not as painful to watch.   One thing all these strategists cannot fix is that after all the tweaks and suggestions they offer — McCain is still McCain.  He will always be a drastic contrast to Barack Obama.  He is older, less personable, way too familiar with the Washington crowd, and he doesn’t really enjoy talking to people.  Even many Republicans find Barack appealing, although they may find some of his policy proposals alarming.

McCain doesn’t fare quite so well in the popularity department.  He is a bona-fide expert at losing friends and alienating people in his own party.  Some Republicans can’t stand him and they would rather roll the dice with Obama than reward McCain with the presidency.  Deep down they know what the smart decision is (at least in my view) but it will be difficult for them to follow through when their nominee disagrees with them on more than one key issue  — not only that, but he actively disparages their views while pandering to the moderates/ independents.  One thing that could save McCain is if my fellow Republicans swallow their dislike of McCain at least until after the election and vote for him in order to keep Barack Obama from being our next president.  Even then, it might not be enough to put McCain over the top in November.  Good luck to the present and future strategists tasked with saving McCain.  It won’t be easy.

Posted on '08 Election, Liberals

out of touch

In case we have forgotten about the severe left-ward bent of the New York Times, a new editorial puts in all back into focus.  In “A Supreme Court on the Brink” they worry about the future direction of the Supreme Court, specifically that a McCain administration could undo all the liberal decisions the Supremes have made over the years, including Roe V. Wade.  This is a needless fear.   Not even Reagan managed to accomplish that goal, and McCain can hardly be accused of such extreme conservatism.  McCain will keep his word on this, if not on anything else, but conservatives shouldn’t get their hopes up that McCain could get a Samuel Alito or John Roberts through the expected Democratic majority in Congress.  Unless the Democrats inexplicably cave in, there’s no way this will happen.  A more plausible scenario is that McCain attempts to put through judges the base approves of, and he is brutally rebuffed by the Democrats.  Then he gives in and nominates someone like Harriet Miers.  Yikes.  Of course this all assumes McCain beats Barack Obama.  Is the New York Times worried about their golden boy’s chances in November?  Say it ain’t so guys.

Some of the Court’s rulings were questionable, and the assessment of their overall record this year as “muddled” is a fair way of describing it.  Even so, I shouldn’t be surprised that the New York Times wants to be on the record supporting the Court’s decision denying the death penalty to the child rapist.  The ruling was misguided to say the least.  If we are going to have the death penalty as a punishment for crime, not too many crimes are worse than child rape.  The child will be scarred for life.  I’m not sure that life in prison is a sufficient punishment for what the child went through at the hands of this monster. Then there’s the more well-known decision to give habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo detainees who — may I remind everyone — are not American citizens.  It’s a bad idea to give foreigners access to American courts, and I still haven’t heard a great explanation of why Constitutional rights and protections can be given to non-citizens.  At least the New York Times is consistent in their worldview and we know what to expect from the majority of their columnists and their op-eds.

Those of us on the right always point to stuff like this as a example of how out of touch the mainstream media is (and the New York Times usually provides most of the ammunition for these critiques).  If we spent half as much time focusing on what we can do to fix what the Republican politicians have broken, we might have more of a reason for confidence going into November.  As it stands now, we have an uphill climb ahead of us.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

bad idea

Dick Morris gets too much attention for his views on politics in general and  the ’08 race in particular.  He occasionally gets the analysis right, but this time I think he’s giving McCain bad advice on VP choices.  His whole premise is that McCain needs a WOW choice, someone who will excite voters into giving his candidacy a second look.  So far he’s making sense.   Then he suggests three choices:  Condi Rice, Colin Powell, and Joe Lieberman.  Sorry, I’m not feeling the excitement here.  Condi Rice and Colin Powell would be minority candidates with long resumes, and would add diversity to the ticket, but they are also tied to previous administrations and the war in Iraq.  McCain needs to make a clean break from the Bush administration, and picking Condi Rice or Colin Powell would not accomplish this objective.

Then there’s the Democrats’ favorite non-Democrat Joe Lieberman.   Does Morris really think that independents and moderates will flock to McCain’s side because he picks Joe Lieberman?  Joe Lieberman is not even all that popular in his own party.  I can’t see him adding much of value to a McCain ticket.  Even though Lieberman is reasonably popular with conservatives solely because of his support of the war in Iraq,  he is even more moderate than McCain on social issues, and this pick wouldn’t help McCain hold on to the conservatives who have resigned themselves to our Republican nominee.

McCain should keep looking and expand his Republican prospects beyond Pawlenty, Crist,  Ridge, Portman and some of the other no-names on his list.  Romney’s not the guy, and I can’t see how McCain picks him after their heated primary battle and Romney’s lack of credibility with voters.  (Before I get too much flack over this comment, let me just say that this is the way I think the public in general sees Romney.  It’s not my personal view of the man, and I would be perfectly happy with him as the Republican nominee for President or VP.  Just not in 2008.)

5 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

silly democrats

Let me get this straight — John McCain’s military service doesn’t qualify him to be commander in chief, but John Kerry’s does?  That’s the unusual logic employed by Obama supporter, failed presidential candidate, and retired military guy General Wesley Clark.   Surely General Clark remembers his glowing comments about Senator Kerry and his war record, and let’s be absolutely clear about this — Kerry ran on that record until he was derailed by the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.  The Democrats seem conflicted about whether military service matters to presidential candidates.  Clinton = No.   Kerry=Yes.  McCain = Absolutely not.  Curious how military service only adds to your qualifications for commander-in-chief if you are a Democrat.

That’s ok though.  This is a debate I’m comfortable having with the Democrats all day long.  While it’s true that having military service doesn’t automatically qualify you to be President of the United States, McCain’s long record of public service, including serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee,  speaks to much more experience than Senator Obama has.   So Senator Obama’s surrogates like Clark want to question McCain’s experience. Ha.  Go ahead.    Do you really want to compare Obama and McCain on overall experience?  Good luck.

1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

funny stuff i read today

Rich Lowry on the plight of Sens. Dodd and Conrad and their involvement with Countrywide Financial:

It’s not easy being a U.S. senator. People trick you into taking special favors you didn’t even know existed. Shame on these unscrupulous people!

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, both Democrats, fell victim to the machinations of Countrywide Financial, which gave them breaks on mortgages as part of the “Friends of Angelo” program; the “Angelo” in question is Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo.

Of course they are just innocent bystanders in this whole thing, and totally clueless about any additional benefit they would be receiving.  Right.

Michael Graham mocks Mr. Hope and Change.

But I, for one, am hopeful that Obama will at least go through the motions of an election before he seizes power and institutes a new regime of lower tides, healed souls and 53 percent federal marginal tax rates.

Heh.   Whatever you may think of the Bush administration or the possibility of McCain continuing some of the Bush policies, it’s hard to believe that a President Obama could meet these staggeringly high expectations he and his campaign have set in front of the American people.  This difficulty is entirely Obama’s own fault.  He should start smaller and work up to the lower tides and healed souls.  Just my opinion. It also might be a good idea to stop giving the right so many easy targets.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

there he goes again

We should be so proud of our Republican nominee.  He’s very good at sounding like a Democrat.  John McCain opposes domestic oil drilling in ANWR, and I’m guessing that would mean he’s not onboard with this offshore drilling bill that just got killed in the House.  It might actually get some traction if it had McCain’s support.  He also conveniently missed the Senate vote on a windfall profits tax. The House Dems continue to insist that even if we started to drill our own oil, it still wouldn’t make a difference with gas prices.  Are they serious about this?  Are they so beholden to the enviro-nuts that they can’t see how much sense this makes?  I’m at a loss here.  The American people want us to use our own resources to combat high fuel prices, as well as decrease our dependence on foreign oil.  If the Congress even bothered to ask us, I’m confident that the majority would support offshore drilling.

I should expect such behavior from the Democrats,  but John McCain has gone out of his way to parrot their rhetoric and copy their talking points.  Today he’s taking on the overpaid CEOs, just like Barack and Hillary before him.  Those CEOs make too much money and they need to be more accountable to their shareholders, McCain says.  While I’m not entirely opposed to more accountability for CEOs,  I’m not convinced that he has the best solution to that with giving shareholders a vote on CEO pay.  John McCain seems to think that he won this nomination without many conservatives, and therefore he can do and say whatever he wants — but maybe the reason for this mind meld with Barack on these issues isn’t because he wants payback from us.

My theory is that the whole point behind McCain’s strategy is to say loud and clear to the former Hillary supporters and others — “I’M NOT BUSH”.  See…I believe in global warming, windfall profits taxes, not drilling for our own oil, and punishing the producers in this country for their success.  I’m not so scary.  That’s McCain’s new message, and I hate it.  Maybe he can convince enough people of his own worth that he can become president in spite of himself.   But at the end of the process,  we are all going to go into the next 4-8 years with our eyes wide open about both candidates, and that’s not a bad thing.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

uneasy relationship

Bob Novak has a column today about McCain’s attempts to reach out to Christian conservatives.  He argues that McCain hasn’t managed to close the deal with them.  There are a variety of reasons for this, and Novak lists a few of them.  There’s one he overlooked.  McCain, despite his personal faith in God, does not have much in common with evangelicals.  He doesn’t speak about his faith very much, if at all.  He doesn’t speak their language, and he’s not George W. Bush (who was much more comfortable doing both of those things).  McCain isn’t one of them, and they knew that before he (out of political necessity) threw John Hagee and Rod Parsley under his bus.

McCain may have gotten popular with some Democrats and with the media by opposing some of the policies of the Bush administration, but those days are long gone.   It doesn’t help him to lose leading evangelicals from his camp, but losing conservatives would be far more damaging in November.  I hope that the McCain people recognize this weakness, and that they try to fix it.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

smart move

Barack Obama and his team of advisors don’t really want to pick Hillary as VP.  We all know this.  So how does he deny her a spot on the ticket without alienating her supporters?  Simple.  Jackie Calmes reports in the Wall Street Journal that they would ask Bill to disclose donors to his presidential library, and both of them would have to go through a thorough vetting process (that could potentially disclose more skeletons in the Clinton closet) in order for her to even be considered as a potential VP.   Looks like a deal-breaker to me. Genius move.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

our democratic nominee

First of all, I want to congratulate Senator Barack Obama for running an outstanding campaign (for the most part) and especially for defeating the Clinton machine.  Hillary is still standing, but my guess is that it won’t be for much longer.  He deserves credit for finding and exploiting the weaknesses in the Hillary candidacy, and for using his natural abilities to claim the second highest political title in the United States as one of the two candidates for president.   His achievement here is historic, and should be noted as such.

However, I fail to see why I should join in this collective group hug even though this milestone has been reached.  My intention is not to minimize what Barack has done.  I respect that achievement, but it would have the same distinction no matter which African-American became the first Democratic nominee for president.  We have our nominees — both imperfect representatives of their respective parties — and it is up to us to do our own homework and decide for ourselves which candidate can best represent our interests.  That would be easier to do if we could separate our personal feelings for Barack Obama with his ability to do the top job in the country.   It would also help if the media would do its job and keep both sides honest.  Guess that’s just too much to ask of them.