Completely Unnecessary

There are 25 days left in the race, and - barring the mother of all October surprises - the electoral map looks as though it’s becoming nearly impossible for McCain.

West Virginia is in play, for god’s sake.

Nearly every pollster, including right-leaning, has Obama above the 270 threshold. Many have him well into the 300s.

The angry tenor of McCain/Palin rallies has garnered the attention of the Secret Service. Today the cable channels ran with video of McCain having to grab the mic back from Minnesota supporter who called Obama ‘an arab’. This also happened:

When a man told him he was “scared” of an Obama presidency, Mr. McCain replied, “I want to be president of the United States and obviously I do not want Senator Obama to be, but I have to tell you — I have to tell you — he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.” The crowd booed loudly at Mr. McCain’s response.

The campaign is way off on its tone. Average people - notably the independents and right-leaning Dems McCain needs to pull - don’t want ranting crowds with pitchforks.

How can we tell? Well, Norm Coleman senate race is a fair indicator.

Coleman (R-MN) has seen his solid lead over Al Franken collapse in the last few days. Coleman’s response? Get as far away from the McCain strategy as possible. He’s stopped running all negative ads in the ‘nice’ state. [Update: Coleman also pulled out of a planned appearance with McCain.]

The question now becomes how many will McCain drag down with him. Minnesota voters no doubt got footage of that nasty rally on all channels tonight. Coleman’s move clearly indicates his desire to seperate himself from the kind of negativity that’s now associated with the top of his ticket.

It might not work.

Senate races all over the country that have no business being in play are up for grabs. Coleman’s seat was always going to face a strong challenge, but Georgia?

Saxby Chambliss might actual lose his seat to Jim Martin. And last night’s debate appears not to have gone well for the incumbent.

If you’re a returning reader your likely question is (as always), ‘What’s the point of all this?’

If McCain looks like he’s going to go down hard, the RNC is likely to use its money to staunch the bleeding in Senate and House races. If you’re thinking about making a political donation, it might be time to think about at least splitting your donation between Obama and some seat races.

Some choices:

• Al Franken in Minnesota
• Kay Hagen in North Carolina
• Jeff Merkley in Oregon
• Jim Martin in Georgia
• Ronnie Musgrove in Mississippi (B)
• hell, even Mitch McConnell’s seat might be within reach - Bruce Lunsford in Kentucky

Putting money into House races also stretches your contribution dollar (though donations to Obama invariably help candidates downticket as well).

60 in the Senate seemed unthinkable even just a short time ago. Despite my general advocacy of divided government, it’s hard to look at that number and not try to reach for it.

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[Editor's Note: Have tried to remove jinx factor...]

It’s a question that - I swear to god - didn’t occur to me until today.

With the race seemingly tightening up, it might be time to have a look.

In Illinois, the governor replaces the sitting Senator until the next Congressional election. This means that Rod Blagojevich (D) will fill Obama’s seat and that person will be up for re-election in 2010.

For those of you not from Illinois - here’s the political lay of the land:

Blagojevich essentially comes from the Chicago Machine, but has a weird relationship to it. He’s the son-in-law of Chicago boss Dick Mell, who put him in the governor’s office. Blago and Mell, however, more or less openly dislike each other.

Blagojevich’s other main problem is Illinois House Speaker and IL Democratic Party Leader Mike Madigan, who pretty much hates his guts. Madigan has done everything in his power to thwart Blagojevich over the last few years. Madigan’s daughter, Lisa Madigan, is the Attorney General and a likely candidate for governor in 2010.

Not that Blago has helped himself much. He’s almost certainly had some quite dirty dealings, and it most likely ‘Public Official A’ in Peter Fitzgerald’s most recent excursion into Illinois corruption. Between this and the Congressional gridlock he’s helped to create, Illinois voters are extremely pissed off.

Sure they returned him to office in 2006, but his opponent Judy Baar Topinka inspired a lot of nose-holding for downstate Republicans as well. The Green Party candidate got over 10% in that election, which is pretty unheard of for a third-party candidate in a gubernatorial election.

All caught up?

With this much hatred to spare, Blagojevich is likely to make a strategic appointment. He’s got enemies pretty much everywhere, but a couple of names stand out for consideration.

Lisa Madigan - she’s the Attorney General and well-liked. She’s likely to challenge him in 2010, so putting her in the Senate might keep her out the way. She’d have to choose between renewing her Senate seat or going for Blagojevich’s.

Any of the Chicago US House delegation - He’d get to make nice with the Machine, and appointing an African-American, like Davis, Rush or Jackson Jr., would give him support from the South Side in 2010.

Dan Hynes - Illinois Comptroller. Another likely candidate in 2010 - though one with less chance of beating Blagojevich in a primary. Would make Machine people happy though, and maybe get them off Blagojevich’s back.

Jim Oberweis - because it’s the only way Jim Oberweis is every going to get elected anything. Seriously, how freaking amazing would that be? I mean, aside from the reality of it.

Alan Keyes - is he still carpetbagging with us? He was Obama’s opponent in 2004, and… nah, can’t even write the end of that sentence seriously.

The Daily Herald also suggests Alexi Giannoulias, the State Treasurer, who Obama likes a lot. Bill Daley, the brother of Mayor Richard M. Daley. That seems over the top - I think people would be pretty up in arms about a Daley getting to the Senate without dead people voting for it or anything.

The DH also points out that Blagojevich could appoint himself and basically get the hell out of Illinois. The governor gig isn’t going so well, to be sure, but he’d be up again in 2010. I think once people picked their jaws up off the floor, they’d vote him straight out. Plus, the Democrats don’t need one of their senators dealing with corruption charges, which will almost certainly feature in Blago’s near future.

I’m not counting my chickens just yet, but it’s interesting to think about. And I know nothing about Arizona internal politics, so… yeah, who knows what happens if McCain wins?

God, you just know Jim Oberweis has thought about calling up Blago and offering his service.

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Hi both. I was teaching during the debate today and have an appointment now, so I’m furiously trying to watch part of the debate before I go.

I cannot tell you how much this is killing me.

Update: 7pm - Sigh. I’m still watching. I’m not going to bother commenting much, though, since it seems like everyone - including The Weekly Standard - is calling it for Obama.

It is - as many have pointed out - kinda boring. McCain didn’t totally explode (though he did call Obama ‘that one’) and Obama didn’t smack someone in the audience (though there was a lot of smirking when Obama was talking). McCain needed something awesome to happen. It didn’t.

If you want to fact check the debate - the NYT has an article up. You can also check out FactCheck.org or Politifact who will have more detailed comments up tomorrow, presumably. CQ Politics also has some bests/worsts/mosts.

Ugg, I just watched McCain make a ‘joke’. His awkward laugh makes me so nervous every time. I pray that someone chuckles with him just for pity’s sake.

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[Updated below.]

On the day the Wellstone Bill was finally signed into law, Minnesota’s making me nervous.

Today’s SurveyUSA poll shows McCain with a 1% lead in the Humphrey/Mondale state.

It’s only one percent, I know. Here’s why that troubles me: Al Franken has been making inroads into Norm Coleman’s lead in the Senate race, but hasn’t been able to close the gap.

The most recent polling has Coleman with a ten point lead on October 1. The race seems to be trending away from the Democrat, and McCain might be able to ride Coleman’s coattails.

Franken might not be the best candidate (he’s a comedian and has been hit or miss with the tone of his campaign), but it’s hard to argue against Minnesota being a changing state.

In 2000, Gore won handily and the state handed the Green Party a large enough percentage to get them on the ballot.

Then 2002 happened. Tim Pawlenty won the gubernatorial election after the progressive vote was split between three strong candidates: a Dem, a Green and an Independent. Wellstone died nine days before the election, and the combination of the backlash at the memorial and replacement candidate Mondale’s mild campaigning style handed Coleman the election.

Minnesota Dems have had six years to organise to win back Wellstone’s seat - and their lack of success in this department has more to do with a gradual reddening of the state than Franken alone, I’d argue.

Minnesota’s been making me nervous for awhile now, though I didn’t add it in to my maps the other day. McCain’s pulling out of Michigan is going to allow him to put more resources into Wisconsin and Minnesota.  Wisconsin polling (and its proximity to Illinois) makes it seem pretty safe, but I think it’s time to start looking at the map without Minnesota.

Luckily, it doesn’t factor so long as Obama wins VA, CO, MI and PA. That still brings in 272.

[I know that lots of other electoral math has Obama way up - well into the 300s. After 2000 and 2004, I'm just a nervous, glass-half-full kind of bunny. I'm trying to be very conservative in what I think Obama will win.]

It just shouldn’t be this close. I guess it’s more the symbolism of Minnesota - this is, after all, the only state to go Democratic in Reagan’s 1984 rout.

And it would prove the Republicans right about their ability to take the state - they had their convention there for the same reason we had ours in Denver.

Kind of makes you wonder what might have happened if McCain had chosen Pawlenty instead of Palin. Might have really changed up the map.

Update: 538 notes that a STrib poll has Franken up 9 points versus the SurveyUSA’s 10-point Coleman lead. Nate argues that both polls are untrustworthy. I’d say, it shows that MN is anybody’s guess.

Also, speaking of 538 - they’re arguing that one of Nebraska’s electoral votes might be in play. (Maine and Nebraska split their votes). That’s incredible to think about…

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David Brooks weighs in on Palin’s debating techniques, and - as another testament to my studious work avoidance - I read his column.

Palin did great(ish), etc. Until:

With a bemused smile and a never-ending flow of words, she laid out her place on the ticket — as the fearless neighbor for the heartland bemused by the idiocies of Washington. Her perpetual smile served as foil to Biden’s senatorial seriousness.

I always have to look up ‘bemused’. I’m convinced that it should mean ‘vaguely confused amusement’, and fully expect that one day it will magically appear in the dictionary as such. So I keep looking.

Luckily, double clicking on any word on nyt.com brings up a definition of that word. So that’s how I know that, according to Brooks’ publication, Palin was:

So lost in thought as to be unaware of one’s surroundings: absent, absent-minded, abstracted, distrait, faraway, inattentive, preoccupied. Idioms: a million miles away. See ability/inability, awareness/unawareness.

Man, I agree with everyone these days!

Brooks goes on to ask, “Where was this woman was during her interview with Katie Couric?” Yes, because the antidote to ’senatorial seriousness’ is definitely what need on the Republican ticket - again.

And, finally, I can’t believe you’re going to make me go there, but all right:

…Palin broke no new ground, though she toured the landscape of McCain policy positions with surprising fluency… She was surprisingly forceful on the subject of Iran (pronouncing Ahmadinejad better than her running mate)…

If we’re really using pronunciation as the barometer of foreign policy depth, then her ‘mispronunciation’ of General McKiernan as “McClellan” certainly doesn’t bode well.

I mean, I don’t think it matters, but clearly Brooks must be worried about our policy in Afghanistan under a McCain/Palin Administration.

Dude, she can call Ahmadinejad ‘Joe SixPack’ for all I care, so long as she demonstrates an actual understanding of the world and its issues.

But - despite her folksy charm and well-rehearsed answers (and excellent pronunciation of words not ending in ‘g’) - that understanding is something she clearly lacks.

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Cathy rightly points out that Palin’s mic capture as she walked out on stage now totally makes sense.

The first thing she said was, “Can I call you Joe?” It must have been the set up for the ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe” line. Her handlers must have told her to ask so she wouldn’t sound insolent later.

Gawker is right to call that moment her ‘failed cute’ - as she tried to mix Black Sox baseball, Reagan and goshdearnitdagnabit. It’s clear that the thing was planned…. and then poorly-executed.

Oh yeah, and followed by a reference to Joe Biden’s wife going to Heaven. His second wife, of course. Ouch - way to not know anything about your opponent; I don’t think she’d be that crass.

Postscript - from the States (and deep into the scotch), Avi notes that ‘this election is a referendum on the collective intellect of America, for the rest of the world.’

Too true.

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It’s affecting Wall Street.

What?

Well that was… interesting.

The one moment that really stood out - except for the Wall Street thing and the ‘our freedoms!’ - was Biden choking up talking about his son. It was the one moment of the debate that really seemed true and not prepared.

Speaking of prepared, you could really tell when Palin switched onto her talking points. Which was most of the time.

I loved her answer about whether or not John McCain supported what Obama and Biden want to do with home loans. She quickly said ‘no’ and then moved on to energy policy. I get the feeling she had no idea what McCain does or does not think about that plan.

She looked terrified at first, but held onto the third act of the debate pretty well. Joe Biden occasionally looked like he wanted to reach over and put his hands on her (and not in a sexy way), but - aside from one loud intake of breath and a ‘whaaa’ face during her answer about the surge strategy in Afghanistan - he kept it under control.

There’s an art to deflecting the question and answering what you wished you were asked, but Palin’s not very good at it. It’s supposed to be subtle, so that you don’t notice. Palin’s gear changes are not smooth - she more or less just blinked at the housing question and then launched into energy policy. I had my own ‘waaaa?’ face.

Gwen Ifill was maybe a little nervous about that whole book thing and accusations of bias on her part. She really didn’t follow up on a lot of questions or, for instance, make Sarah Palin actually answer what she was asked. I expected Ifill to be tougher. Oh well.

As for the closing arguments - erhm, what was that from Palin? She did such a good job of memorizing her talking points and then the close was… weird. I guess it’s because she really gave her close in the question before, but… oh look, whatever, Obama’s gonna win.

Oh yeah, I also really liked when she said, “John McCain’s the man we need to leave… lead.” I completely agree with the first part of that sentiment.

Vaguely Related

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Apparently John McCain has pulled out of Michigan - stopping both his TV and direct mail campaigns.

Michigan is still in the toss-up category on a lot of electoral sites, but I guess McCain’s internals show it a bit differently. 17 electoral votes is a lot concede with a month until the election. The morale inside the McCain camp must be terrible.

I’ve been playing with different scenarios that put Michigan in the red column, so it’s nice to know I don’t have to do that anymore.

No debate liveblog today - probably. (Dry your eyes). I’m out to the burbs for some pay tv action - no staid, informative SBS debate wrap up for me! No sir, I’m watching Wolf in all his glory. My debate day will have Beard!

To occupy yourself in the absence of my nonsense - try Palin Bingo.

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Palin’s widely anticipated stuff up on Supreme Court cases aired tonight.

The governor believes Roe v Wade should be left to the states because she’s ‘a Federalist’, but also believes there’s an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution.

I’ll leave that contradiction aside because I don’t care about Palin’s stance on abortion (and her verbal roulette in that clip probably doesn’t explain it that well anyway).

The anticipation had to do with Couric’s follow up. Palin notably couldn’t think of any other Supreme Court cases with which she disagreed - other than nameless ones that should be left to the states.

But as Jezebel commenter, lacey in ak, points out, at least one decision should have occurred to the governor. Perhaps Palin might have remembered that she filed an amicus brief in Exxon v Baker and then released a statement complaining about the decision.

That last part happened in June.

In other news, in the Senate today the bailout was strangely attached to the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Bill. Ezra Klein explains:

Tax bills have to originate in the House of Representatives. But the current thinking is that the Senate should pass a bailout bill to increase pressure on the House. So they needed to find some piece of legislation that had already passed the House but had not yet passed the Senate.

The 25 Nay votes are a strange mishmash of Senators from both sides of the aisle. It’s probably not often that Russ Feingold finds himself voting with Brownback, Sessions and Inhofe. (Also means that Feingold voted against the Wellstone bill, which must have killed him.) Dole made a bid to hang onto her Senate seat with her ‘no’ vote - who knows if it’ll work.

And, finally, the corruption trial of Senator Ted Sevens (R-AK) continues apace. Today, friend and renovator, Bill Allen, testified that while Stevens asked for an invoice, it was clear that Allen should never bill the senator for work done to ‘the chalet’.

Apparently Allen and Stevens were such close friends that they:

used to go to “boot camp” in the desert Southwest - where they would walk around, eating little and drinking only wine, “trying to get some pounds off.” [ADN via Mudflats]

I have no idea.

(Sounds pretty awesome though…)

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Just finished watching the latest in the series of Palin/Couric interviews. You’d think at this point that Palin would just coldcock Couric anytime she saw her coming. But no.

Anyway, there was nonsense about gays (it’s a choice!), vague nonsense about feminism (everything’s equal!) and a fairly good explanation of her position on evolution in schools (she believes in creationism, but science is for science class - literally the best answer I’ve ever heard her give).

Things broke down a little bit during Couric’s question about Palin’s stance on emergency contraception (transcript from CBS):

Couric: Some people have credited the morning-after pill for decreasing the number of abortions. How do you feel about the morning-after pill?

Palin: Well, I am all for contraception. And I am all for preventative measures that are legal and save [sic - safe], and should be taken, but Katie, again, I am one to believe that life starts at the moment of conception. And I would like to see …

Couric: And so you don’t believe in the morning-after pill?

Palin: … I would like to see fewer and fewer abortions in this world. And again, I haven’t spoken with anyone who disagrees with my position on that.

Couric: I’m sorry, I just want to ask you again. Do you not support or do you condone or condemn the morning-after pill.

Palin: Personally, and this isn’t McCain-Palin policy …

Couric: No, that’s OK, I’m just asking you.

Palin: But personally, I would not choose to participate in that kind of contraception.

Okay, so what we have here is Palin not understanding how the morning-after pill (and contraception, more generally) works.

Like many forms of birth control, EC can either block ovulation or prevent fertilization - but it can also prevent implantation. If you believe life begins at conception, odds are that most forms of birth control - including EC - aren’t for you.

Not to mention that she’s ‘all for [contraception]‘, but ‘would not choose to participate’ in EC.

For the last time - EC is just a megahit of birth control.

If you’re pro-contraception, it makes no sense to be anti-EC. If you’re anti-EC, it doesn’t really cotton that you’re pro-contraception.

And finally, contraception is, of course, just about the easiest way to lower abortion rates.

Jezebel has the video embedded and more quotes from the interview.

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