Completely Unnecessary

I’ve read a couple people over the last couple days talking about how Sarah Palin’s tragicomic interview with CBS’ Katie Couric last week might have been some sort of West Wing expectations-lowering stunt.

Having finally gotten around to watching the complete second half (foreign policy), it just can’t be the case. Sara has a couple of great YouTube videos of the interview/debacle. The one in which she discusses Israel (number two in LMS Brightside’s clips) is really the most frightening (and getting less play than the Russia nonsense).

While watching Palin stutter through her mishmash of talking points is grimace-inducing, reading the words is actually horrific. There’s no way that this was intentional; it is nonsensical:

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

As noted by Fareed Zakaria, ‘This is nonsense—a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head.’

The transcript reads like a slot machine - a question is asked and you get two oranges and a lemon.

Leo’s fumbling on the West Wing was a) fictional and b) behind the scenes and leaked. There is no way that the McCain campaign sent her out there to deliver that nearly unmitigated disaster.

Given her performance in the controlled environment of the interview and against Couric’s not terribly abrasive interviewing style, I don’t know that setting expectations too low is something the Democrats or Republicans can achieve.

Perhaps she’ll come flying out of the gate, but my anticipation for the veep debate is turning into creeping terror for Palin. I guess schadenfreude overdose is one way to change the tone of the campaign.

By the way, if you want to Interview Palin yourself, it’s not much different.

Oh, and boo to the LA Times Style Section.

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Check your registration for Chicago residents and suburban Cook County residents online. Everyone else, call your county clerk - their number can be found here.

Chicago residents: if your status is ‘Inactive’ call 312.269.7936 to resolve the issue and be prepared to bring your driver’s license to the polling place.

Illinois registration continues through October 7th. You can download, print out and mail in your registration form here.

You can also register in person at various city, county and state offices - including the Secretary of State’s office if you’re renewing your license. Public schools and libraries also can provide these services.

To register in person, you need two forms of ID, one of which must have your current address. To register, by mail you will need your driver’s license or State ID card number. Failing that you need either the last four digits of your SSN and photo ID or a utility bill, check, etc. that shows your current address.

Grace Period Registration continues through October 21st. But you have to visit one of six Cook County offices. (Different in other areas, obviously…)

Early Voting - October 13-30 - There are fifty locations in Chicago (for Chicago residents) and forty-four in suburban Cook. You may vote at any of the locations, respectively. Early voting locations places are open 9-5, Monday through Saturday (including Columbus Day, 13 October). You must bring a state-issued ID to vote early.

Voting on Election Day: Tuesday, November 4 - Polls are open from 6am until 7pm. If you vote on election day, you must vote at your polling place. It listed on your voter card or you can check your polling place by checking your registration online (Chicago).

If you are in line at 7pm, you must be allowed to vote. Do not be turned away. If your workday spans the entirety of open polling times, your employer must give you two hours off to vote.

Various Chicago voting nonsense: if you have voted in your polling place before and are in the signature book (a white slip) - you are not required to show ID. It’s always a good thing to bring along in case of a canvas challenge, but - as a voter - you are allowed to speak to other voters and to question a judge who asks for ID from a voter in the book with a white slip.

While we’re talking about the book - this is the proper order of things at the polling place.

1. Your give your name and your application should be located in the book.
2. You sign your application.
3. It is checked against your signature in the book (white slips).
4. Your application is then removed, given to you and you exchange it for your ballot.

You should NOT be given your application before your signature is checked. You should NOT have to ‘check in’ with a partisan pollwatcher beforehand. Partisan pollwatchers should NOT be sitting at the table with election judges. (I’m looking at you, precinct in the Hamlin Park gym in 2004…)

And remember - no matter how much your precinct captain insists - you’re only allowed to vote once. One time.

Report any and all irregularities to the Board of Elections (312.269.7900/312-269-7867).

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Re: Mudflats comes word that the McCain campaign might be pondering pre-election nuptials for unlucky Alaskan teens, Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston.

What’s more compelling, after all, than a (nearly in the) White House wedding? John McCain’s running mate’s daughter getting married totes makes him my presidential pick!

(But, oh man, remember how crazy Elie Bartlet’s wedding was? Oh, the guest list! And poor Will Bailey!)

Regardless, the McCain campaign should absolutely devote time, money and resources to yet another insane political stunt.

How will we be asked to discuss the wedding, should it occur? Let me guess:

• Happy happy = okay;
• Discussion of the cynical use of Palin’s daughter again = sexist.

McCain is going to lose this election for the exact same reason that Hillary Clinton did - blind loyalty to people who have led them astray. In McCain’s case, however, he’s so far off the garden path that it’s barely even amusing anymore.

This campaign is going to go down in history as remarkably inept and shockingly absurd. Michael Dukakis must be so freaking relieved.

Holy crap - those poor kids.

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I’m sort of a sad little puppy, so I do think like play with CQ Politics’ Scenario Builder electoral map. (Click once for blue!)

And while the candidates are pouring money and resources into the traditional favorites, it seems to me as though Virginia might be the most important state in the union (or at least the electoral math).

Aside from the bragging rights associated with making Virginia vote for a Democrat, it’s essential to McCain’s electoral map.

If he loses Virginia, McCain has to win Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and then either Nevada or New Hampshire to get above 270. That would require a massive spending spree in the three big states, and - even then - it seems like Pennsylvania is unlikely.

From CQ Politics

Obama, on the other hand, has way more options with Virginia on his side. If he takes VA, he only needs either Pennsylvania or Ohio or Florida. McCain can even have Colorado and New Hampshire, so long as we get Virginia (the converse is also true - if we win CO and NH, McCain can have VA and still lose).

From CQ Politics

So given the combo of CO, NH and VA - Democrats need to win two of the three, plus one of the big three. (The math changes a bit if FL goes blue - then we only need one of the smaller states. I wouldn’t bank on that happening, though.)

Here’s the ugliest map, I came up with. We win Ohio, but still lose by two electoral votes. Screw you AGAIN, Ohio:

From CQ Politics

However, it seems that we could have a tie on our hands. 538 only has a 269-269 split at 0.54%, but it seems a little more likely than that to me. [Obviously, I know more than the guys who have been studying this all year.]

If Obama takes Colorado and Pennsylvania, but loses Virginia and New Hampshire, we hit 269-269:

From CQ Politics

I suppose it’s unlikely that Obama loses VA whilst winning PA, but it is a possibility. In that case, the House gets to pick the prez. Then it comes down to popular vote. If Obama wins the popular vote, the Democratic House will give him a quick tick. If McCain wins the popular vote… it gets a bit trickier.

Crap, given the fortitude the Dems have shown, they’ll probably just grant Bush another four years.

I guess that’s really the ugliest map.

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1:21: From 538: [Nate] The media who wants to cop out from picking a winner will probably just say “Obama wins first half, McCain wins second half”. But the first half is likely to matter more because (i) it was about the economy and (ii) this was a boring debate that will have a lot of people zoning out by the end.

I think that’s true- because there was so much hype that everyone would have tuned in just to see if McCain turned up. The 1st half was definitely the strongest part and Obama did better.

1:10 - My post-debate activity? Dancing to Los Campesinos! in my loungeroom.

12:37 - Aww, SBS even wrapped it up pretty quick. We get no spin room here. Boo. That’s it for me.

12:35 - Anyway, nothing horrible happened. But I think McCain didn’t do himself any favors. And now onto the Veep debate!

12:34 - Nothing really major. Obviously, I think Obama won. The Aussies are talking about how - despite the format - this didn’t resemble Question Time at all. Duh.

12:33: I love watching the debates on SBS. The recap is so posh.

12:32 - AND POW!!!!!! Snap! Way to end the debate, McCain! How did the foreign policy debate wind up ending on the topic of veterans. Oh yeah - McCain is in it! I’m cracking another beer for the POW reference.

12:31 - Kenya wrap up.

12:30 - The reason I’ve voting for Obama? We both just cracked up together on McCain’s comparison of his stubbornness to Bush’s.

12:29: Jim Lehrer just gave McCain the blankest look ever. He so wants this shit over, too.

12:27 - McCain said we’d given a ‘fragile sacrifice’ in Iraq. What does that mean?

12:26 - ‘Senator Obama doesn’t understand or doesn’t get it.’ Is there a way to sue to stealing talking points?

12:23: Everyone’s doing a great job, but we’ll never be safe from teh terrorists. Amen.

(more…)

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Surprise!

Not sure why, but my brain just woke me at 5:30 in the morning. Given the all-historicalyness of McCain’s stunt and the debate tonight, thought I’d check the news:

McCain Decides to Participate in Debate

Well, that about sums it up.

Nothing like the promise of an hour of free television for one’s opponent to get one’s meddling butt on a plane to Mississippi.

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Well, John McCain ’suspended’ his campaign and headed back to Washington… to the apparent dismay of everyone involved in trying to fix the US economic clusterfuck.

My favorite quote is actually from Bush (can you believe it?) who referred to the economy as ‘this sucker’.

Paulson got on his knees in front of Pelosi, and everyone more or less acknowledged that it was House Republicans (plus the largely silent McCain) who were stuffing the whole thing up:

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Senate banking committee, denounced the session as “a rescue plan for John McCain,” and proclaimed it a waste of precious hours that could have been spent negotiating.

But a top aide to Mr. Boehner said it was Democrats who had done the political posturing. The aide, Kevin Smith, said Republicans revolted, in part, because they were chafing at what they saw as an attempt by Democrats to jam through an agreement on the bailout early Thursday and deny Mr. McCain an opportunity to participate in the agreement.

Oh, please. Shove a Boehner in it, will you? McCain is on none of the economic/financial committees - there was no reason for him to be there.

Senator McCain will have plenty of time to air his views on just about anything he pleases should he show up tomorrow night for the debate.

And I think he will. 75% of Americans think the debate and the campaigns should continue - so methinks he’d have to have a crystal ball and monster cojones to flake out tomorrow.

Speaking of… well whatever - how craptastic were the Palin interviews? Ish. They were still sort of amusing, but in that awkward way.

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It’s just day one of the corruption trial against Senator Ted ‘NO!’ Stevens (R-AK),* but it’s already showing signs of being my favorite thing to happen this year.

Stevens is charged with seven counts of filing false statements, the majority of which surround nearly $200,000 in renovations to his home that seems to have gone unpaid by the senator.

Corruption, you say? Not according to Stevens:

In his opening statement, Mr. Stevens’s lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, offered an elaborate counternarrative. It was a “devious” Mr. Allen who did lots of extra work on the house and misled the Stevenses into believing they had paid for all the work. Mr. Allen is expected to be the principal prosecution witness.

Mr. Sullivan also suggested he would argue that Mr. Stevens’s wife may be responsible for any confusion about the renovation bills.
…
“Catherine ran the financial part of the renovation,” he said. “Ted devoted all of his time and energy to what he had always done” serving in the Senate.

I hate it when people come to my house, jack it up and put another floor underneath it! But it’s when they outfit the whole thing, put on a garage and decks, and then ‘deviously’ never bill bill me for any of it when I really get mad!

That is just un-American, sir! Do you agree with that kind of activity, Senator?

Stevens Says No!

[That was a lot of work for a rather lackluster result. Le sigh.]

The trial wraps up just before the election, at which point Stevens will get jail time or his widely-anticipated whupping at the hands of Democratic challenger, Mark Begich.

Bonus points for throwing your wife under the bus, Ted.

* - I could have gone Ted ‘Series of Tubes’ Stevens, but that meme is kind of overdone these days.

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Yikes! That didn’t go so well.

John McCain’s announcement that he would suspend his campaign (and try to cancel Friday’s debate) to focus on the economy met with sharp rebuke on Wednesday from the Obama campaign and the United States of America.

Arguing that he needed to work on the bailout plan, McCain earned an assist for one of Obama’s best slam dunks of the campaign:

It is my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess… It is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.

But it didn’t have to be this way, McCain! This whole thing started early in the morning when Obama’s campaign wanted to work with McCain. Wonkette’s Jim Newell put it best:

The Obama campaign has released a preliminary response to McCain’s [debate] proposal, which shows that the two were planning on making a joint statement about the economy until McCain randomly told everyone he had canceled the debate.

If you were to ask me (and it’s implicit that you would since you’re wasting your own time to read this - seek help), I’d say this has more to do with trying to get Sarah Palin off the hook. Well, equal parts at least.

The McCain campaign is now suggesting that the first McCain/Obama debate be moved to Thursday in place of the VP debate. Then the veep debate would be postponed.

I’m think November 5th is probably the McCain camp’s best bet for that.

However, the whole thing backfired and now everyone (especially David Letterman) will revel in the destruction of McCain and his campaign. The end.

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How I’ve been feeling the last few days, summed up in LOL:

Palin’s helping McCain with the base, but, as Neil pointed out to me last week, they can’t recreate the Bush 2004 map without Iowa and New Mexico. Those two have been in our corner for a while now - especially Iowa.

And pretty much every national poll today shows Obama either tied or in the lead.

I keep saying it - and may have even written it here (redundancy alert!) - but I really wish this election was like the West Wing or just available on DVD. If I knew how it ended, I could really enjoy this time or work harder to make sure it went better.

Reality, you say? Hmmm, tell me more!

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