Completely Unnecessary

Well, supposedly the cat’s out of the bag. Eight minutes ago, the NYT posted that Biden’s been selected to fill the other half of the Obama ticket.

If it’s true, it’s certainly not the way Obama would have liked it to get out - Friday night via ‘people told of the decision’.

I’d actually really like it if the Obama camp pulled a big ’syke!’ on the press. That seems unlikely, though, since it would incurr the wrath of the people that Obama needs to communicate with voters.

All the buildup, though, seems rather… blah. The NYT’s Adam Nagourney’s been saying all week it’s Biden. It was supposed to be announced on Saturday, and now it’s announced by Nagourney and Jeff Zelney on Friday night instead.

It’s unclear to me if I’m supposed to be thrilled by this. (Also, if Nagourney’s paper really gets that many accolades for breaking a story that they’ve pretty much had all week.)

I’m hoping for an Obama bait-and-switch. American politics is supposed to be all drama and circuses.

I demand absurd surprises. If McCain selects Alan Keyes, I’ll vote for him.

ps - They’ve got Biden saying that Obama was ‘not yet ready’ to be president. Can’t wait to see those commercials run on loop for the next couple months. (Oh yeah, I don’t have to. Yay!)

Update- Obama’s website now has the Obama/Biden ticket up. Way to steal the Democratic ticket’s thunder, liberal media.

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Life Without Hillary Clinton

Yay. Supposedly Obama’s set to name his running mate tomorrow, ending months of media speculation and prognostication. The list currently stands with Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware in the lead.

Apparently, the current favorite is Biden, which is such a surprise to me. Though a happy surprise. I like Biden a lot, and he’s got the foreign policy chops.

The problem, however, is how much he contributes to the 50-state plan that Dean and Obama are running. Also, two senator ticket - gives McCain the advantage should he nominate a governor.

Seriously though, I can’t wait for this announcement since it will finally inject some wind into the pre-convention doldrums in which we’re currently languishing. I mean, McCain’s Cone of Silence?

Though one of my students did say yesterday that she thought Clinton got more favorable coverage simply because she was a woman and different from the other candidates. So then the entire class took a trip to a online gallery of unflattering Clinton photos, and were treated to a diatribe about the choices the media made in selecting pictures of candidate Clinton. And the pictures they’ve selected since.

Bring on the veeps - I’m sick of picking the candidates to pieces. The more obscure the better; let’s really get to know these (most likely) guys.

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• Serenity November
• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read

I was reading this article on TPM Election Central today, and, gosh, if the older gentleman with bills didn’t look familiar!

Well, there’s a reason - he’s the same bill-checking older gentleman that was concerned about the economy at three am! Here’s him blue-hued by the Clinton staff to indicate ‘nighttime’:

How many thousands of hours of stock footage do you think there is available to both these campaigns?

So, it is just laziness or do you think the McCain campaign is trying to bring up memories of the Clinton campaign? Perhaps a subtle way of reminiding those anti-Obama Clintonites of their vows?

Yeah, or just laziness.

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• Serenity November
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I haven’t had a chance to watch Clinton’s concession speech yet, but I hear from all sides that it was wonderful.

With Clinton formally out of the race, at least the press will stop gender-tagging/bashing her:

With Clinton no longer in ‘08 waters, the race for women voters heats up as the McCain campaign senses an opportunity to convert Democratic women who might be upset with the way their gal was treated. In speeches, McCain has been making a play for the frustrated Clinton supporters.

Or not! Jesus, they’re frustrated because they’ve seen a sitting Senator described as a ‘gal’ for 16 months.

I’m sure you guys think I go looking for this stuff, but I really don’t. This was just a Google News story that I clicked on when my browser opened.

Meanwhile, ABC is also running an exteremely long quote from an article by Politico’s Jonathan Martin (I thought the journalistic convention was no more than 25 words). An excerpt reveals a hilarious, though unsourced, belief apparently running around the McCain campaign:

But in doing so, they’ve already raised the question of whether McCain can maintain his upbeat warrior image while running an uphill race covered by a press the campaign sees as biased, and against an opponent for whom the candidate can barely conceal his contempt.

Hey, there’s that underdog meme we’re going to be hearing until November. Passed on without comment by the press, who totally, totally hates John McCain and in no way swallows old thing he has to say.

And that’s just page 2, but I have 2500 more words to write today, so…

Obama Vs McCain: A New Electoral Map Emerges [ABC News]

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Sorry for the conspicuous silence. Four days of no blogging left some of you poking a toe at the corpse. Presumably no one’s ever heard me go so long without talking. (Not heard?)

Anyhow, there are a couple things on the back burner, but a cold, papers and someone’s clever idea of a bottle of champagne at 4am kind of trashed the weekend.

I’m in the midst of reading Frank Rich’s column:

Then again, in his frantic efforts to explain why he sided with Mr. Bush to oppose an expanded G.I. bill that the Senate passed by 75 to 22, Mr. McCain has attacked Mr. Obama for not enlisting in the military.

Besides making Mr. McCain look ever angrier next to his serene opponent, this eruption raises the question of why he chose double-standard partisanship over principle by not applying this criterion to the blunderers who took us into Iraq.

And I wonder if Obama can win the general by appearing ’serene’.

I have a cartoon above my desk of Kevin Rudd and John Howard in a boxing ring. Rudd’s snuggling a puppy, while Howard raises a fist in the air and screams in frustration, ‘HIT ME!’

He never did, and he won by letting Howard hang himself on his own record (and interest rates).

Part of Clinton’s problem in this campaign has been that Obama won’t come out and hit her. The Clintons know how to deal with direct attacks; as has been made clear throughout the campaign, they don’t know what to do when their opponent sort of pretends that they don’t exist.

Perhaps after eight years of a bellicose cowboy, the American people (or at least more than half) might be drawn in by a thoughtful professor who might actually run the country. And not attack everyone that looks at us askance.

This is not to say that Obama’s a puppy snuggler. He’s a Machine candidate, and he’s got Axelrod. There are stories being flogged and dirt being dug, but the Obama campaign’s best move in the campaign has been to have their candidate appear above the fray. They let him sit up top the mountain whilst Clinton and McCain take potshots at him. Most of their missiles have thus far fallen back on their heads.

If someone can get Trinity United to stop taping sermons until after November, Obama’s place on that mountain might be pretty safe.

We might need some good t-shirts, too. Nothing really rhymes with ‘Barack’.

Obama: Great in ‘08?

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To review: Cuba = tiny country with, as much as I love it with all my heart, essentially no global significance aside from its continuing ability to stand up to the US embargo.

Apparently John McCain - looking to the general - has this to say to Miami Cubans today:

“Just a few years ago, Senator Obama had a very clear view on Cuba,” McCain will say, according to prepared excerpts, then quoting Obama saying that normalization of relations would improve conditions for the Cuban people.

“Now Senator Obama has shifted positions and says he only favors easing the embargo, not lifting it. He also wants to sit down unconditionally for a presidential meeting with Raul Castro. These steps would send the worst possible signal to Cuba’s dictators - there is no need to undertake fundamental reforms, they can simply wait for a unilateral change in US policy.”

I can’t represent in words my ‘absurdity snort,’ but that’s exactly what I’ve done every time I’ve read these words.

If anything, McCain should be criticizing Obama for changing his views on Cuba - especially now that Raul Castro seems to be liberalizing the country!

For godsake, Cuba has 11.3 million people living on a tiny, beautiful, wonderful island. Their economy relies on tourism and sugar cane. The US has over 300 million. Their economy relies on… well, we’re not exactly sure anymore, but there’s a bunch of money coming in that’s being funneled to China.

Point being that since the fall of the USSR - which, to put in context, my 20 -year-old students can’t even remember - Cuba has posed exactly zero threat to the United States. The embargo and the entirety of US policy towards the island nation is based upon outdated ideas about Communist threat, pandering to the Miami block and pride.

What pisses me off the most about this story is learning that Obama doesn’t think we should lift the blockade anymore!

That being said, the embargo is probably the only thing holding us back from the horror of a McDonalds with a Malecon address, so Viva la Revolution!

Vaguely Related

• Obama Defines Cuba Policy
• Biden to be Obama’s Vice President

I’m sick of the NYT/McCain scandal already.

Did he have improper lobbyist relationships? Did the NYT go to print with second-rate sources? And, most importantly, did Senator Straight Talk screw that lady that looks just like his second wife?

Because he was married before you know…

The NYT kneecap was sleazy enough. They might have had a good story with the lobbyist ties, but they messed it up by going for the sex angle with bad sourcing. Isn’t it enough that a senator who prides himself on being above Washington trash gets caught with his hands in the dumpster? Especially when he got bit it in the 90s for the same thing?

No.

So now, some lefty blogs - and I’m just picking on Crooks and Liars because it was a particularly bad example - are going to town on the sex angle. Here’s how John Amato opened up a Thursday post called ‘Cheaters Write Letters‘:

I find it interesting that McCain didn’t deny having a relationship with Iseman all that much, but that’s not the big story since he had cheated on his first wife anyway.

Mother of hell. Every liberal who ever criticized Republicans for railroading Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal had better take a long, hard look at how they want to cover this story. That quote above is just some tacky, tacky horribleness.

Not to mention that all liberals had to do was sit back and let the right wing hate on John McCain all the way to an Obama/Clinton White House. Rush and all the usual suspects fancy McCain in the White House only marginally more than they like either of the Democratic contenders.

I read somewhere that this story - since it really started in December - might have originated as a right-wing hit piece to keep McCain from becoming the nominee. Well, that didn’t work. But now, with the ‘liberal’ NYT attacking McCain - and in such a audacious fashion - they’re all coming to his aid.

Plus, McCain had happily hamstringed himself with the FEC, and now he’s got donations coming in because of this story.

At least the NYT should have proved, once and for all, its lack of liberal bias - because they just played right into the hands of the McCain campaign. And the lefty blogosphere is doing the same.

So what I have to say is: Just Stop.

No more sex stories. No more pictures/captioning like this. Because every time the left behaves like what we detest, Rush and Co will stir up their base with stories of how horrible we are.

And the terrible part is, we’ll deserve it.

Links:
For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk [NYT]
McCain Gathers Support and Donations in Aftermath of Article in The Times [NYT]
Cheaters Write Letters [Crooks and Liars]
McCain story proves incendiary among journalists, conservatives [LA Times]
Analysis: McCain Loses Leverage [AP]
McCain’s FEC Problem [TPM Muckraker]
Rep. Rick Renzi Indicted For Extortion, Wire Fraud, Money Laundering And Other Crimes [Think Progress]

Vaguely Related

• Biden to be Obama’s Vice President
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Is it the finally-stated preference of a highly-coveted superdelegate? Will this finally tip the balance of power?

Worlds of no.

Here’s the deal, I missed the primary for Democrats Abroad because I was at The Killing Fields. It was obviously much more delightful than online voting, but still the opportunity to have my voice heard and vote counted was lost. Woe.

But it was good, in a way, because I really hadn’t made up my fucking mind. I like both Obama and Clinton; I think they’d both be good presidents. Obama is from my home state and his speeches inspire. Clinton is a great debater and has a vagina, just. like. me.

I should say, first, that I’d be more than happy with either candidate as the nominee, and will happily throw my blood, sweat and tears behind either. I think a Democrat will win the election either way, but I also like to hedge my bets.

I am, to Jeremy’s great consternation, a political pragmatist. And with McCain as the presumptive Republican nominee, it’s time to get practical. And to again use my blog as a soapbox for which the public has not clamored.

Here is my thinking:

1. McCain is good at pulling independents. The only person in the race that seems to have an equal draw on this coveted group is Obama. A 50/50 split is better than many of them breaking McCain’s way.
2. The media love McCain. His talking points and his spin become the news; they ignore his gaffes. His ‘comeback kid’ story is going to be a highlight of the General, especially because the media love reveling in a story they created. The only person they seem to love as much is Obama. Clinton will spend the entire General getting hammered by the media, who will do the RNC’s work for it.
3. McCain seems as though he’s going to use Iraq as the centerpiece of his campaign. Obama doesn’t have an Iraq vote to account for, which will allow him to hammer McCain on this issue in a way that Clinton just won’t be able to match. America wants out, and Obama never wanted in.
4. Thank Kennedy (and Reagan) for this, but Obama makes McCain look old. On TV, when they go head to head in the debates, it’s going to matter. We got slammed in ‘04 by the Rove Machine, which made the Dems appear to have a ‘feminine’ candidate in contention against the ‘virile’ Bush. Turnabout is fair play, especially when we don’t have to play dirty for the advantage.

It’s funny, I’m so excited about both these candidates that I’m completely unexcited about having to choose between them. Even as I’m writing this, something in me is like, ‘but Clinton…’

But there it is. I think their presidencies would be pretty similar, so I’m shopping for a candidate. Against McCain, I think Obama is the stronger candidate, which I didn’t necessarily think was the case against other Republicans. I think he’s the best match for McCain’s strengths.

We need enthusiasm to wrench the Senate away from the grasping hands of Joe Lieberman and get finally health care passed. And lots of other stuff, too, but those are the first two that come to mind. I think Obama’s ‘New Camelot’ is the easiest way to do it. It’s political expediency, but after the last seven years, I want a lock.

Against McCain, Clinton is just uncertain enough to make me choose between them.

Anyone else have opinions?

*- You haven’t been waiting for it.

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Inauguration Day is one year away as of today. One one year until the worst thing we have to fear is a McCain presidency. I strenuously think that won’t occur, but, with less than a year left in Bush’s term, I can say ‘McCain presidency’ with a smile on my face.

While we’re at it, let’s talk strategy for a minute. Presuming that McCain wins the nomination - which, for the sake of my Republican friend’s sanity, I hope he does - how important does it become for the Dems to select Obama?

McCain and Obama are both independent siphoners; does it begin to make more sense to select a nominee that can grab at least half (and hopefully more) of those coveted and necessary indies? Or do you trust that the tanking economy will deliver the election to the Dems - as economy-focused elections traditionally have - and vote for whomever you want?

She asked into the void.

Unless who you want is John Edwards because, wow, did he eat it today. I know he’s ‘hanging in there for the middle class,’ but that’s gonna be short-lived. I feel bad for Edwards, as he seems like a decent human. (Though his bit in the debate about how he regretted the bankruptcy bill and No Child Left Behind angered me. Coupled with Iraq, that’s three pretty key votes that I knew were dogs. And, as I’m sure you’ll agree, I’m just some relatively uninformed hack; if I were a Senatorial middle class warrior, I think I would have stuck to my guns on bankruptcy and NCLB, in particular.)

And that is my argument against John Edwards.

My argument against his campaign is that they’re too obsessed with their three main talking points, and have not done a good enough job of stressing what I believe to be Edwards’ real message: that he laments the decrease in opportunity for people of working-class origins to end up as successful as him. That’s not snark - I think that’s his message and it’s a good one.

[Ed note: Oh my god, possums are fighting outside my window.]

Also, Ron Paul hilariously won second place in Nevada. And he beat 9u11an1 in S. Carolina by nearly double today (3.7 to 2.1 percent). Guiliani’s head must literally be exploding as he watches his chances of becoming America’s President spin down the toilet of bad electoral strategy.

Hey! Would you believe that this post was originally just that first sentence at the top? No freakin’ lie. How these things spiral out of control is beyond me.

And in closing, will someone more mathy than me figure out if the title should be ‘366 and Counting’? Leap year, you know. And if it is 366, isn’t it still 365 since it’s always tomorrow where I am?

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It’s started already.

The Romney Campaign is complaining about a number of anti-Mormon, seemingly pro-McCain calls to voters in a couple swing states. They’re claiming it’s push polling, and want it stopped.

Push polling is the most graceful of all political techniques. Here’s how it works: Companies are hired to ‘poll’ the electorate. The calls start out normally - swing staters are used to getting a barrage of call - but they then ask questions designed to plant ideas, usually negative, in voters’ minds.

I find it very difficult to believe that the McCain camp would be behind these attacks. In 2000, McCain got push polled right out of the primaries by the Bush camp. They made calls in a number of Southern states, polling the electorate on such important questions as, ‘Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?’

McCain has an adopted daughter from Bangladesh.

The 2000 push polls just made insinuations, but, according to the voters in the NYT story, it appears the techniques are getting more blatant.

Among the questions the caller asked was whether the person receiving the call knew Romney was a Mormon, that he received military deferments when he served as a Mormon missionary in France, that his five sons did not serve in the military, that Romney’s faith did not accept blacks as bishops into the 1970s and that Mormons believe the Book of Mormon is superior to the Bible.

”It started out like all the other calls. … Then all of the sudden it got very unsettling and very negative,” said Anne Baker, an independent voter who was called in Hollis, N.H.

You can just tell Rove isn’t on the campaign trail anymore.

But actually, the fact that the calls were so blatant makes me a little suspicious. Romney’s come out firing, but his rhetoric is surprisingly similar to Bush’s during the 2004 Swift Boat attacks. He’s blaming the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reforms (which opened up the loophole for 527s like moveon.org and the Swift Boaters).

These attacks were really over the top offensive and obvious to be effective push polling and this story’s gotten on the radar pretty fast. The two insinuations that it’s McCain’s fault either way makes me suspicious. Though Walnuts has gone off the rails a bit in recent months, I don’t believe he would ever do this. The Bush push polling in 2000 was really nasty and went after his kid; he’s a decent human, and decent people don’t push poll.

The only think keeping me from a Romney conspiracy is that he doesn’t need to knock McCain out. If it was more tied to the Giuliani camp, I’d be pretty darn suspicious.

Sometimes I hate the way our elections work. Why can’t you just win on your fitness as a candiate instead of this vitriol?

NH Probes Anti-Romney ‘Poll’ Calls [NYT]

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