NBC.com has Saturday Night Live video of John McCain and Tina Fey (as Sarah Palin) online here:
Truly funny.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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(h/t - AMERICABlog)
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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This TPM post on comments tonight by Senator John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis:
... reminded me of this guy.From McCain campaign manager Rick Davis's campaign memo just out this evening, discussing why Obama's decision to run ads in Georgia, Arizona and North Dakota is a sign the McCain camp has him on the ropes ...
Expanding the Field: Obama is running out of states if you follow out a traditional model. Today, he expanded his buy into North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona in an attempt to widen the playing field and find his 270 Electoral Votes. This is a very tall order and trying to expand into new states in the final hours shows he doesn't have the votes to win.Translation: The fact that Arizona has moved into the toss-up column is a devastating development for Obama.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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- Garry The Wise, Toronto
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According to various reports, a fierce battle between the camps of the two Republican nominees is very publicly rising to the surface:
LET THE DEFENESTRATIONS BEGIN....Politico reports on what's going on behind the scenes in Republican circles:
With despair rising even among many of John McCain’s own advisers, influential Republicans inside and outside his campaign are engaged in an intense round of blame-casting and rear-covering — much of it virtually conceding that an Election Day rout is likely.
....“If you really want to see what ‘going negative’ is in politics, just watch the back-stabbing and blame game that we’re starting to see,” said Mark McKinnon, the ad man who left the campaign after McCain wrapped up the GOP primary. “And there’s one common theme: Everyone who wasn’t part of the campaign could have done better.”
“The cake is baked,” agreed a former McCain strategist. “We’re entering the finger-pointing and positioning-for-history part of the campaign. It’s every man for himself now.”
The Politico report establishes the theme - senior Republicans "echoing" opposition attacks while blaming other senior Republicans for "echoing" opposition attacks:
A senior Republican strategist, speaking with authority about the view of the party’s establishment, issued a wide-ranging critique of the McCain high command: “Lashing out at past Republican Congresses, … echoing your opponent's attacks on you instead of attacking your opponent, and spending 150,000 hard dollars on designer clothes when congressional Republicans are struggling for money, and when your senior campaign staff are blaming each other for the loss in The New York Times [Magazine] 10 days before the election, you’re not doing much to energize your supporters.
The Politico reports that tensions between the Palin and McCain camps are increasing in the waning days of the campaign. Palin reportedly “has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her,” blaming “her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image.” A McCain campaign source unloads on Palin in an interview with CNN:
“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” said this McCain adviser, “she does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”
“I think she’d like to go more rogue,” a Republican source said of Palin.
Huffington Post via TPM:
Now one of John McCain's actual advisers has switched sides:Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.
This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his decision "is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."
You might have expected they'd wait at least until November 4th to point fingers and air their dirty political laundry.
They haven't lost yet, after all.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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I am still laughing....
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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A good collection of commentaries here.
More here, including this gem from David Von Drehle of Time:
"McCain Threw the Sink — and Plumber — But Obama Doesn't Falter" The problem for McCain is that no matter how hard or how crisply he punched, it could not last. In the end, the gravity of the debate returned to Barack Obama. The turning point was when McCain finally brought up the issue of Obama's ties to former the anti-Vietnam War terrorist William Ayers. All he accomplished was to swing the spotlight from himself back to the engaging newcomer. Predictably, Obama had a mild answer ready-as straightforward and uncontroversial as it was soothing… Mostly he tried to say that Obama-change is dangerous. Across the table, there sat Obama, looking not very dangerous.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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"My fellow prisoners...?"
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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The political nasty season has arrived in America.
In a climate in which Barack Obama has been taunted as "pallin' around with terrorists" by the Republican Party's Vice-Presidential nominee, a well-organized Democratic counter-assault appears to be materializing.
And in a stark contrast to the ill-fated John Kerry campaign of 2004, the Democrats have immediately moved to the offense at the first indication of concerted Republican attacks.
I'll highlight a couple of examples of the current themes, beginning with excerpts from Make-Believe Maverick, a brutally hard-hitting piece on John McCain by Tim Dickinson in the current Rolling Stone:
The myth of John McCain hinges on two transformations — from pampered flyboy to selfless patriot, and from Keating crony to incorruptible reformer — that simply never happened. But there is one serious conversion that has taken root in McCain: his transformation from a cautious realist on foreign policy into a reckless cheerleader of neoconservatism.
...Indeed, McCain's neocon makeover is so extreme that Republican generals like Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft have refused to endorse their party's nominee. "The fact of the matter is his judgment about what to do in Iraq was wrong," says Richard Clarke, who served as Bush's counterterrorism czar until 2003. "He hung out with people like Ahmad Chalabi. He said Iraq was going to be easy, and he said we were going to war because of terrorism. We should have been fighting in Afghanistan with more troops to go after Al Qaeda. Instead we're at risk because of the mistaken judgment of people like John McCain."
In the end, the essential facts of John McCain's life and career — the pivotal experiences in which he demonstrated his true character — are important because of what they tell us about how he would govern as president. Far from the portrayal he presents of himself as an unflinching maverick with a consistent and reliable record, McCain has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to taking whatever position will advance his own career. He "is the classic opportunist," according to Ross Perot, who worked closely with McCain on POW issues. "He's always reaching for attention and glory."
...Throughout the campaign this year, McCain has tried to make the contest about honor and character. His own writing gives us the standard by which he should be judged. "Always telling the truth in a political campaign," he writes in Worth the Fighting For, "is a great test of character." He adds: "Patriotism that only serves and never risks one's self-interest isn't patriotism at all. It's selfishness. That's a lesson worth relearning from time to time." It's a lesson, it would appear, that the candidate himself could stand to relearn.
Similarly, a Monday L.A. Times article, Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator, casts doubt on the Republican nominee's vaunted military prowess, noting "McCain's commanders sarcastically dubbed him Ace McCain,'" after a series of pre-Vietnam accidents:
The 23-year-old junior lieutenant wasn't paying attention and erred in using "a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn," investigators concluded.The crash was one of three early in McCain's aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials.
In his most serious lapse, McCain was "clowning" around in a Skyraider over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires, causing a blackout, according to McCain's own account as well as those of naval officers and enlistees aboard the carrier Intrepid. In another incident, in 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia.
After McCain was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967. Three months later, he was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi and taken prisoner. He was not faulted in either of those cases and was later lauded for his heroism as a prisoner of war.
As a presidential candidate, McCain has cited his military service -- particularly his 5 1/2 years as a POW. But he has been less forthcoming about his mistakes in the cockpit.
The Times interviewed men who served with McCain and located once-confidential 1960s-era accident reports and formerly classified evaluations of his squadrons during the Vietnam War. This examination of his record revealed a pilot who early in his career was cocky, occasionally cavalier and prone to testing limits.
In today's military, a lapse in judgment that causes a crash can end a pilot's career.
The Associated Press contribution to the theme is McCain linked to group in Iran-Contra case - Organization had ties to former Nazi collaborators, right-wing death squads:
WASHINGTON - GOP presidential nominee John McCain has past connections to a private group that supplied aid to guerrillas seeking to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua in the Iran-Contra affair.
McCain's ties are facing renewed scrutiny after his campaign criticized Barack Obama for his link to a former radical who engaged in violent acts 40 years ago.
The U.S. Council for World Freedom was part of an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. The group was dedicated to stamping out communism around the globe.
The council's founder, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, said McCain became associated with the organization in the early 1980s as McCain was launching his political career in Arizona. Singlaub said McCain was a supporter but not an active member in the group."McCain was a new guy on the block learning the ropes," Singlaub told The Associated Press in an interview. "I think I met him in the Washington area when he was just a new congressman. We had McCain on the board to make him feel like he wasn't left out. It looks good to have names on a letterhead who are well-known and appreciated.
Finally, the Obama campaign, in its own right, yesterday released Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis, a video documentary on Mr. McCain's role in the notorious 1989 "Keating Five" savings and loan scandals:
Isn't it interesting how all these stories have appeared simultaneously, on the eve of tonight's second Presidential debate?
Not a coincidence, I am sure.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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The Republican nominee does his best Burgess Meredith imitation yet, as the Penguin goes to Washington...
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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A John McCain campaign ad, unwrapped, unplugged and debunked:
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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The irreplaceable Billmon, (now back at Kos after far too long an absence) weighs in on the Republican nomination of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate:
...McCain has picked a 44-year-old ex-mayor, with a grand total of two years of gubernatorial experience, in a state with a population of less than 700,000 (and a sane population that's quite a bit smaller than that) and wants the voters to put her the proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency.
This doesn't exactly jibe with McCain's brand image as the candidate who will keep America "safe" -- not for a 72-year old man who's had repeated bouts with skin cancer.
Whether and when and how the Obama campaign decides to "go at" Palin will be an interesting test of their political instincts and their skill with the propaganda knife. Can they define and demolish her without turning into the bullies, picking on a delicate flower of Caucasian Christian womanhood? Or will they just let Sarah be Sarah, and see what falls out of the Alaskan corruption and craziness tree? Stay tuned.But, the politics of it aside, by picking a woman as his running mate McCain has performed at least one service: He's made it possible to precisely calibrate just how far behind the curve of history the Republicans really are -- and it's 24 years, the exact length of time since the Democrats put the first woman on a presidential ticket.
John McCain: the Republican answer to Walter Mondale.
I definitely like the ring of that.
For my part, I think the Palin nomination, while truly cynical and almost desperately pandering, should not be underestimated.
It will change the narrative of the coming Presidential election.
By implicitly embracing themes of gender equality and generational renewal, the McCain-Palin ticket is now well-positioned to credibly speak from the right - the very far right, apparently - in the progressive dialogue that began in the Clinton-Obama primary race.
And while the McCain camp has, with this nomination, absolutely sucked any remaining utility from its own argument that Barack Obama lacks the experience to lead, that ill-formed posture probably didn't have winning legs, in any event.
It would have been difficult before the Palin announcement to imagine any John McCain-led Republican ticket as presenting even an arguable alternative for modernity and change. The Palin nomination has at very least accomplished that incredible feat.
As a result, "four more years of the last eight years" will probably no longer cut it as the Democratic campaign mantra. (That's probably a good thing - if the polls are accurate, it certainly hasn't been resonating with the electorate)
But let's face it, while Governor Sarah Palin may be many things...
She sure is no Dick Cheney.
And that's a change even I can embrace.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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Biting satire, from The Onion:
(h/t: Red Tory)
b- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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Robert Greenwald's "The Real McCain:"
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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Take a closer look at Pastor John Hagee, a vocal supporter of John McCain for President:
Maybe he was just mad that nobody invited him to the parade.
(h/t: Dave Johnson)
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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The DNC's "100 years of McCain" ad:
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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From Max and The Marginalized - Teflon John:
There's something worth pointing out about this California-based band beyond its music and politics - that is the state-of-the-art model it is using for its self-marketing and distribution.
Fearturing members Max Bernstein, Jon Ryggy and Dave Watrous, the band hosts a blog on Blogger and pages on MySpace and Facebook. Its music videos are all found on YouTube
It brands itself with the tagline, Political Music. One Song Each Week. Indefinitely, and then delivers, giving listeners and fans a reason for returning each Thursday.
With a running spot at the prestigious Huffington Post that certainly drives traffic and blogger awareness, Max announces its raison d'etre:
Max and the Marginalized are a band and a blog. The idea behind it is pretty simple: there is more of a need for political music than ever, but there are fewer political bands than there have ever been. Furthermore, how could a political band write a song about something happening right now and then wait months or years for their album to come out, when the story is long over?
And its monetizing strategy, you ask? A running request for voluntary donations by PayPal - downloads on the "honour system" - to help to pay the stated costs of recording, sixteen studio hours per song at $25.00 per hour.
But if you can't afford to pay, Max tells you:
I must stress: IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO DONATE, PLEASE STILL GO AHEAD AND DOWNLOAD. I know you would if you could. When people donate a little more, what they're doing is buying the songs for you, so please download and thank them.
This financial strategy might or might not make the band immediately rich - but it, and the group's ongoing, newsy musical offerings - could wind up making it famous.
And that, in the vernacular, is what buzz is all about.
Kudos to Max and the Marginalized for getting it right - using everything the Internet now offers to market itself, get its tunes out there, build a following and get on the map.
While major labels will always be the key players promoting the mega-acts - the Britneys and Whitneys of the music world - self-help by social media is now the better way to fly for most newcomers and mere music mortals.
And Max shows you the way to do it.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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For quite some time, I have been privately forecasting a Hillary Clinton victory in the Democratic presidential nomination contest.
Today, I am going public - I anticipate that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party's 2008 nominee.
It is comments like this one, from Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean, that convince me the tide has turned:
[Superdelegates] have every right to overturn the popular vote and choose the candidate they believe would be best equipped to defeat John McCain in a general election. . . If it's very very close, they will do what they want anyway. . . I think the race is going to come down to the perception in the last six or eight races of who the best opponent for McCain will be. I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote or anything else.
The numbers are now close and very clear.
Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama will emerge from the primary elections with a decisive advantage in elected delegates or popular vote. The primaries will not break the current deadlock.
In spite of months of relentless spin from Mr. Obama's surrogates - spin that has had much traction in the political media - that purported to narrow or bind the free votes of superdelegates at the actual convention, Mr. Dean's comments speak the truth.
Superdelegate votes will ultimately be cast based on what is happening on the ground at the time of the convention.
While anything can change, and it still may, it seems most likely that the Clinton campaign will continue to build momentum and peak in the final weeks of the primary season, just in time for the party's August 25 -28 convention in Denver.
The increasingly desperate and divisive pronouncements of Mr. Obama's supporters are not helping. Yesterday's attacks by House Majority Whip James Clyburn, as reported by CNN, are a case in point:
Clyburn told the newspaper that many African-Americans believed the Clintons were trying to damage Obama to the point where he could not be elected. He also made similar comments in an interview with Reuters Thursday.
"There are African Americans who have reached the decision that the Clintons know that she can’t win this," he told Reuters. "But they’re hell-bound to make it impossible for Obama to win.”
Speaking with the New York Times, Clyburn said such actions could lead to a longtime division between the former president and his once most reliable constituency.
“When he was going through his impeachment problems, it was the black community that bellied up to the bar,” Clyburn said. “I think black folks feel strongly that this is a strange way for President Clinton to show his appreciation.”
Efforts by Mr. Clyburn and others to play a 'race card' against Mrs. Clinton and her husband are a shameless insult to history.
Beyond that, such tactics are likely to backfire by further alienating the very Democrats that Mr. Obama has, to date, had so much difficulty convincing.
As the certainty of an Obama nomination declines, his campaign must temper the temptation of some surrogates to employ their own a 'scorched-earth' game plan that sullies and undermines an ultimate Hillary Clinton candidacy, and in the process, instigates dangerous racial discord in the nation.
And while Mr. Obama should by no means be conceding defeat at this point, perhaps he must begin considering the Audacity of the Vice-Presidency.
For it is Mr. Obama alone that will be in position to unify the party and the nation, if, as I now expect, he emerges from the Convention as a very close, but much-admired, runner-up.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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A New York Times report Thursday shed new light on current American voter preference trends:
The poll showed that Mr. Obama now leads Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, by 47 percent to 42 percent; his lead was 50 percent to 38 percent in late February, when Mr. McCain still faced opposition from Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor. The latest poll shows Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. McCain by 48 percent to 43 percent in a similar match-up.
Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are now effectively tied among Democratic voters, with 46 percent saying they want the party to nominate Mr. Obama, compared with 43 percent for Mrs. Clinton. In late February, 54 percent of Democrats said they wanted Mr. Obama to win the nomination, compared with 38 percent for Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Obama’s big lead among men over Mrs. Clinton has disappeared during that period; in February 67 percent of men wanted the party to nominate him compared with 28 percent for Mrs. Clinton, while now 47 percent of men back him compared with 42 percent for Mrs. Clinton, a difference that is within the poll’s margin of error. Similarly, his lead among whites, voters making more than $50,000 annually and voters under age 45 has shrunk.
I cannot help but think that the last word in the Democratic nomination battle has yet to be spoken.
They may just have to count the votes, after all.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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Serious food for thought from David Sirota at Truthdig:
Since the 1960s, bigotry has undergone an aesthetic makeover. Today, the most pernicious racists do not wear pointy hoods, scream epithets and anonymously burn crosses from behind masks. They don starched suits, recite sententious bromides and stage political lynchings before television cameras. For proof, behold the mob stalking Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
... It is polite pinstriped prejudice shrouding bigotry in feigned outrage against extremism—the operative word being “feigned.” After all, John McCain solicited the endorsement of John Hagee—the pastor who called the Catholic Church “a great whore.” Similarly, according to Mother Jones magazine, Hillary Clinton belongs to the “Fellowship”—a secretive group “dedicated to ‘spiritual war’ on behalf of Christ.” She is also friendly with Billy Graham, the reverend caught on tape spewing anti-Semitism. But while Wright’s supposed “extremism” blankets the news, McCain and Clinton’s relationships with real extremists receive scant attention.
Why is it “controversial” for one pastor to address the black community, racism and blowback, but OK for another pastor to slander an entire religion? Why is it news that one candidate knows a sometimes-impolitic clergyman, but not news that his opponent associates with an anti-Semite? Does the double standard prove the dominant culture despises a black man confronting taboos, but accepts whites spewing hate? Does the very reaction to Wright show he’s right about racism?
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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