Determinist v. Free Will

As the campaign winds down there is going to be an ongoing narrative war. There will be two camps, the determinist and free will. The determinist camp will be supporting the idea that no matter what events happened in the campaign mccain was going to lose and that the macro factors such as general anger at Bush and Republicanism were most important. the free will camp will hold that McCain was in this campaign and that he, more than any other republican could have overcome the macro factors because of his unique campaign branding. these people look at the tactics and strategy employed by mccain and use those as the determining factor of the election.

I tend to come down in favor of macro factors setting up the playing field tilted in obama's direction to the point that mccain needed to run a flawless race with obama running an average or bad campaign. Just the opposite has happened. McCain has run a terrible race. Many will assert that mccain has not actually run a bad race, they will point to the numbers coming out of the convention and during the summer as an indicator. This is a flawed argument because the numbers coming out of the convention fit in line with historical trends coming out of conventions. Also, the polling during the summer has never been a particularly great indicator of where the race is going to end up and that held true here.

Instead McCain made a series of highly visible and very poor choices. He made the choice to run to the right in an attempt to salvage his "base". He ran as a pure conservative after the primary in defiance of his brand name. He made the conscious decision to embrace bush instead of creating separation. McCain figured at the time that he could win on an experience versus change argument and that by throwing bush under the bus he would be making too great a concession towards change. McCain proceeded to run a fairly traditional Republican campaign on matters of national security and taxes. The when it came down to crunch time after a fairly forgettable summer he picked sarah palin.

Palin was a terrible pick. She was a complete reversal on the one consistent message mccain had, experience. McCain needed to present a perfect image to the voters to separate himself from the macro factors that weigh down genric republicans. he not only failed to rise to this challenge but ran away from it and into the arms of his party hardliners. Then he failed in his response to the financial crisis making himself look erratic and foolish.

So McCain had a mountain to climb at the beginning of the election. It was not an impossible climb but it was a really tough climb. In the end he has put his foot wrong one too many times and it is doubtful he recovers. Be careful of anyone who attributes things solely to either the macro or micro factors because the truth is in the middle.

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Palin v. McCain: Republican Rumble

The McCain campaign has become a microclimate of the GOP. Constant discord and strife, infighting and circular firing squads. The epicenter of this most recent fight is blame over McCain's failing campaign. One side wants to blame palin for being incompetent and a complete drag on the ticket. The other side blames the McCain team handlers for not letting Palin be Palin. It all kicked off with a report by politico's ben smith

Even as John McCain and Sarah Palin scramble to close the gap in the final days of the 2008 election, stirrings of a Palin insurgency are complicating the campaign's already-tense internal dynamics.

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain's camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain's decline.

"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

"I think she'd like to go more rogue," he said.

Smith goes on to outline the palin camps frustration over her very restrictive treatment and the McCain camps counter charges of her complete and utter unreadiness. Palin essentially sees the writing on the wall and wants to make sure her career and political future is not destroyed by being tied to McCain. Personally i think that ship has sailed. However Plain clearly does not and just as clearly the McCain team wants to make sure she becomes the top line reason for the loss. They are attempting to generate conventional wisdom that blames palin for dragging everything down.

Instead of triggering denials and push back that everything is peachy keen in McCain land Cnn ran with the story and included more quotes from McCain aides and Palin stalwarts detailing the campaigns inner battle.

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."

A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"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."

This is simply the explicit stating of things that some were observing under the surface. MSNBC's Chuck Todd commented on the apparent lack of chemistry between the two after the recent brian williams interview.

"When you see the two of them together, the chemistry is just not there. You do wonder, is John McCain starting to blame her for things? Blaming himself? Is she blaming him?...We are at a critical juncture inside this campaign for the McCain folks and that is who is trusting who? You have got people worrying about their reputations. Now you are wondering do the candidates trust the staff? Does the staff trust the candidates? This is a dangerous time in a campaign that is behind."

The underlying story here is clear. The McCain people think that Palin has no idea what she is doing and is undercutting and creating distractions. They view her as incompetent and someone who needs to be tightly controlled to minimize the damage. They are right about that. Palin has failed in just about every attempt to answer substantive questions. She draws attention to her inexperience and captures the news cycle with stories that put mccain on the defensive.

But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.

They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain's record.

"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic," said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history."

The crux of the problem is that you cant blame palin. She has her political future to think of. From every indication she is confident in her abilities. She truly believes that she should be given more room to do what she wants and she is going to make that room. She was picked by the McCain people to be the VP and that alone should give her a self belief. No the people responsible for this are McCain, Black, and Schmidt. This is possibly the best quote of the entire cycle and it shows exactly why those three people are responsible.

After that first brief meeting, Davis remained in discreet but frequent contact with Palin and her staff — gathering tapes of speeches and interviews, as he was doing with all potential vice-presidential candidates. One tape in particular struck Davis as arresting: an interview with Palin and Gov. Janet Napolitano, the Arizona Democrat, on "The Charlie Rose Show" that was shown in October 2007. Reviewing the tape, it didn’t concern Davis that Palin seemed out of her depth on health-care issues or that, when asked to name her favorite candidate among the Republican field, she said, "I’m undecided." What he liked was how she stuck to her pet issues — energy independence and ethics reform — and thereby refused to let Rose manage the interview. This was the case throughout all of the Palin footage. Consistency. Confidence. And . . . well, look at her. A friend had said to Davis: "The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best — that’s your V. P."

Schmidt, to whom Davis quietly supplied the Palin footage, agreed. Neither man apparently saw her lack of familiarity with major national or international issues as a serious liability. Instead, well before McCain made his selection, his chief strategist and his campaign manager both concluded that Sarah Palin would be the most dynamic pick...

The next morning was Thursday, Aug. 28. Salter and Schmidt drove Palin to McCain’s ranch. According to Salter, the senator took the governor down to a place where he usually had his coffee, beside a creek and a sycamore tree, where a rare breed of hawk seasonally nested. They spoke for more than an hour. Then the two of them walked about 40 yards to the deck of the cabin where the McCains slept. Cindy joined them there for about 15 minutes, after which the McCains excused themselves and went for a brief stroll to discuss the matter. When they returned, McCain asked for some time with Schmidt and Salter. “And we did our pros and cons on all of them,” Salter told me. “He just listened. Asked a couple of questions. Then said, ‘I’m going to offer it to her.’ ”

There is no way that the McCain people are allowed to complain about Palin being uniformed. They knew she was uninformed. They picked her for the same confidence on display right now. Viewing the Charlie Rose interview they admired her tactic of latching onto pet issues and never letting go. They knew everything they needed to know about sarah palin before they picked her and not only didn't they care about the flaws they admired them. They were right that she was a dynamic pick and she does look good. It just so happens that the other things like policy matter too. Her strengths have been weaknesses and her weaknesses have been fatal flaws. Palin has been who she is but it turns out that who she is is not what the McCain camp projected they were getting.

It was all there but it took someone better than schmidt mccain and co to see it. Now they are repenting at leisure a marriage they made in haste as the pick they thought would put them on top has instead begun to tear them apart. Palin will continue to fight for her personal future and set the stage for her dream 2012 run against Huckabee and Romeny. The McCain loyalists will continue to paint palin as the backstabbing diva who cost them the race and dems everywhere will sit back and enjoy the schadenfreude.

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I am Spar..Joe the Plumber!!

Really, it had to be done.



Now Compare



Cmon, this entire economic strategy built around Name the Occupation is about the most stupid and juvenile thing yet. It is beneath the dignity of a serious political campaign, luckily mccain is not running a serious political campaign. Serious political campaigns deal with issues and the concerns of voters, neither of which mccain addresses.

McCain has been running around telling people the center piece of his campaign is the economy. Clearly this is a laugh line. The center piece of the mccain campaign are lies innuendo and smear currently being spread by robo calls. Go over and read the NYT preview of the mccain campaign article. This pretty much sums up the mccain campaign

After that first brief meeting, Davis remained in discreet but frequent contact with Palin and her staff — gathering tapes of speeches and interviews, as he was doing with all potential vice-presidential candidates. One tape in particular struck Davis as arresting: an interview with Palin and Gov. Janet Napolitano, the Arizona Democrat, on “The Charlie Rose Show” that was shown in October 2007. Reviewing the tape, it didn’t concern Davis that Palin seemed out of her depth on health-care issues or that, when asked to name her favorite candidate among the Republican field, she said, “I’m undecided.” What he liked was how she stuck to her pet issues — energy independence and ethics reform — and thereby refused to let Rose manage the interview. This was the case throughout all of the Palin footage. Consistency. Confidence. And . . . well, look at her. A friend had said to Davis: “The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best — that’s your V. P.”

Could you ask for a more shallow and incompetent way to pick a running mate? Truly this explains why palin spent 150K on clothing, she was picked to look pretty distracting viewers from her filibuster and lack of knowledge. I mean they knew about the abuse of power investigation and ignored it. This validates every thing said about how the gop operates, they live to win campaigns and not to govern.

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Obama Cmpaign Robo Calls

Obama has his owm Robo Calls out there to fight those of John McCain.

Here's a script:

Hi, this is Jeri Watermolen, calling for the Campaign for Change. I live in Green Bay and, like you, I've been getting sleazy phone calls and mail from John McCain and his supporters viciously -- and falsely -- attacking Barack Obama. I used to support John McCain because he honorably served our country -- but this year he's running a dishonorable campaign. We know McCain will continue many of Bush's policies, and now he's using George Bush's divisive tactics. In fact, he hired the Bush strategists whose attacks even McCain once called hateful.

Barack Obama will turn the page on these negative politics and stand up for the middle class. That's the change we need, and it's why I have changed my mind about John McCain. Join me in voting for Barack Obama. Paid for the Campaign for Change, a project of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, 608-255-5172, and authorized by Obama for America.

People want to know if robo calls work and i think the answer is that no they do not. People just dont listen to the calls. Calls with volunteers are the only call method proven effective. However that is hardly the point of these calls. The point is that now anyone mentions robo calls obama's will be included because of the need for balance. Obama will be able to get his message attacking mccain for being sleazy out in the free press echo chamber and now millions who would otherwise never been exposed to them are. It is similar to what mccain has been doing with his video press releases.

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Its all they know how to do.

2000 and 2004 were elections where the country felt it was in a relatively good place. Sure 2004 had the War in Iraq but the war was not universally loathed at that point in time and Bush still had a 50% approval rating. Bush strategist Karl Rove ran a campaign based largely on smoke and mirrors. He focused on cultural and other distraction issues designed to fire up his base and win on turn out and voter suppression.

Fast forward to 2008 ans Rove protege Steve Schmidt is running the McCain campaign. Schmidt is a veteran of the Bush campaign and he headed up the war room in 04. He spent his time learning at Rove's right hand. He has a masters in GOP campaigning. Unfortunately for him the election is not taking place in 2000 or 2004. The country is in a bad way. For the first time in a generation an election is about more than cultural issues. Sadly for the GOP those are the only things they know how to do.

Commentators and Bloggers have been looking at the mccain campaign and asking why they persist with ayers, acorn, etc when that stuff is totally unimportant to the public. it seems to make no sense. The answer is that this is all these people know how to do. it has been their specialty for the past two decades. It is all they have ever needed. Now though they are being asked to do something new and different and they are totally out of their depth. So they try to up the game on what they do know getting slimier and slimier. Unsurprisingly they are not succeeding. Schmidt and co is out of their depth.

This of course frustrates them. They lash out and they look desperate, because they are. They simply dont have a handle on what to do against obama and in the face of an actual crisis because they have waged the past elections with smoke and mirrors. When it comes time to deal with problems though tricks dont get it done.

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McCain loses last bit of honor

Too often, i think, we separate the man from the politician. We see that idea reflected in the press coverage of McCain where reporters are shocked and dismayed that McCain is using lies and smears to target Barack Obama. "This is not the real McCain. He is too honorable. You can tell he does not like to do this." You can hear the yearning in for McCain to throw off the shackles and be free! This is of course utter nonsense.

A campaign for the president is a grueling test of a persons' principles, ethics, and morals. Presidential nominees are pulled in thousands of different directions by various interest groups and demands on their time. They must prioritize who and what is important to them. Then these priorities are put to the test when the campaign hits a bumpy spot. Will a candidate stay with their proffesed princples or will those be thrown under the bus in a quest for power? We know the answer with Sen. McCain. If you doubt that he has thrown out any shred of honor he had watch this



Video Description from Greg Sargent

McCain defended his robo-slime by saying that the calls directed at him were worse than anything his own calls said about Obama.

"These are legitimate and truthful and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that -- things that this is -- this is dramatically different and either you haven't -- didn't see those things in 2000," McCain said.

McCain said his robo-slime was highlighting "a legitimate issue," which is the question of whether Obama is "being truthful with the American people," a clear reference to his robo-call attacking Obama's association with William Ayers.

Actually, this is false. McCain's robo-call about Obama and Ayers says absolutely nothing about whether Obama is telling the truth about his relationship with the former Weatherman. If you don't believe me, you can listen to the full call right here.

Text of the call

"You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country."

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racism is alive and well

i think we can put behind us the idea that discriminating or hating on the basis of race in america is no more.

Surprise, shock and some fear in a local neighborhood, after an anti-Obama display is hung from a tree. The display is at a home at Symmes and Hicks Road in Fairfield.

And the person who put it there says the message isn't political, it's racist. Shawn Ley spoke with the man who isn't shy about his views.

There it is, right above the "McCain-Palin" sign: a make-shift ghost, hanging from a noose. A Barack Obama sign attached upside down. Obama's middle name: "Hussein" spray painted and misspelled above.

Mike Lunsford hung the ghost in his yard. He spoke to us off-camera, saying his views could hurt his employers business ... but he says make no mistake: He doesn't want an African American running the country.

Lunsford says he believes Barack Obama is not a "full blooded American." And he says the United States is a white, Christian nation - and only with white Christians should be in power.

This is so unacceptable. His reason for doing this was to respond to a cartoon of mccain in kkk robes chasing obama. Explain to me exactly how this is meant to respond to that? If anything it only reinforces the idea that mccain supporters and the gop is racist.

I look forward to hearing Sen McCain condemn this but i look forward to hearing gov palin condemning this as well. That is one of the big points is that mccain is playing good cop bad cop with this topic and this is not a situation where games need to be played. So McCain get your house in order because this is what you tolerate, out and out racism.

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McCain's last best hope for a comeback.

This idea is about as likely as snow in summer but hey, mccain really is desperate. His final move is to throw bush completely and totally under the bus. Run against him and the GOP for the last 18 days and pray people take him seriously.

mccain was at his best last night when he was laying out his maverick cred. people used to really believe that and i think many would like to believe he can be that again. To do this he needs something big but believable and just trashing bush, his legacy etc, may be it. Of course Obama is going to hit him on his voting history and past support of bush but he is going to do that no matter what mccain does.

The biggest card in this is to prosecute both of them for war crimes and to close gitmo. vow ot get the bottom of the corruption and to name names. Obama has so far refused to do anything like this and the public would probably be on board. It might even give permission to the right to stop towing the defending bush line. they need permission to throw him under the bus and mccain can do it with threats of prosecution.

Separation from traditional conservative orthodoxy was always mccains best hope. that he let the schmidts of the world lead him down the old path of smear was the worst decision of his campaign. I dont claim he would win by just turning bush into a pinata and he might lose the base totally but he is going to lose now. doing what he is doing is not working and this was the only thing i could come up with that would resonate with the general public.

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Connections for McCain

one of the things i think make a big difference in how a person lives their lives is their ability to make connections. Not just personal connections, those are essential, but also cause and effect and relationship connections. I find that many of the most incisive and though provoking articles and comments are those that facilitate the connection of two ideas that people would otherwise view as unrelated. Most often for me this seems to present itself in glaring inconsistencies. when i see something that appears inconsistent, like sarah palins call for massive governmental oversight preceded by a demand for government to get out of the way, i cant help but point out that those wont go together.

Spotting the interdependency of ideas and actions and then synthesizing that into something for others to read is not an easy task. Often you can end up with the, "well duh", posts. Generally though the post that connect two things people overlooked provoke the most thought and debate. My favorite example right now is the efforts of john mccain to roll back the observable vitriol that marks his campaign rallies. McCain is getting credit from pundits and people in the blogosphere for this effort. Some have latched onto it as proof that mccain really is an honorable and decent man troubled by the tactics he is "forced" to pursue.

I of course see this entirely differently based on several things. The first is that McCain instigated all of this with his 100% negative campaign. He chose to use Ayers etc instead of campaigning on ideas. As David Brooks pointed out the Republican party is no longer the party of ideas or intellectual thought. It cannot be surprising that the candidate of a party without ideas runs on a platform without ideas. McCain is wholly complicit in the campaign strategy he has chosen. The crowning glory of this was actually the convention with the GOP speeches that went after Obama on all of the same topics as we see splashed across the headlines.

Second with how mccain is polling the people that still go to mccain rallies are those diehard of diehards. There has been talk of Obama butting against the ceiling of his support. This means that McCain would be scrapping the bottom of his. This bottom was always going to be the craziest of the right. The people who will look for any excuse to vote against obama, against any dem candidate. so we really see the base, the core of the gop without the veneer of moderate conservatives usually in front of the cameras.

What does it mean that the conservative movement has run out of ideas? it means the movement is dead. that entire branch of conservatism is dead. it has been tested in governance and has failed and yet mccain, instead of running on the glittering maverick brand, ran with the movement. It does not say much for mccain that he was unwilling to take charge and lead in a new direction when it became obvious the old direction was a dead end. Sadly he apparently fell victim to the mantra, conservatism cannot fail, you can only fail conservatism.

this failure and the failure of the mccain campaign will obviously lead to one of two possibilities, the gop continues to double down on the social emotional direction or reforms to something along the lines of mike huckabee. a populism mixed with social conservatism.

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Debate Reaction...

McCain lost and he lost big. i did not need to see the snap polls to bolster my claim but they do back me up. McCain did not do terribly but he it made for a couple of strange moments when he called obama "that one". It was just kinda weird. I did not see it as the end all and be all of the debate but the media needs a narrative and that fits best with the result of the first debate where mccain failed to look at obama. "Now he wont even address him etc..." McCain loses any policy discussion because he is ont he wrong side of the public on his policy. He cant win on the merits. So he lost the debate itself but he also lost the larger fight over regaining some positive aspects of his campaign. He needed a big headline out of this and he did not come close.

The format sucked. The entire idea behind a town hall is that the people actually ask and the candidates answer questions off the cuff. There should be follow ups and it is supposed to be unscripted. Last night was anything but. i mean brokaw had a script he could not read when he candidate stepped in front of it at the end of the night. How lame.

I thought this provided a big opportunity for mccain when both candidates were visibly chaffing at the restrictions to just blow up the format and ask obama to shift to a real town hall style. Talk about a crazy made for tv moment that could introduce major uncertainty into the campaign. McCain cannot win as long as the campaign stays sedate and boring. He is behind and behind by a lot. If he is willing to take the ayers track of throwing away his honor he should have been willing to throw away the debate format. The media and the people would have loved it. Maybe he would not have done as well on the answering but really it would have provided the chance to dominate the debate in a way the actual format never gave him.

Note that McCain failed to bring ayers into the debate. He was not man enough to do it to obama's face. He was not able to stand on stage and call obama a terrorist. maybe the campaign would not have been negative if they had done the town halls because mccain could never attack obama like that to his face. even palin was willing to go after biden with the white flag of surrender. baring a nuclear moment i dont see mccain turning this around. Obam by 4.5 points in popular vote and he wins 376 electoral votes.

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Schmidt and Palin sitting in a tree...

I think it has been obvious for some time that John McCain did not pick sarah palin to be his running mate. That choice was made for him. We now have confirmation of this,

The effort peaked with the choice of Palin as McCain's running mate. Convinced that McCain needed a dramatic gesture to make the race competitive, Schmidt pressed McCain to pluck the Alaska governor from obscurity.

Other than the candidates, no one in the operation has more riding on that decision than Schmidt. And no one has worked harder to turn the decision into a success.

He defended Palin against what he called sexist attacks, and traveled to Alaska to brief her before her first TV interviews. For three days, he was ensconced at McCain's spread in Sedona, Ariz., helping Palin prepare for her performance on the biggest night of her career: the debate against Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden.

really it was obvious. Schmidt is a guy who demands absolute message discipline. he is a control freak which is why he cant allow mccain or palin of the very short leash. no unscripted time. Palin was selected to perform in the play Schmidt is directing. However his absolute message discipline makes for some interesting shifts when the campaign has to change course. they drill home one message with 100% effort then turn around the next day and drill in a different message leaving people to wonder, wtf?

McCain has been running battle to battle without consideration for his overall strategic position. It happens when one side becomes over matched they cannot stop and think about the long term because then everything would fall apart. McCain has been trying to hang on news cycle to news cycle putting up enough smoke and mirrors for people to think everything was stable enough to put a republican in charge. The financial crisis blew this apart.

McCain is now in a situation where he is fading and he is lashing out desperate to find something to slow the building narrative of an obama win. What he really needs is an outside intervention, some type of foriegn policy event where he can take a lead. Something that will get the economy off the front pages for a day or two giving him time to catch his breath. it aint gonna happen.

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McCain, Desperation and Ayers.

Pretty much everyone has covered the william ayers story. It is beyond flogging a dead horse. In future campaign cycles people call things ayers stories when they are so tired and so without effect that they should have faded away long ago. Why, when everyone has heard and ignored the ayers story is it coming back from the dead?

No, really why? If i put on the political strategist hat for a second and look at this i cant figure out where the McCain camp thinks this leads. The ayers story is just so weak. The NYT ran a story today revealing that Obama has no ties with ayers.

[T]he two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8."

The biggest problem with this is not that the link is not true, the McCain campaign has proven they dont particularly care about that, but that it is such a worn issue. McCain and the GOP is sinking millions of dollars into trying to convince people there is something here when no one cares. It has been around so long and so thoroughly debunked that it has no effect. The media will not help promote it in a positive and damaging way to Obama. It just plays into the meta narrative that mccain will lie cheat and steal if it means victory. Not good for mccain.

It is clear that McCain is desperate. He has good reason to be desperate because he is losing and on a pace to lose big. So i have to wonder why they are choosing the route of discredited attacks to go after Obama's character. If you are going to go after his character it needs to be done in a fresh way with things people have not already dismissed as irrelevant. Again truth is irrelevant.

In order for their attacks to succeed they need to undermine Obama's credibility with voters. The ayers thing is too indirect and already discredited. Instead mccain should have been trying to portray obama as a straight up liar manipulating to get what he wants. That is the only narrative that has potential. Using the Rev. Wright footage with the question about how Obama could sit there and listen to that for 20 years is a decent move. Still they need something more.

Obama touts his work with Luger and his work with colburn and brownback and some other conservatives. Why has the mccain campaign avoided undermining this? Get those people out there and have them tell stories about obama not really working on bills but swooping in to take credit. He takes credit for other peoples work, combined with rev wright with a little bit of past drug use and you can build a story. Not a true one but that hardly matters at this point.

McCain cannot hope to win on retread material and he has no problem with lying about anything so why is he sticking to the ayers stuff? I expect to see some more incendiary stuff in the coming weeks that bears no relationship to the truth and probably involving drugs.

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Palin's Family is apparently not off limits

There is an item over at TPM

In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one -- the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.

Inside John McCain's campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. "It would be fantastic," said a McCain insider. "You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week."

If this is true then it would be a new low for the McCain campaign. I know McCain loves giant gimmicks but this would be truly outrageous. They are already pushing these two kids together for political purposes but now they want to use them as political props like nothing else in history. This is on top of repeated McCain campaign assertions that the family of Palin is off limits.

I dont advocate attacking the families of candidates but i do advocate attacking the mccai campaign over cynically exploiting children for public gain. I really do hope this is untrue but the fact that it cant be discounted is saying something...

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Palin/McCain Part II

Who are the republicans trying to elect McCain or Palin? I wrote shortly after the pick that Palin had become the headliner of the ticket. Since then that has only solidified. Palin has been the draw to the McCain Palin events. McCain has really benefited from enhanced crowds and an enhanced energy at their joint appearances.

In a break with tradition, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin could spend more time together on the campaign trail than apart, a senior campaign aide said Wednesday.

"It is under serious consideration that they will spend more time together than not and more time than is traditional," the aide told reporters aboard Palin's campaign plane during a refueling stop in Montana en route to Alaska. "There's just a huge amount of enthusiasm."

This is truly becoming an first in Presidential Politics. The VP far outshines the nominee. Palin has drawn crowds far surpassing those of McCain. She is the one driving the GOP side of the ticket. Consider the differences in two events, one held together and one with just McCain,

McCain aides said Wednesday's event attracted the biggest non-convention crowd of his campaign, with local officials reporting an estimated 23,000 at the event. People filled the grass and hillsides to make a sea of red, as the state GOP exhorted everyone coming to wear the hue in a sign of support for the party, and they often drowned out the candidates' words with chanting.

Judging by shouts from the crowd, the enthusiasm seemed driven primarily by the presence of Palin. She has electrified both McCain's campaign and the party since he announced her as his running mate almost two weeks ago.

The reaction was significantly different in Philadelphia. McCain made a solo trip for a roundtable discussion with half a dozen female business leaders at the Down Home Diner. The appearance, inside a bustling indoor downtown marketplace, formed a sharp contrast with the earlier joint show, as the arrival of both McCain's bus outside and him inside was greeted by loud Obama crowds.

Maybe you cannot compare the two directly but the latter McCain event was essentially a failure and waste of time.

The joint appearances also allow the McCain campaign to keep a tighter rein on Palin. They can hold her hand through the events, let her speak, bring in the crowds, then hide her away from the press. It is the ideal set up for McCain in many ways. They also count on Palin's star to draw the free media coverage. Normally the two candidates campaign separately to reach a larger audience but McCain is betting that the media audience is larger for the joint than the combined separate. What are the implications for this dynamic where people are actually voting for the VP over the nominee?

It creates a big risk for the McCain campaign in that there is a lot of potentially damaging stuff coming out about Palin. There is the risk that the big high McCain is currently riding could crash and burn if any of the different scandalous actions Palin engaged in erupt into something serious. McCain is betting his whole campaign that Palin will deliver him victory. Its not a safe bet.

Maybe this last pint wont end up mattering but doesnt McCain look a little old and out of place now? He is like the awkward guy at a high school party who graduated three years ago but still shows up. He just does not seem to belong. The GOP feels that Palin is the future and McCain is actually more of a distraction. Shutting down Palin might pay the biggest dividend. She is the defacto top of the ticket driving the enthusiasm and breaking her might break the excitement.

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Who is in charge of McCain Campaign?

I submit that it is not John McCain. Political campaigns are an interesting operation in that they are about the election of one person. They are built around the marketing of that one person. Politicians are said to have "brands" carefully built up over the years. It would naturally lead to the thought that the politician is the one who makes the final decision because, in the end, it is his brand. McCain may sign off on the stuff that goes on in the campaign but i have a hard time believing he is actually "running things". The person actually running things and making the decisions is Steve Schmidt.

The first thing to do is to explain who Schmidt is. The NYT recently did an article on him and here is their description,

Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain who worked on President Bush’s campaign in 2004...

His stamp was reflected in the sharp tone of the scathing prime-time speeches, all of which Mr. Schmidt reviewed and approved, and some of which were criticized as stretching the truth. It was evident in the campaign’s fierce attacks on news organizations as they examined the extent to which Mr. McCain had vetted Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska when he chose her as his running mate, and reported on the pregnancy of her teenage daughter (the disclosures were released just as Hurricane Gustav was hitting the Gulf Coast, in a gambit of news management that is one hallmark of Mr. Schmidt’s style).

And it could be seen in the ubiquitous slogan “Country First” — as in, Mr. McCain puts it there, Mr. Obama does not.

In many ways the way the times talks about Schmidt is reminiscent of Dem James Carville from the Clinton's war room of 1992. He is a Rove disciple and so naturally has adopted Roves playbook. In fact he would not have the job if he did not.

There is evidence that McCain is just going along with the flow as dictated by Schmidt. Here is an important quote in the times piece,

Mr. Rove said Mr. Schmidt’s increased authority — which came about after what amounted to a coup by Mr. Schmidt and other McCain aides with ties to the 2004 campaign, that gave him equal status with the campaign manager, Rick Davis — has been the best thing to have happened to Mr. McCain.

The times makes numerous references to the discipline that Schmidt has impressed on not only the candidate but the campaign as a whole. It would be impossible for him to do this without a very high level of authority. Note also that imposing discipline on a candidate implies that the candidate does what you tell them to do. This makes sense because McCain hired these people to get him the win. Winning is the ultimate goal of the campaign and these are the people who got bush elected, they are the winners of the GOP. So consider the recent debate over the VP pick. By many reports McCain wanted Lieberman or Ridge. He was told though that he could not have them. So instead the pick was Gov Palin? Someone McCain had only met a couple of times?

The evidence of Schmidts finger prints is all over the pick. It is a major political decision. With his high level of authority over the strategy of the campaign how would he not be involved with choosing who gets on the list. He is in charge of picking what is going to be an important narrative and what is not. Palin was a political pick made to fit a certain set of narratives that Schmidt would have had to designate. That is how she made the list.

People have talked about the poor vetting process involved. It does not really matter to someone like Schmidt whether the narrative is true or not. He comes from the Rove-Atwater school of slash burn and divide politics. Palin could fit the narrative he wanted. She energized the base playing perfectly into the Rove base turnout election style.

We know that McCain can be pushed by his advisers and people who run his campaign to do what they think the politically expedient thing is. The Confederate flag debate of 2000 is a perfect example.

McCAIN: The worst advice that I've given to myself was when the Confederate flag was flying over the state Capitol in South Carolina and I decided that I would say that's not an issue that I should be involved in, that it's -- should be decided by the people of the state of South Carolina. I knew that it was a symbol that was very offensive to many people, and afterwards I went back and apologized. But it was, needless to say, by saying that I wouldn't have anything to do with an issue like that was an act of cowardice.

COURIC: Did someone advise you, senator, to do that?

McCAIN: Yes. Yes, but that doesn't mean I should have taken it. I should have known better.

McCain is more than willing to subvert his principles when it counts. McCain was also asked Sunday when Governor Palin would be talking to the press,

SCHIEFFER: When will you let her out to campaign on her own? When will she start having news conferences? When will she start doing interviews?

Sen. McCAIN: Well, as you know, we just finished the convention, but within the next few days. And I'm strongly recommending that she come on FACE THE NATION with Bob Schieffer, and that will be the first of her 65 appearances.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, we'll make a place for her here.

Sen. McCAIN: Thank you.

We now know that Palin will actually be making her first appearance with abc's Charlie Gibson. Now, this is not a particularly important mix up. What it does show though is that McCain is not making those types of decisions. Political decisions about the message, how to spread it, what it should be, are not his call. He just simply executes what he is given.

You hire political strategists for a reason. They help you to craft a message and get it out there. they help you get elected. However, they should just help. In the case of the McCain campaign McCain has ceded so much control that he is not exerting anything of his own in the campaign. You here people say they dont recognize the person that McCain is right now, that because as Candidate McCain he is not in charge of his own campaign.

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Stoking the fires of resentment

The way the McCain campaign is going to play the remainder of this election has become crystal clear. Thy are going to try to mobilize their base while pitching themselves as breaking from the party. If the McCain campaign has its way the election will be focused on personality, as McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said, "This election is not about issues,". The McCain camp personality war will be centered on the GOP's go to tactic since the days of Nixon. The manufacture and exploitation of a victimization identity. To do this they try to latch on to everything and anything to play this up.

The Huffington Post Reporting

Days before the anniversary of September 11, on the same morning that John McCain and Barack Obama released a joint statement pledging to avoid politics in light of the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, McCain's campaign accused Democrats of throwing away 12,000 American flags.

"The campaign says the flags were recovered from Invesco Field after the Democrats concluded their convention there," Fox News reported, "and they are going to be used as part of the warm-up ceremonies before McCain takes the stage" for a rally in Colorado Springs, Col.

But according to a senior official involved in organizing the Democratic convention, the McCain camp is simply lying about the flags.

"All of the flags at Invesco were picked up and put in bags and into storage, along with the unused flags and campaign signs. The flags were going to be donated, and the signs were going to be sent out to be used elsewhere," the official said, speaking anonymously since he was not authorized to talk to the press.

The above example is the GOP trying to take something the public at large admires, american flags, and make the case that Dems hat the flag, they hate america. Literally, that we trash the flag. It is patently absurd and incredibly insulting. It is this kind of crap that acts as a distraction. The politics of resentment is be playing played in three distinct ways with the Palin pick.

First they are trying to make it appear as if Dems hate or look down on people from "small town America". Sarah Palin's acceptance speech was geared towards this end. She made numerous references to "small towns" and used Obama's "bitter" comment to make her case. When she compared small town mayor to community organizer she was also making a distinction between urban and rural. Community organizers are, in general and possibly eroniously, perceived as people who work in urban areas. The subtext of her comment was that Obama was an "agitator" where she was a responsible person in authority. He was a dirty hippie when she was helping people.

My own perception is that the small town victimization is supposed to spark a tribalism. Her, and by extension the GOP, argument is traditionally that small towns are actually better than the city dwellers and that they have right to look down on the rest of us. There is an insecurity that revolves around ideas of culture and knowledge, symbolized by evolution and gay rights. In today's mass media world and global economy this distinction between small town people and urban people is a myth. Even if it had some bases in truth, again i dont think it does, the leaders of the GOP have no place making the argument, as Krugman points out,

Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts — the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business — really keep a straight face while denouncing “Eastern elites”?

Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, “marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu” — that was between his second and third marriages — really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn’t think small towns are sufficiently “cosmopolitan”?

Can the vice-presidential candidate of a party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself — until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans — really portray herself as running against the “Washington elite”?

Whether or not the GOP has a factual basis to speak for small town people is almost a side issue. The real issue is terms that the right uses to speak about small town values.

Conservatives have dominated the battle over populist rhetoric so long that even Americans who mistrust it bring up “elitism” and the “common-sense values” of “ordinary people” — as if they were objective realities instead of partisan talking points.

If i had my choice i would have Obama go right after these concepts. Is is common sense that you bring the cost of gas down by drilling for oil you wont get for a decade? Do ordinary people own 8 houses? Are the elitist the people who give you a plan for health care or the people who take your vote every four years with false promises and come back with nothing to show for it? Does the ordinary person wear $300,000 outfits? Is it wholesome to lie your way into a war?

In many ways though the small town voter is a myth. When Palin talks about being from a small town she mentioned her husband is a world champion snowmobile rider. That's not exactly a cheap sport. Hockey is not actually that cheap a sport either. The skates and the pads and the sticks cost money.

A different side to this idea of small town america is how white it is. When many people consider the ideal picture of a small town they think southern. They think football games, fried food and church. What they dont picture in the ideal small town is a great number of black people. Black people are referred to as "urban". This too has played a role in the politics resentment, especially in the south. The racial undertones are simering just below the surface and sometimes they seep out as they did when Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland called Obama uppity

Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama. "Just from what little I have seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word "uppity," Westmoreland said, "Uppity, yeah."

A number of commentators have made the point about the paucity of AA delegates at the convention. Only 36 of the RNC delegates were black, less than 2% of the total. At the Democratic convention in Denver 1,087 delegates were black, about a quarter of the total.

Here, from their own mouths are the values of small town people,



Beyond the small town resentment the GOP is also trying to tap into resentment among women over the loss of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary. It is blatant and obvious. Any one who saw Bill Maher the other night might have noticed Michael Steel trying to stoke those fires. McCain and Co went directly to charges of sexism to try and protect against the legitimate questions about Gov Palin's record. they hoped that they could get women to identify with Palin like they did with Clinton. Woman are an essential part of the Democratic coalition and splitting a significant chunk of them off would be a coup for the GOP. I do not think this will work but you never know.

Another prop in the GOP resentment play is the use of the Media. The pick of palin plays into this as the press tries to vet her the GOP will try and claim they are going to far out of bias against republicans. Claiming that the media are biased or liberal is a rallying cry for the GOP base. Part of what i think drives this is that people like to think that common sense and simple solutions exist for every problem and situation. This is not true. It used to be that the media would point this out and things like off shore drilling would be non-starters. The right successfully convinced people that their simple solutions or empty mantras were possible and then attacks on the policies became attacks on the people who held them. They would be too humiliated to admit that the policies were a bad idea so it instead it morphed into the world of balance where there really are two sides to every objective fact.

It also helps that the media and the press are on TV. TV is something that most people will never be on. It is a symbol of fame and worth in our society. People on tv and the writers in newspapers are the "big fish" of the country and every one wants to be a big fish. It is part of the egalitarian nature. If every one is equal then i should get to be on tv too, i am just as good as that person.

Finally i want to come back to the patriotism thing. The flag story at the begging is one example but it happens every day. Claiming that Obama would rather lose a war to win a campaign or that he fails to properly show his love for the country. All of this is total crap. People who screwed up the country, people like Sen James Imhofe should not get to question anyone's patriotism and yet they do,

Regardless of what polls show, Inhofe said, voters will have to ask themselves a question once they get behind the curtain in the voting booth on Election Day.

"Do you really want to have a guy as commander in chief of this country when you can question whether or not he really loves his country?" he asked.

"That's the big question.''

The GOP will continue to try to stoke the fires of resentment among the voters of the country. they have nothing else. They will try to exploit the divisions among our fellow countrymen turning brother against brother for their own purpose. If a house divided against itself cannot stand does that mean that the GOP wants to destroy America? Personally i dont want to tell other people how to live their lives. if they want to go to church or not have abortions thats fine. If they dont want to take advantage of programs designed to help those struggling to make ends meat then they dont have to. Just dont insist on making me do everything your way. I might start to resent it.

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Not Ready for Prime time

Can a candidate who is running for the second highest office in the Republic, the back up to the number 1 really be unready to face tough questions? that is the contention of the McCain campaign as they have decided that Sarah Palin is too fragile to answer questions over her record or statements. Palin will instead be hidden away and then trotted out only to give speeches to selected audiences controlled wholly and fully by the McCain campaign. Matt Yglesias has post on it with transcript and video from an interview with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis this morning.

SCARBOROUGH: Yesterday Nicolle Wallace suggested that she was sitting right there and told Jay Carney of Time magazine ‘Sarah Palin doesn’t have to talk to you, she doesn’t’ have to talk to the press.’ … Can we expect Sarah Palin on Meet the Press and other one on one interviews throughout the course of this campaign?

DAVIS: We’re going to do whatever we think is the best to win. We have 60 days left and if we think it’s a good idea to go out there and do those shows, we’ll do them.

SCARBOROUGH: Can you avoid it? Meet the Press?

DAVIS: We can afford anything we want to do. … We’re going to do what we think is in our best interest. If that means access to the press, we’ll give it to you.

If you missed the impetus for this you must read it. It is a testimate to the contempt that the republicans have for the voters and the country as a whole that they refuse to allow Palin to respond to the press.

CARNEY: We don’t know yet and we won’t know until you guys allow her to take questions, you know, can she answer tough questions, you know, domestic policy, foreign policy–

WALLACE: But I mean like from who? From you? Who cares?!

CARNEY: Who cares? I think the American people care.

WALLACE: I think the American people want to see her — I mean who cares if she can talk to Time Magazine? She talked to the American people. The American people want to say, “How am I going to save my home?” She can answer that question. … She took the stage and talked to the American people about things they care about: How they’re gonna save their homes.

You will know only what we want you to know and only when we want you to know it. This way they can trot Plain out in front of crowds and have her lie over and over and over again about things like her role in troopergate or the supposed sale of Alaska's jet on ebay or her purported opposition to ted stevens or he claims about fiscal responsibility or any number of other issues that will come out about Palin.

The McCain campaign is betting that it can force the media into letting this go. They may even be right about that. the media is essentially cowardly. They crave access to candidates like a crack addict loves crack. It is the life blood of their industry. This means that we will start to see the different stages of grief (or withdrawal) coming from them as the time progresses. McCain thinks that the process to acceptance will be relatively short and that the media will ignore the additons to the troopergate scandal as the come out.

I do not mean to suggest that there will be no interviews but the ones conducted will almost surely be done with people willing to lob softballs to her and avoind any potentially indelicate subjects. The fact that these sbjects are paramount to the discussion taking place is irrelevant. The McCain camp knows that Palin cant function without a script in front of her or on a screen so they dont plan to allow it.

If the media does allow this to happen it would be a total disgrace. this makes it all the more likely that it does happen as the media has never been known for avoiding things that make them look weak and ineffective. Palin has real questions that need to be answered and if Dems allow the republicans to get away with this then we might see some big trouble. Palin will be the attack dog and unless they can make her accountable to questions regarding her attacks those attacks will have no basis in fact or reality.

Lets hope the media does their job and forces Palin to take questions and clear her record instead of acting like a spoiled princess unwilling to fill the role required of a candidate.

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McCain's Flawed Strategy for Victory

I Have to say that the Palin pick has worked exactly like McCain had hoped it would. It could not have gone better. This might sound crazy given all of the stuff that is coming out about Palin and the media frenzy that ensued. You have to keep in mind though what McCain intended with this pick. This means you have to understand McCain's strategy for getting elected, flawed though it may be.

McCain has given up on winning the independent voters. He must have seen some bad internal polling on this and realized that the way he was progressing he was not going to win enough Indy voters to bring home a victory. The ability to win independent voters was one of the major predispositions of the McCain Campaign. It is a hallmark of McCain's image that he wins over moderates despite his policy positions. Maybe it was the Obama speech or maybe it was polling but there was an internal decision inside the McCain campaign that hanging their hopes on beating Obama with Indy voters was a losing proposition.

The McCain campaign faced with this made a big decision, they decided to turn this into a base turnout election ala George W. Bush. The problem with this is that McCain is not Bush. After famously calling Fallwell and his ilk agents of intolerance McCain developed a schism with the evangelical right. Despite all the ring kissing and supplication they were still not very enthused about his candidacy. McCain needed something to get them behind him. To accomplish this goal he had the one big tool, the VP slot.

The VP slot is something eminently more than a simple plank in the party platform especially after Cheney has finished with it. Beyond the inherent power of the VP there remains the thought in the back of the Evangelical's minds that they could have one of their own a heart beat away from the presidency. It represents a contract between McCain and that wing of the party. You get behind me all the way, work for my election and i will give you something you crave, one of you on the ticket. This is more than the promise of a pro life presidency it is the first steps in the performance of a pro life presidency.

So McCain picks Sarah Palin because she believes in the far right positions going down the line. Beyond that she is a woman, meaning there is the possibility of picking up identity politics voters and disaffected Clinton supporters. Her gender also sets up a new escape route for any time McCain or Palin is cornered on one of the myriad number of lies or policy problems they engage in, the claim sexism. It sets up the GOP arguments for the classic victimization at the hands of the evil leftist media.

Palin's speech at the RNC was perfect in that it fired up the base in a way that had been lacking before. If that was all she did that would probably be enough to consider her a success. However she did more. She is the new darling of the right as they love nothing more than people who get onstage and denigrate their opponents. Whether those attacks are reality based or not is of no concern. She went up there and played up the small town gal to great effect, playing into the myth that those from small towns are inherently superior to city dwellers. She inspired the base to dream of her as the potential leader and to work their hearts out for the chance to get her into the White House.

Now McCain has so far succeeded in his plan. The base is right where it should be historically at 90% consolidation. He has the foot soldiers of his party now firmly in his camp, he has his base ready to go. This is where the flaw is. His base is simply not big enough to beat Obama. Not only is it not big enough Bush won in part because the Kerry GOTV operation was no where near as good as his. This is simply not the case now. Obama may well have constructed the best GOTV machine in history, time will have to judge. McCain in contrast is getting a very late start and it is doubtful whether he will end up becoming competitive in this area.

Even assuming McCain can get an equivalent GOTV machine going it wont matter, the Dems have registration leads. This is the biggest hole in revising the 2004 strategy. The political situation is different and people have been moving away from the GOP meaning that even the biggest base turn out wont help unless he can get the indy voters. Unfortunately for McCain, the selection of Palin has caused bigger losses in the non-aligned than he gained in the base. He might think that picking Palin allows him to go after these people without fear of losing his base but i doubt he wins many of them back.

McCain's flawed strategy is not so different than many other strategies in that is trying to fight the last conflict when the situation calls for something different. Instead of relenting and lurching back to the right the McCain campaign would have done better to separate from them.

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Palin Will Blow Over

I wrote earlier on the feeding frenzy regarding Sarah Palin and the media questioning whether she should or will continue on the ticket. The whole situation is reminiscent of the Jeremiah Wright situation. The clamor is building on itself in the echo chamber. The media is crating a scenario where there are two outcomes. 1 McCain succumbs to pressure and boots Palin or two, McCain goes over the top of the media and outlasts the clamor.

Option one for McCain is probably going to be a candidacy sinker. I don't know how you get away with picking someone so bad that you have to find someone else against your wishes. The only precedent for this is the Eagleton pick. That one did not work out so well either. Sure its possible McCain is allowed to go back and pick someone safe and already prevetted and is ultimately forgiven but i dont view that as likely. That would really upset the CR who are actually ecstatic about the pick. Too many question have been raised and too much goodwill spent to overcome dropping her i expect.

Option 2 is the most likely. McCain will try to outlast the media on this one. They will hope that something else comes along or the media gets bored with the stroy when McCain fails to respond to pressure. If no other crazy revelations come out about Palin in the coming weeks then they might squeek by with a small hit. This is still better than being forced to dump her entirely. It is always possible that McCain uses whats left of his Maverick status to overcome this but it is not a good position to be in.

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McCain Taps Palin for VP

So the political world was shocked today by the announcement that Sarah Palin, the first term governor of Alaska, was John McCain's pick for VP. The net has been in a serious upheaval trying to determine exactly what McCain was thinking with this pick. Why her what does she bring to the table that no one else did? In my own opinion it is a completely cynical pick.

Kevin drum laid out what he believes to be the McCain camp thinking.

Their thinking is that she's a hard-right conservative who appeals to the base (David Brody was just on CNN telling us that Christian conservative leaders were high-fiving each other over the Palin pick), but not a famous hard-right conservative who's going to scare off independents. Soccer moms will like her. She's inexperienced, but no one can hold that against her this year — and anyway, her lack of a track record also means she doesn't bring a lot of baggage to the campaign. She's got great anti-corruption cred. She's young and vibrant and has an attractive family. Joe Biden will have a hard time going on the attack against a woman. She's unknown, but frankly, to most low-information voters (i.e., to most voters), all VP picks are unknown.

I think that is pretty solid over all. What i would say though is that there is a lot more to this pick. The first thing to note, this is not McCain's pick. This is a pick done by his staff and advisers. This was a pick designed to mollify the right. I think the McCain campaign has made a fundamental decision about the candidacy. They are not winning. I would be very interested to see the internals of the campaign polling. They must be losing the independents badly.

I say this because the Palin pick is an effort to reinvigorate the far right who have been rather unenthusiastic up to this point. The far right, the true believers, are the ones who hit the pavement to run GOTV drives and voter registration. They are the foot soldiers of the party. McCain is looking at voter registration defficits in many key states. He is way behind in campaign infrastructure. He needs these people to turn out the base. With Obama consolidating Dem support and winning a big chunk of the remaining indys McCain needs every drop of his base.

We know for a fact that McCain has met Gov Palin only three times. He does not know her. He has a group of people he goes back decades with like Joe Lieberman. He has high profile tested national politicians like Romney. Instead he chooses someone virtually unknown not only to the country but to him. That tells you who made the pick.

Palin is already being defined in the media as someone not ready for prime time. She is a former beauty pageant runner up, a first term governor. She has several quotes that portray her as less than sharp. She is being painted as a lightweight someone picked for interest groups and not to be president if McCain is incapacitated. It is that possibility that draws a great deal of fire. It reinforces the idea that McCain is not running a campaign serious about fixing American problems.

The only way this works for McCain is if she comes out and just blows people away. If she is like Obama at his 04 convention speech the pick has a chance at being genius but other than that i think it hurts mccain in the long run.

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