Two Large Losers - Election '08

In this morning after the '08 presidential election, with a number of close races in various states still undecided and detailed precinct by precinct data not yet available for Northwest Florida counties, we can be sure of only some things. One of them is that there were two large losers on the national scene yesterday, in addition to John McCain.

George W. Bush

The biggest loser of all in the 2008 general election was George W. Bush, not McCain, as the late night spontaneous demonstration outside the White House attests. Andrew Gumbel, who covered the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, likens it to the crumbling of the Berlin Wall:

They streamed down the hill from Adams Morgan, down 16th St and along Pennsylvania Avenue to converge on the edge of Lafayette Park. They sang songs, beat on drums, waved life-size cardboard replicas of Obama, hugged, kissed, high-fived and alternated chants of "Yes we can!" with "No more Bush!" For blocks around, cars lined up along the improbably jammed downtown streets echoed the rhythm of those chants with volley after volley of three short toots of their horns.

This wasn't an organized celebration like the gathering in Chicago's Grant Park. It didn't involve buses and organizers and legal protection volunteers, like the vast protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle nine years ago, or the mass demonstrations on the eve of the Iraq war. It was something altogether more unusual in American public life: a spontaneous political gathering of thousands of ecstatic, peaceful revelers who decided to make their feelings known before the most powerful political office on the planet. It was a celebration, for sure, but it was also some kind of deeper statement: that the people had been living under some sort of perversion of democracy for a long time but now felt emboldened to claim it back for themselves.

The "Worst. President. Ever." will be leaving office in richly deserved humiliation.

Sarah Palin

Beyond that, we'd have to say Sarah Palin is the second-sorriest loser. Not because she was a big drag on the McCain ticket -- although that's true, too -- but because she's now facing a certain war unto political death from large and very powerful elements within her own Republican party. It will take awhile, but you can color her done-for.

McCain bears some personal responsibility for that. He plucked the poor woman out of obscurity, so far as 49 of the 50 states are concerned, well before she was ready. He did it to excite, or at least appease, the wacko religious right of the party. In the process, however, he affronted nearly every powerful Republican in and out of office or who holds the party's purse strings.

Of course, Palin herself could have said "No." But she didn't. If she was as capable as some G.O.P. spinners were claiming on the Tee-Vee, she would have known she wasn't ready.

The spinners were lying, of course. You could see it in their eyes every time one of them went on the Tee-Vee to defend McCain's pick: 'This idiot was chosen over me?' they were saying to themselves, 'and now here I am lying about her like this, in front of everyone? What will my mother say?'

If, as they say in baseball, Palin been allowed to "round out" in the minor leagues a little longer, one could have imagined her, perhaps, making a successful run for national office four, or eight, or even twelve years from now; that is to say, after she'd had a chance to learn a little something about foreign affairs, domestic affairs, economics, history, and law. And, just as importantly from a political point of view, after she'd had a chance to bury those ethics charges, fix her squirrley income tax returns, and burn those mysterious medical records in obscurity -- as thoroughly as George W. Bush disappeared records of his cocaine possession probation in Texas and the Air National Guard AWOL records.

As it is, in effect, McCain let her blow out her throwing arm before she was mature enough to pitch and smart enough to hide her embarrassing past. Now, she's been left standing alone on the Republican mound with nothing left to throw.

Sarah Palin is now as vulnerable as Spiro Agnew was on the eve of the Nixon impeachment. Her political fate is sealed.

Random Thought

After traveling through several Pensacola suburban neighborhoods over the past week and seeing all the McCain-Palin yard signs, we got to wondering.... Would these people be just as likely to be promoting McCain and his running mate, Lassie the Collie, if that were the Republican ticket?

Palin Punked

For those who don't know, Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel are Quebec comedians working under the name of "Justiciers Masques." They make something of a comedy act out of placing fake phone calls to the rich and famous.

Saturday, they punked Sarah Palin by successfully impersonating French President Nicolas Sarkozy, with an improbably thick French accent no less, and misidentifying or dissing various celebrities, including Sarkozy's wife. In the process, Palin revealed new depths to her ignorance:

At one point the impersonator, comedian Marc Antoine Audette, told the Alaskan governor he is following the US elections closely along with his special American advisor Johnny Hallyday -- a famous French rock'n'roll singer.

When the fake president told Palin his wife Carla Bruni is "hot in bed," the governor chuckled and complimented him for his "beautiful family."

Palin also proffered to continue relations if she reaches the White House.

"We should go hunting together," Palin said.

Palin laughed in response to Audette's comment: "I just love killing those animals ... take away life, that is so fun!"

Wouldn't you know it? The entire phone call is now on YouTube:

Kiss of the Spider-Man

Dick Cheney endorses McCain-Palin.


Dept. of Congratulations

Barack Obama:

I'd like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it. That endorsement didn't come easy. Senator McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it. He served as Washington's biggest cheerleader for going to war in Iraq, and supports economic policies that are no different from the last eight years. So Senator McCain worked hard to get Dick Cheney's support.

But here's my question for you, Colorado: do you think Dick Cheney is delighted to support John McCain because he thinks John McCain's going to bring change? Do you think John McCain and Dick Cheney have been talking about how to shake things up, and get rid of the lobbyists and the old boys club in Washington?

School Props for McCain

MSNBC via Huffington Post:

A local school district official confirmed after the event that of the 6,000 people estimated by the fire marshal to be in attendance this morning, more than 4,000 were bused in from schools in the area. The entire 2,500-student Defiance School District was in attendance, the official said, in addition to at least three other schools from neighboring districts, one of which sent 14 buses.

Since when do schools connive with politicians to help construct a Potemkin village?

Bush Fan Evaluates McCain

Shorter David Broder: If John McCain were to run the country the way he has run his campaign, we're all in deep doo-doo.

[H]e had limited interest in, and capacity for, the organization and management of large enterprises. His first effort at building a structure for the 2008 presidential race collapsed in near-bankruptcy, costing him the service of many longtime aides. From beginning to end, the campaign that followed has been plagued by internal feuds and McCain's inability to resolve them.

The shortcoming was intellectual as well as bureaucratic.

Simple Question, Simple Answer

Question: Is it a negative political ad when the ad does nothing but accurately quote the other guy -- with verifying footnotes?

Answer: No.

Sunday Go to Meetin'

Sunday NYT:"Mr. McCain has found relatively small crowds — particularly compared with those that are turning out for Mr. Obama — even as he has campaigned in battleground states."

CLICK PICTURE

Calling Home

McCain Advisor Votes Early for Obama

More embarrassing for the McCain campaign than the hoax of a mentally troubled campaign worker is Charles Fried's announcement today that he's already has cast an absentee vote for... Barack Obama. Now, he wants his name taken off the McCain campaign's letterhead.

Chief among Fried's reasons? "The choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."

We know Charles Fried. He's a life-long very conservative Republican, a law professor at Harvard, and former Solicitor General during the Reagan administration. He's been serving as a McCain campaign advisor since day one. For McCain, losing Charles Fried is almost as bad an omen as losing your wife's vote.

McCain Campaign Worker Hoax

That McCain campaign worker who claimed she'd been assaulted by "a 6-foot-4 black man Wednesday night"? The one who said, oddly, that her assailant had carved a perfect backward 'B' on her cheek, as if using a mirror?

Turns out, the campaign worker made the whole thing up. She mutilated herself.

She's now been charged with filing a false police report. Police also are considering a psychiatric referral. Fox News exec John Moody may need one of those, too.
Before the hoax was exposed, he was predicting, "If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."

McCain's Slide Into Slime

TPM has an "interactive map" cataloging by-the-state John McCain's descent into the deep slime of robocalls. 'Obama kills babies' ... 'Hollywood darling' ... 'terrorists' friend' ... etc. etc.

Apparently, McCain intends to crash this airplane, too.

McCain Left on Straight-Jacket Express

John McCain Accidentally Left On Campaign Bus Overnight

Sassy Psyche Survey of John McCain

In descending order of sass:

Long-time Washington observer and columnist David Corn, describes McCain's debate persona last night with adjectives like "irritated"... "petulant"... "retro" ... and 'sarcastic'. He observes:

[V]iewers watching McCain's reaction shots during the evening could have easily wondered if the Republican presidential nominee would make it to the finish without his head exploding, for he seemed to be in the midst of an exercise in anger control.

Ari Melber for the Washington Independent sums up last night's debate:

Ultimately, McCain’s alternating anger and umbrage never delivered the clichéd “game changer” that politicos said he needed. He punched until he was punched out.

Ezra Klein:

The angry energy showed on McCain's face as clearly as in his answers. CNN, at least, had the split screen, and McCain was grimacing, twitching, blinking, sighing, smirking, eye-rolling. * * ** He looked like nothing so much as a man enduring acute gastrointestinal discomfort.

NYT analyst Patrick Healy:

Mr. McCain was more animated Wednesday night than he had been at the two other debates, though not always to his benefit in the split-screen presentation of television. His voice turned edgy at times, as when talking about Obama campaign attack advertisements, and his frozen smile and wide eyes — which blinked frequently and distractingly at times — seemed a little strange.

Jane Hamsher:

There were landmines everywhere and McCain stepped in all of them. His smirking, snarky tone was decidedly un-presidential, and his bitter, whiny complaining performance probably satisfied no one.
* * *
McCain was a nasty, vicious glass of sour milk who can barely contain his temper and can't quite fathom what is happening to him.

James Fallows:

McCain seemed to be in a 'roid rage.

Booman (Martin Longman):

John McCain lost because he acted like an asshole. Provoking him into being an asshole was the most surefire way to win this debate.

Rude Pundit (Lee Papa):

He was an angry leprechaun screaming at the man who stole his pot of gold. And, at the end of the day, John McCain seemed less like a major party candidate and more like a pissed-off Dad telling his college-aged daughter who she can and can't date, and, for no rational reason he can explain, he certainly doesn't want her fucking around with the black guy. Unfortunately for him, she's all grown up now and can make her own decisions.

McCain vs. McCain

Everyone and his second cousin is weighing in on last night's final presidential debate. Huffington Post has a wide variety of commentator reactions. Andrew Sullivan has more. Plus, scary-looking video evidence of McCain's inner struggle with his dark side.

For us, the victor was John McCain's superego. Against all odds, it managed to keep John McCain's id from jumping out of the seat and slugging Obama for everything bad that has happened to the poor man over the last gazillion years.

Debate Snap Polls

Tee Vee snap polls taken immediately after a debate usually don't mean much, not when they're close. But these? They're not close. Not even in the same solar system.

McCain's Muddled Mind

"Republicans acknowledge that McCain's efforts to connect on economic policy have been muddied by an ideological incoherence."

-- Boston Globe, Oct. 14

John McCain's inability to get in front of the economic challenges facing the nation is beyond baffling. You know the history:

• First, he says the economy is just great.
• Hours later, he says we're facing an economic crisis.
• Next, he says he's going to suspend his campaign (and offers to delay the second presidential debate) which in some way will help the economy crisis.
• Then, he doesn't.
• He says he's going to fly straight to Washington to lead Congress out of the wilderness and pass a rescue plan.
• Then, he stays in New York and, later, phones it in from Virginia.
  
• Next, he says he supports the congressional rescue plan - and even votes for it.
• Once back on the stump, he urges Bush to veto the bill because it contains "excess" spending.
• Late last week, campaign spokesmen claimed McCain would be announcing a new economic plan on Monday which would call for more cuts for the rich in their capital gains taxes.
• Then, he won't.
  

Now, McCain says he'll be coming out with new economic plan today. As Rachel Maddow says, below, don't hold your breath. If you want to hold your breath anyway, count on this: McCain will revise his revision as soon as he comes to understand it, just as he did with his mercurial housing crisis plan.

John McCain: Changes of mind you can count on.

Mercurial McCain: 'Erratic, Uncertain'

We were ruminating over the details of John McCain's wildly mercurial home mortgage crisis plans earlier today. And, lo, here's Barack Obama speaking out on the same subject several hours later at an Ohio rally.

We didn't write his speech. Honest.

(Transcript of clip, above)

"Now this is just the latest in a series of shifting positions that Senator McCain has taken on this issue and just about every issue. His first response to the housing crisis in March was that homeowners shouldn't get any help at all. Then a few weeks ago he put out a plan that basically ignored homeowners. Now, in the course of 12 hours, he's ended up with a plan that punishes taxpayers, rewards banks, and won't solve our housing crisis.

"This is the kind of erratic behavior we've been seeing out of Senator McCain. You remember the first day of this crisis he came out and said the economy was "fundamentally sound." Then two hours later he said we were in a crisis.

"I don't think we can afford that kind of erratic and uncertain leadership in these uncertain times. We need steady leadership in the White House. We need a President we can trust in times of crisis. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States of America."

As Steve Benen puts it, while evaluating a new Obama ad for Tee-Vee, the word "erratic" is appropriate because McCain "has been all over the map in response to the financial crisis."

He said it wasn't a time for blame, and then blamed Obama. He was for and against the AIG bailout on successive days. He pushed Chris Cox's firing, then dropped it. He wanted a commission to study what had gone wrong, and then never mentioned it again. He "suspended" his campaign 10 days after the crisis began, but never actually put his campaign on hold. McCain has simply gone from one ridiculous notion to another, flailing around, looking desperately for something coherent to say.

McCain's McMortgage McStakes

When it comes to an economic rescue plan, John McCain is in full caducity. Compare and contrast:

March 26, 2008: "McCain Rejects Broad U.S. Aid on Mortgages"

Drawing a sharp distinction between himself and the two Democratic presidential candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona warned Tuesday against vigorous government action to solve the deepening mortgage crisis and the market turmoil it has caused, saying that “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”

October 7, 2008 (pm): "McCain proposes bailout for homeowners"

John McCain will direct his Treasury secretary to implement an American Homeownership Resurgence Plan (McCain Resurgence Plan) to keep families in their homes, avoid foreclosures, save failing neighborhoods, stabilize the housing market and attack the roots of our financial crisis. * * * For those that cannot make payments, mortgages must be restructured to put losses on the books and put homeowners in manageable mortgages. Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.

October 8, 2008 (am): "McCain changes homeowner plan"

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made an overnight change in the homeowner bailout he proposed at Tuesday’s presidential debate, making it more generous to financial institutions and more costly for taxpayers. * * * The document posted and e-mailed by the McCain campaign on Tuesday night says at the end of its first full paragraph: "Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.”

So the government would buy the mortgages at a discounted rate, reflecting the declining value of the mortgage paper.

But when McCain reissued the document on Wednesday, that sentence was missing, to the dismay of many conservatives.

That would mean the U.S. would pay face value for the troubled documents, which was the main reason Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) gave for opposing the plan.

McCain's first position was unsustainable -- and known to be so at the time by anyone who was paying attention. His second position, sprung during this week's second debate in hopes of being a "game changer," was already well within the authority granted last week to the Treasury Department. His third and latest position, which would saddle taxpayers with the entire loss of risky mortgage derivatives and no hope of even partial repayment, is a non-starter with just about everyone -- conservatives, liberals, and realists alike:

• "It creates a big moral hazard," says Daniel Mitchell of the conservative Cato Institute.
• Says liberal economist Robert Reich: "McCain last night came up with the stupidist plan I've heard yet... . He wants the government to buy mortgages from the banks at face value and then write down the principal for homeowners. This would be the biggest handout yet to the financial industry. Taxpayers would take all the losses, including the downside risks of additional defaults if houses drop further in value, while the banks would get off scott free."
• Jared Bernstein, an economist with the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute, tells CBS' Marketwatch he finds McCain's proposal "quite unsettling" and adds, "Under this plan, there's no quid pro quo between lender and taxpayer. When I first heard it, I was underwhelmed. Now I'm actively nervous."

Not so long ago we recalled the famous bon mot that "historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice * * * the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." John McCain, with his tragically crazy lurches from one extreme to the other, is in peril of reversing that sequence.

Soon, all he'll have left for his electoral base is the pity vote.

A Different Kind of Drilling

Over the past few days, Madison Avenue ad men operating under the moniker of "StunninglyBad.com" have produced several funny, slick mini-productions viewable on YouTube. Most of them -- like the one above -- lampoon misleading or just plain dumb McCain campaign positions like the infamous "drill, baby, drill," which is of special interest to those who love Pensacola Beach.

But the ad men also have a larger non-partisan point to make: don't think for an instant that watching TeeVee political ads will make you a well-informed voter. As these advertising experts themselves write for their YouTube profile:

Is it possible to dumb down political ads even more? Quite possibly. What if people based their votes simply on the first thing that they noticed about a candidate?

Unfortunately, most people do. Don't let ads influence your opinion. Form your own. Think for yourself. Vote intelligently.

Do you doubt it? Check out the hilarious ads for and against both McCain and Obama on the StunninglyBad web site.

Then, do your own candidate research. "Drill down, baby, drill down."

Read all the newspapers, magazines, journals -- and, yes, even the blogs -- you can. Check the web site of every candidate for public office on your ballot, high and low, for their detailed position statements. Stop by local campaign offices. Call or collar or correspond with the candidates themselves and ask your questions directly. You can be sure you'll get an answer if they want your vote.

And, get to know your country's history. If you don't, you just might fall for a tricky (fake) ad like this: