A USA Today/Gallop Poll just came out that says Obama beat McCain in the Friday night debate. This has to be disorienting for righties, who no doubt were whooping and high-fiving when the debate ended Friday. McCain was tougher, after all.
They probably believed also that patching together all the times Obama said he agreed with McCain would make a sure-fire winning video. Maybe it is — for anyone who didn’t watched the debate and thinks YouTube is a brand of toothpaste. But those are either non-voters or McCain voters, anyway.
Right now they’re pushing a controversy over the bracelet Obama wears bearing name of a soldier killed in Iraq. Obama blanked out for a second over the name — you try being on national television, with the lights in your face, and see what you blank out on. I doubt he planned to bring it up and only did so because McCain bragged about his bracelet to prove how much the troops love him.
Now they are saying the father of the soldier claims Obama was asked not to wear the bracelet. I’m skeptical; the soldier’s mother gave Obama the bracelet, not the father, and the soldiers’ parents are divorced. Divorced couples are not exactly famous for frank communication with each other.
Even if the claim is true, this is the kind of gimmicky crap that comes under the heading of “distraction.” I don’t think the electorate is in the mood for it now. It hardly balances today’s headlines about McCain’s ties to the gambling industry — read it; the headline might have been “John McCain: Maverick Reformer or Shameless Opportunist?” Plus, there are more details out about the financial relationship between McCain’s campaign manager and Freddie Mac.
And the righties are focused on a bracelet?
Joan Vennochi writes at the Boston Globe about the bracelets:
McCain is the old soldier who sees the world through the prism of the Vietnam War. He still doesn’t question the premise of Vietnam or the Iraq invasion. He still wants to win both. He said Stanley’s mother made him promise that “You’ll do everything in your power to make sure that my son’s death was not in vain.”
Comparing it powerfully as always to his own combat experience, McCain said, “A war that I was in, where we had an Army, that it wasn’t through any fault of their own, but they were defeated. And I know how hard it is for that – for an Army and a military to recover from that – we will win this one and we won’t come home in defeat and dishonor.”
Obama had to glance down at the bracelet around his wrist, as if to remind himself of Jopeck’s name. But Obama got to the fundamental question for the next president: “Are we making good judgments about how to keep America safe precisely because sending our military into battle is such an enormous step.”
If you listen carefully to what the two campaigns say about any issue, the same theme emerges. McCain sees trees, not forest. He latches onto gimmicky fixes, like firing the SEC chairman, or seems not to understand (or care) that congressional earmarks didn’t cause the Wall Street crisis. Tellingly, it’s McCain, not Obama, who mistakes a tactic for a strategy.
Obama, more often than not — I think his health care plan is an example of “not” — has a deeper understanding of the complexities of issues and proposes comprehensive strategies to address them. As president, he might not always make the best decisions, but I think he can be trusted not to make the worst decisions.
I can’t let David “Call Me Bwana” Broder’s “Alpha Male” column go without a comment.
It was a small thing, but I counted six times that Obama said that McCain was “absolutely right” about a point he had made. No McCain sentences began with a similar acknowledgment of his opponent’s wisdom, even though the two agreed on Iran, Russia and the U.S. financial crisis far more than they disagreed.
That suggests an imbalance in the deference quotient between the younger man and the veteran senator — an impression reinforced by Obama’s frequent glances in McCain’s direction and McCain’s studied indifference to his rival.
Whether viewers caught the verbal and body-language signs that Obama seemed to accept McCain as the alpha male on the stage in Mississippi, I do not know.
How many times can Broder prove himself to be a complete ass before his professional colleagues notice? Some others pointed out that McCain’s body language signaled fear, not dominance. Although I’m not sure he is afraid of Obama as much as he is afraid of his own temper. I think he couldn’t look at Obama because he feared he would lose control if he did.
The Times of London reports that the McCain campaign wants to stage Bristol Palin’s shotgun wedding before the election. A “McCain insider” thinks a highly publicized wedding would shut down the election for a week. I am skeptical about this report, also, and don’t expect it to happen. But it is the sort of stunt a wingnut political operative would think of.
The real verdict on the debate will be apparent as more polls bring out their post-debate results, and it’s possible later polls will be less favorable to Obama. I don’t want to celebrate yet, but I’m cautiously hopeful.
While the Righties freak out over a bracelet, I prefer to focus on the content of the debate. On statements like this by McCain:
As far as North Korea is concerned, our secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went to North Korea. By the way, North Korea, most repressive and brutal regime probably on Earth. The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag.
Ohhh kaaay….
McCain then follows immediately with this, which is excruciatingly ironic, considering his own health situations:
We don’t know what the status of the dear leader’s health is today, but we know this, that the North Koreans have broken every agreement that they’ve entered into.
Substitute “Gov. Palin” for “the North Koreans,” and you’ve just summed up the McCain campaign.
BTW, crazy rumor or no, if I were Levi Johnston, proud young effin’ redneck, I’d be swimming for that Russian island as fast as my scrawny little chicken arms could take me.
I didn’t want to wade into the North Korean thing again, but the agreement Albright, Carter and Clinton worked out with North Korea in 1994 was that the North Koreans would stop processing plutonium, and in fact they did stop processing plutonium, in spite of hysterics to the contrary thrown about by the Bush Administration. It was the Bush Administration, not the North Koreans, who broke the Albright agreement in 2002. Here is the last blog post I wrote about it, which links to other blog posts I wrote about it.
I don’t know about the wedding rumors, but given the stunts we’ve seen so far, I don’t put anything past them. Palin was bad enough, but that “suspending the campaign” thing was just, well, amazing. Having already turned their campaign into a bad joke and a media circus, a wedding seems almost too tame for them. If Paddy Chaevsky’s “Network” were to have a sequel about a political campaign, it would be McCain ’08.
Broder knows nothing about animal behavior, and doesn’t understand about alpha males. In most species, it is subordinates who can’t look at the dominant, lest it be a challenge. Obama’s willingness to look at Obama was a sign of his own confidence, not his submission. Broder needs to watch a few episodes of the Dog Whisperer.
The next debate, I think it would be cool if they hook the candidates up to various monitors so we can watch their heart rate and temperature and blood pressure and so forth in real time throughout the debate. Have little charts at the bottom of the screen. I suspect the results would not be favorable to McCain.
maha, what I was getting at is that McCain was all over the place in that paragraph; in fact, it isn’t really a paragraph, it’s just random sentences with “North Korea” in them. He never finishes his point about Madeleine Albright, leaving viewers like me to wonder why he mentioned her in the first place. Because she’s shorter than the average South Korean? Because he thinks she’s “a huge gulag”? There were several places in the debate where he went off like that (hint: Find “Dr. Kissinger” in the transcript), but the oddest one, for me, was that North Korean section.
Thanks to you, I now know McCain was not only rambling incoherently, but the point he was trying to make was false.
“A war that I was in, where we had an Army, that it wasn’t through any fault of their own, but they were defeated
McCain should have spent more time cracking the history books than he did running the whores in Hawaii. . America’s defeat in Vietnam was not a military defeat..it was a political defeat wherein politicians used the military to try to accomplish an objective than should have been seen as unachievable from the start. American combat forces left Vietnam in 1972, and Vietnam didn’t fall to North Vietnam till 1975. How do you explain that little mystery to those defeated American soldiers who lost in Vietnam?
Another lesson that McCain can’t grasp is that Iraq will end in a political defeat just like Vietnam.,,and Afghanistan also. Our military for all it’s strength will be the greatest enemy against America’s political goals in both Iraq and Afghanistan because of the expenditure of time and money, and with no possible military objective attainable. McCain’s victory rhetoric is nonsense, and anybody who analyzes accurately and honestly the situation we’re in in Iraq and Afghanistan will know that McCain isn’t offering a fair measure in reason, he’s selling wolf tickets to simpletons.. Elton John elaborated more accurately the dynamic we are faced with in achieving an Iraqi victory by his phrase..” you can’t get whiskey from a bottle of wine”. There is no victory to be had in Iraq!
A trillion bucks to get rid of Saddam is not a victory..it’s a bad,bad deal!
When was the last time a wingnut moaned about lapel pins? I haven’t seen one on McCain’s lapel in months. He hates America!
I’m still obsessed about how they’re going to get out of Thursday. Talk about news-grabbing gimmicks … Palin drops out at the very last minute “to spend more time with my family” and they bring in Rudy Freakin’ Juliani as the VP candidate, ready and willing to step in to debate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-emmc_b_130045.html
Joe would have to change his debate style on no notice (shouldn’t be a problem for him, really, but he’d be at a disadvantage from a preparation point of view), or the campaign would have to call for a delay, causing the McCampaign to HOWL in righteous indignation… I have Absolutely No Idea how this would play out in the minds of … well, in the minds of rational human beings, let alone Righties, but it would certainly dominate the news cycle for days to come.
I heard the Bristol Palin wedding is in the works for DC with all the Republican establishment joining in. Barbara Bush is going to select flowers; Cindy McCain will bring the cake; Dick Cheney is going to bring the shotgun……
Good one, Doug…. 🙂
I seriously hope that there is no truth to the rumor that the Palin’s would try to make political hay from their daughters predicament.
Obama is showing McCain to be a mean old man without ever saying anything about the age or temperment of the Senator from AZ. Obama is creating an obvious contrast by being polite, friendly & collegial. I want to quote the definition of that word. Note the word ‘equally’.
collegial: marked by power or authority vested equally in each of a number of colleagues.
Without malice or sarcasm, Obama called McCain by his first name, ‘John’. Did McCain ever call Obama, ‘Barak’? Where they agreed on a point, Obama said so without regret. This is not deferring to the Alpha, it’s consensus building. It’s worth a million claims, ‘I can work across the aisle.’. Where they disagreed, Obama was factual, not just opinionated. Where Obama disagreed with McCain on a point of fact, you could hear in the background, ‘That’s wrong.’ But Obama played his game; he did not try to disprove every lie. He just threw a flag for future factchecks. Brilliant tactic.
As I replay the debate, here’s what I see. McCain effectively pitched to his base. Obama may have reached the undecided voter with a cool political style. That’s strategy.
Excellent point in #11, Doug. The Alpha male thing might be a desirable quality in a colony of baboons, but I think America has had enough of the stupid high testosterone mentality that’s destroyed our image in the world. Clowns like Bush and McCain get off on things like shock and awe, while for people with a modicum of reason see it as shock and disbelief…at the utter stupidity of the mindset
For me it’s sickening to see a mentality that fit well in medieval Europe being used in our current political mentality. A 13th century barbarian swinging a mace and smashing heads without remorse might qualify for leadership then, but in the 21th century brains and tact are much more desireable.
Dick Cheney is going to bring the shotgun…
The Alpha male thing might be a desirable quality in a colony of baboons…
Oh, you guys. Just stopped laughing from one, and then I had to start all over again. Now I have the hiccups!
Off topic. but extremely interesting.
So how much is $700-billion?
According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a stack of $100s roughly 5 feet tall is equal to $1-million. So a stack of $700-billion in $100s would be 3.5-million-feet tall, or 663 miles.
Let’s face it. The Republicans are better at getting their message out than the Democrats. How else can you explain a near tie in the polls when the White House and Republican approval ratings are so low. The party in power usually suffers with a downturn in the economy.
McCain is good at dodging hard facts. But Obama doesn’t stay after him. Obama did well when he said 18 billion(earmarks) was a lot, but 300 billion(tax reductions) is really a lot. He needs to do more like that and repeat and repeat and repeat.
Obama needs some zingers. Republicans do this well such as “drill baby drill.” and McCain keeps the fight image. I’ll fight for you is the message. And that intertwines with their message that Obama is elite. Read this as effete. And it’s no coincidence that McCain tried to pose as the alpha male when he kept repeating that Obama didn’t understand. Obama could have come back with something like: I understand all too well that you are distorting and misrepresenting the facts. And the fact still is that your plan will give 300 billion in tax benefits for the top 5 percent.
I’m for the working middle classes….and you are for the rich fat asses. or “Protect Your Momma…Vote for Obama.”
or “Don’t be Insane…Don’t vote for McCain/”
Another good summary of McCain and Palin in the New York Review of Books, October 9 issue: “John & Sarah in St. Paul”
By Joseph Lelyveld
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21831
And good news. My source of electoral college pollster is 311 elctoral votes for Obama….Margin of error of 75
Dave, if they swapped Palin for Giuliani I doubt if it would improve matters much at all. Against Biden, Giuliani would look like the bellicose buffoon he is. Additionally, Biden could take the gloves off and not get slammed for it.
I think it more likely that Lieberman would get the nod. It’s the Mavericky thing to do. Joe would do it, too, given how he’s likely to be a non-entity in the senate next year.
Neither one is going to appeal to the fundamentalist base. I’m not sure McCain could drop Palin and get past them anyway — who would he choose, Huckabee? Na gonna happin.
Supplement to my post #15……..
Look at Joe Biden’s comments on the Olbermann show:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#26909602
If only Obama could be as concise and forceful as Biden is in describing McCain and their differing debate styles.
I have a hunch that Obama’s handlers don’t want him to appear as an “uppity” black man. Several sources estimate that racial prejudice against African-Americans give McCain 6 to 10 point edge to account for the Bradley effect. It’s a tough tightrope, and an unfair one, that Obama has to walk.
Do they really think the country will come grinding to a halt for Bristol Palin’s wedding? Would anyone care (other than the comics who would be handed a new bouquet of laugh lines)?
What Biden needs to do on Thursday is simply keep the focus on McCain and the dismal Republican record – than watch Palin try to defend it.
#18 I am guessing they told her not to say I’ll get back to you on that.
According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a stack of $100s roughly 5 feet tall is equal to $1-million.
Yes, but Swami, how does that compare in height to the average North Korean?
If the entire population of Pyongyang stood on one another’s shoulders, would the bailout, in $100 bills, be taller? If so, does that mean we win?
If the entire population of Pyongyang stood on one another’s shoulders, would the bailout, in $100 bills, be taller?
Yep!.. and it also would be one hell of a balancing act for the Pyongyangians.
As far as whether we’d win or not… the safe assumption is we’ll end up the losers ultimately.