"I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying"

More on the politics of the day (especially since lousy Kansas destroyed my bracket).  I know the GOP and Tea Partiers and rubbing their hands together getting ready for a huge gain in one or both chambers of our fair Congress.  But, 8 months is a long time.  Look at recent history, for example.  Don't forget, McCain was polling great against both potential Democratic presidential nominees, Obama and Clinton, in late March and early April of 2008 in key batteground states.  Let me be clear, I think the Dems will lose seats in the House for sure and maybe even the Senate.  However, it may not be as bad for Dems and good for GOP'ers.   

Things can and will change.  Voters attention will shift away from health insurance reform by Nov. 2010, trust me.  Surely Glenn Beck will come up with another political crisis at which he can point his fanatical Tea Party followers by Nov. 2010.  And don't forget that Tea Party candidates may run and split the GOP votes in some midterm elections.  Look at what happened in the upstate New York special election in 2008, a Dem won a seat that been held by the GOP since Reconstruction.  Financial regulation reform is the next political fight to be had and it should be a doozy.  Who knows what will be at the top of voters' lists as THE important issue when Nov. 2010 rolls around.  Memories fade.  It's only March 2010 not November 2010.  8 months till the midterm elections is a long, long, long time, especially in politics.  To quote a good friend of mine, "I'm not saying, I'm just saying."

On My Reading List: Game Change

The book Game Change by New York magazine's John Heilemann and Time Magazine's Mark Halperin is out. I have not read it. Yet. It's on my reading list though. And other's have read it. Below are just some of the reported revelations in Game Change:

- the most reported revelation: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid privately said that America was ready for Obama to be a presidential candidate because he was a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

- Regarding McCain's vetting of Palin: No one from the McCain campaign travelled to Alaska to interview Palin's husband or any of her political oppenents prior to McCain picking her as his VP running. I wonder if McCain wishes his campaign had vetted her just a little more. Remember, some things about Palin came to light after McCain picked her as his running mate. Matt Lauer asked McCain about his campaign's poor vetting of Palin on the Today show, it got kinda testy:


- On John Edwards: More than a couple people, including an at times distraught Mrs. Edwards, knew about John Edward's extra-marital affair early on during the primaries. I wonder if some of them knew before Iowa. If so, I wonder if Hillary wishes those that knew about the affair had said something before the Iowa caucuses.

- Regarding the Clintons and Teddy Kennedy: Bill Clinton, in trying to persuade Ted Kennedy to support Hillary, told Kennedy that a couple of years ago Obama would have been getting them coffee, angering Kennedy.

- About Palin: Palin didn't know why there is a North and South Korea.

- About Bill Clinton: Looks like Slick Willy had another affair in 2006. Hillary's campaign braced for the affair to come to light but, as we all know, it never did.

Man oh man, there's so much more. I can't wait to read the book. I'm not even being sarcastic, I really, really want to read the book.

- The Gift That Keeps on Giving

or alternate title, what more do "birthers" want, the above was issued by the State of Hawaii, and says that this document is evidence of birth in any court proceeding. Oh wait , I forgot, they can explain this away too, this document was obviously forged and planted by an Obama operative or operatives; or this conspiracy involves dozens of people dating back to the President's birth or; someone traveled back in time and altered the birth records to show he was born in the USA; or Hawaii wasn't really a state when he was born there because their admission into the Union was unconstitutional or; [insert any explanation other than the most simple].

First, I' m addressing this only because of the attention it's received from mainstream media. Moreover, for all those that say "the media" has a left bias I guess you don't include Fox News
 and CNN as "the media".

I don't have much of an opinion regarding the "birthers" quest to kill their own personal windmills other than it reminds me, as it reminds others, of other fairly recent conspiracy theories. Let's not forget about the 9/11 conspiracy theory that in some way the Bush administration ordered the attacks on the towers or the conspiracy theory that the Clintons somehow orchestrated the death of Vince Foster. Case in point, one of the original leaders of the "birthers" is attorney Philip J. Berg who filed lawsuits on behalf of 9/11 conspiracy folks.

For whatever reason it seems that usually the party out of power has to deal with a fringe movement that advances a theory that flies in the face of the evidence presented to date. And those in the fringe movement focus on that theory with a tunnel vision that stops them from reasonably evaluating any evidence that rebuts their beliefs. They cannot accept that sometimes the simple, straight forward explanation is in fact the true one.

Lastly, like many other recent red herrings for the GOP dating back to the campaign(Obama is Muslim, he's anti-American, he pals around with terrorists, Obama doesn't wear a flag pin, Obama is a socialist/communist) here's the GOP's problem: The GOP's numbers are dwindling so they have to try to appease this group because, let's face it, they don't have many "groups" left in their party right now.

So, here's another conspiracy theory for you from yours truly: The Dems are letting this "birther" conspiracy theory fester because they know the GOP has to deal with these wingnuts and the Dems don't. Why address a non-issue that's hurting your opposition's base and not yours?

Sidenote: Wanna go down the rabbit hole further? What if McCain had been elected, would there have been anti-McCain birthers(note, McCain was born in 1936 in what at the time of his birth was the U.S. controlled Panama Canal Zone on a military base)? I'd have to say, "you betcha!"

Side-sidenote: The National Review, one of the most, if not the most, conservative periodicals going today has even written that the "birthers" are wrong.

This Is As Close As I Get To "Fair & Balanced"

Or, alternate title, we have someone in office because, in part, of who they are related to, let's be sure about it this time.

Caroline Kennedy is positioned to potentially be appointed to Hillary Clinton's soon to be vacant Senate seat. Rhetorical fillers, such as "um", "err", "like" and "you know", for example, are pet peeves of mine. Here are some clips about Kennedy over-using the phrase "you know" in a series of recent interviews over the course of one day:

Here's a news report about her use of the phrase "you know" and how she did generally in a series of interviews:

And here's John Stewart commenting on it, amongst other things, toward the end of this clip:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Crisis in the Senate - Deliberative Disorder

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

I understand this is potentially only a rhetorical crutch. But, again, it's one of my pet peeves. And that's not to say that the Senate doesn't have members with questionable resumes or poor communication skills. Also, remember how some thought W.'s verbal gaffes are/were funny? I never thought they were funny. I thought they were and are embarrassing. To me this would be like a professional basketball point guard that can only dribble with his left hand. This is just one series of interviews on one day. And maybe she was just having a bad day. However, verbal inadequacies may be representative of a lack of adequacy in other areas relevant to public office, such as sound decision making or lack of knowledge regarding key policy issues. Maybe. I guess we'll find out if Caroline Kennedy is appointed.

A Terrible Campaign (for McCain)

Or, alternate title: Post Mortem

In 2000 I thought McCain was going to win the Republican nomination after New Hampshire. Then, McCain fell victim to Rove's, "dark arts," tactics (see this blog, post # 8) and lost the 2000 nomination to W. In 2008 he won the nomination and was leading in the polls immediately after his convention. But, after the economic crisis hit McCain and his camp never had an overall theme to his campaign or consistent talking points. Whereas, Senator Obama had his theme down, namely, "Change" and talking points such as "middle class tax cuts," "McCain equals Bush," "McCain is out of touch".

Why McCain lost can be summed up with the below talking points/attacks/missteps by McCain, Palin and Republicans generally, in no particular order. Keep in mind that all of these points/attacks/missteps were made after the Republican convention.

1)elite(s)

2) Ayers

3) Joe six-pack

4) Joe the Plumber

5) liberal

6) socialist

7) communist

8) inexperienced

9) we're for change

10) Bridge to Nowhere

11) Alaska Independence Party

12) reform

13) pork barrel spending

14) Barack Hussein Obama

15) country first

16) un-American

17) real America

18) Khalidi

19) national security

20) for the bailout

21) McCain got the first version of the bailout passed

22) the first version of the bailout is voted down

23) the bailout was a bad idea

24) maverick

25) fundamentals of the economy are strong

26) suspend the campaign

27) postpone the debate

28) economy in crisis

29) Obama will raise taxes

30) how many houses does McCain own

31) Palin/Couric interview

32) Gibson interview

33) Palin's clothes

34) the prank call

35) "that one"

36) air quotes regarding a mother's health

37) Reverend Wright

38) "my fellow prisoners"

40) at a rally McCain asks Joe the Plumber to stand up, Joe's not there

41) Palin is a "diva" (from a source in the McCain campaign)

42) Palin is a "whack job" (from a source in the McCain campaign)

43) Palin is going rouge

44) Palin 2012

45) Palin

46) Cheney endorsement the weekend before the election

That's alot. There are more but, that's all I could think of off the top of my head, please, let me know if you think of any others. A campaign cannot win with even a handful of the above much less all of them. Obama could essentially sit back and let McCain's campaign implode, each day was seemingly a different talking point/attack/misstep resulting in a disjointed, muddled and rudderless campaign.

Oh, and by the way, Obama ran an almost gaffe-less campaign after the Dem convention (with two big expceptions, Obama "spreading the wealth" and Biden's assurance of an "international crisis" to test Obama's mettle). And the economy (stupid) hurt McCain (especially the way he handled it) and helped Obama.

Sidenotes: Why didn't McCain learn from Hillary

How Hillary Clinton lost:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1738331,00.html

And McCain didn't learn from Hillary

What if McCain had hit hard on Wright?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15191.html

McCain's pastors would have been talked about:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/22/mccain-rejects-hagee-endo_n_103143.html

A Joke, Kind of, Except It's Not Funny If You're a Republican (Or Hillary Clinton)

Here's my joke: How many Republicans does it take to lose a presidential election?

Answer: None. Just hire the Democrats that ran Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Here's a good article describing 5 things that Hillary Clinton did wrong in her race against Obama:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1738331,00.html

There is one parallel between Clinton's campaign and McCain's. McCain has tried to be the change candidate but at the same time talks about his vast experience. This not a time to run on experience against Obama. Ask Clinton how that went for her.

McCain's mistakes:

1. McCain is reaching by trying to be the "change" candidate.

The Repulicans in the past have taken the strongest campaign point for the Democrats and co-opted it with great success. GW took "strong on defense" and "war veteran" away from Kerry, for example, even though GW never served in Vietnam.

2. McCain took public money.

3. McCain was not prepared to battle Obama in traditionally red states.

4. The economy.

5. Palin.