McCain's campaign manager blames Republican congressional leadership

By Paul Wells - Sunday, November 9, 2008 at 2:15 PM - 4 Comments

I confess I’m loving the Daily Beast, Tina Brown’s latest attempt to mix sensational and serious journalism. (She remade Vanity Fair in the ’80s, revived The New Yorker in the ’90s — though yes, I greatly prefer both magazines under the editors who succeeded her — and faceplanted with Talk after that.) Daily Beast is a mix of aggregating, reporting and blogging, clearly designed to take on Huffington Post. It’s existing in a financial fantasy world for the moment, pushing out high-impact original journalism and selling no ads, a path the National Post trod in its early years, with the results we all know. But for however long it lasts, it’s high-calorie fun. Here’s Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s campaign manger, describing the moment when he realized his candidate couldn’t win. It was about five weeks before the vote — coincidentally, the length of a standard Canadian general-election campaign.

The moment that I will look back at as the moment deep in my gut that I knew, was September 29, when I was flying on a plane with Governor Palin to Sedona for debate prep, watching the split screen on the TVs, because she had a JetBlue charter, and it showed the stock market down seven, eight hundred points; it showed the Congress voting down the bailout package on the other side, and then, House Republicans went out and told the world that the reason that they voted against this legislation, allowed the stock market to crash, allowed the economy to be so injured, was because Nancy Pelosi had given a mean and partisan speech on the floor. And this was their response. And I just viewed it as beyond devastating, and thought that at that moment running with an “R” next to your name, in this year, was probably lethal.

There’s a lot more worth reading in that email exchange. Also cool: Informed speculation about what, precisely, Billie Kristol was up to with his New York Times column; and a thing about which pundits’ stars rose during the U.S. campaign.

Typically, a Tina Brown joint makes you cringe quite often with a shallow or tacky take on something, but you’re there because so much of what’s on offer is genuinely fascinating. Brown seems to have benefitted from time away. I’ll be bookmarking her latest venture.

The Obama Revolution

By John Parisella - Saturday, November 8, 2008 at 6:20 PM - 23 Comments

‘Revolution’ may be too strong a word for many. After all, this election was about change and, every four or eight years, we hear about the necessity of it. Besides, Barack Obama has given every indication that he is a moderate, pragmatic and prudent politician. His cool temperament was on display both the night of his victory and two days later when, surrounded by his economic transition team, he displayed the very methodical approach to problem solving that is emerging as his managerial style. His appointment of Rahm Emmanuel, himself a smart and promising politician, is hardly the stuff of revolution. And yet, when you examine how Obama won and how he conducted himself,you know politics as practiced in the past 40 years is in for transformational change.

His elaborate and sophisticated use of the Internet, the power of the words he delivered in a truly inspirational tone, and the appeal to unity and the better nature of mankind is something that we have not seen since Bobby Kennedy spoke in Indianapolis the day Martin Luther King was killed. Back then, we expected politics to be a force for change and progress in the noble sense of the word. In those days, the rhetoric was uplifting and appealed to the idealism of the young. Aging baby boomers remain nostalgic about those heady days of transformational change. Continue…

Rich people love socialism

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 12:59 AM - 7 Comments

According to CNN’s exit polling, Americans making $200,000 or more per year voted as so.

Obama 52%
McCain 46%

President-Elect Barack Obama

By John Parisella - Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at 11:29 PM - 17 Comments

Bobby Kennedy called it 40 years ago. At last, America can now hope for the more perfect union. This is history in the making and a great day for equality and humanity. Enjoy it.

Megapundit: The first day of the rest of America's life

By selley - Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at 3:16 PM - 5 Comments

Must-reads: Doug Saunders and Jonathan Kay on President Obama; John Ivison on Ontario’s finances.

Y’all better be right
Note to supremely confident pundits: if Barack Obama doesn’t win tonight, we’re coming after you.

The Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson wins the prize for most strident premature declaration of Obama victory, arguing “this business in recent days of ‘how [John] McCain can win’ was sheer journalistic foolishness,” and that Americans “will vote—and vote decisively—for Senator Obama” today. And while he’s sure Obama will break some of his election promises—indeed, as is Simpson’s habit, he urges him to—and that “there will be some Americans who will resent him as a black president,” we can now look forward to having “that most cherished of attributes: judgment” back in the White House. Good judgment, he means, and we agree. But if McCain somehow pulls off a miracle, Simpson’s pretty much going to have to resign his column.

Count Peter Worthington, who can’t get past McCain’s “uncanny gift of salvaging victories from seemingly certain defeats,” among the journalistically foolish. Polls “indicate a certain volatility among the electorate,” he opines in the Toronto Sun, and the wide range of polling results indicates “unease among those who analyze and predict.” In short, he says, “uncertainty reigns.” Who’ll stay home? Where will the undecideds go (to McCain, Worthington suspects)? Will there be a meteor strike? Stay tuned…

Continue…

Judgment Day At Last

By John Parisella - Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at 10:49 AM - 8 Comments

The rallies are over, the hoopla has ended, and the seemingly endless stream of opinion surveys has finally given way to voting day. An inordinately high number of voters have already cast their ballot in advanced polls. But it’s today that America will choose its 44th president. Last night, I attended the final rally of Barack Obama’s campaign in Virginia and was able to hear up close the powerful oratory of the Democratic contender. It was truly spectacular.

Senator McCain did a seven-state tour on the last day of the campaign to present his closing arguments–lower taxes, a strong foreign policy, and fiscal conservatism. He asked for one more mission on behalf of his country. It was touching, but not very convincing. Continue…

Megapundit: Unscrambling the egg, vexedly

By selley - Monday, November 3, 2008 at 4:09 PM - 9 Comments

WEEKEND ROUNDUP

Must-reads: Rex Murphy on the Martin memoirs; Haroon Siddiqui on Barack Obama; Gary Mason on Robert Dziekanski; Jeffrey Simpson on the Tories in Quebec; Chantal Hébert on Iggy’s chances; Robert Fulford on gambling; Randall Denley on frugality.

The fat lady, or the choir of angels?
Canadian pundits have apparently never heard of the jinx.

The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson attempts to explain the historical significance of Barack Obama, who isn’t just black, but potentially the first “northern liberal” president since John F. Kennedy. “His victory would acknowledge an ongoing reformation of the republic: the halting, inconstant but unmistakable breaking down of barriers; the political debut of a new generation; the transformation of whole regions of the nation,” Ibbitson argues. It would embarrass “those skeptics who believe [the United States] is a failing giant.” Heck, he’s already “re-enfranchised African Americans” and “convinced Latinos to submerge racial suspicions toward African Americans and join them in common cause,” and he hasn’t even won!

The Toronto Star’s Haroon Siddiqui recaps all the indignities Obama has faced from various Republicans determined to make his race and his purported Islamic faith defining issues among the rednecks. And he suggests it was Colin Powell’s powerful endorsement, during which he asked why a young Muslim shouldn’t (hypothetically) aspire to be President, that really highlighted the meaning of the campaign. “By just being who he is,” Siddiqui concludes, he “has put fellow Americans on an irreversible journey to national reconciliation.”

Continue…

What To Look For On Tuesday

By John Parisella - Sunday, November 2, 2008 at 3:19 PM - 9 Comments

Polls are still streaming out, but it is fair to assume that Obama is entering the last 48 hours of the campaign in the strongest position possible. People want change; the electorate is pessimistic and highly dissatisfied with the Republican policies of the past 8 years. With the economy in recession, Obama has a double digit lead over McCain in handling the economy.

We have all known for months that this election would be settled in some key battleground states. Most Republican-held battleground states are up for grabs and Obama is leading in nearly every one of them. As for the Democrat-held battleground states, McCain is trailing badly–and has been months–in several of them. Continue…

Joe The Plumber

By John Parisella - Sunday, November 2, 2008 at 3:06 PM - 2 Comments

We now know that Joe The Plumber is not a plumber, nor is he in the tax bracket that led him to challenge Barack Obama on tax policy. Yet, he is now campaigning with John McCain and is referred to at every campaign stop by the Republican ticket. It is possible that this election prop may have done more to tighten the race in key battleground states than any other line of attack. Lower taxes and limited government intervention are two basic tenets of conservatism in a center-right nation, and they have become the best closing arguments for McCain.

It makes one wonder why McCain chose to run a Rove-like campaign at a time when the country was looking for steady leadership. Personal attacks did more to turn off voters from McCain than Obama’s personal qualities or well-run campaign. Now, the Joe The Plumber prop, while tacky, is adding to the suspense of the campaign in key battleground states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Indiana just 48 hours from election day.

Rockin' the Ahmadinejad vote

By Paul Wells - Sunday, November 2, 2008 at 9:22 AM - 47 Comments

“Well, I think he’s very thin-skinned. I think that is what was clear to me in 2000. I actually regard him as a very unpleasant man, and I don’t say that lightly. There’s a lot of politicians who are sort of angry and slightly deranged. Al Gore, for example, when you see him campaign, certainly the last couple of years, seems to have pretty much flown the coop. And when I saw Al Gore at close quarters campaigning, one could recognize the sort of human side to him. McCain, I think, is a very different kettle of fish. I think he is someone who is very thin-skinned, very vain, and has a sort of cavalier attitude to big questions, particularly Constitutional questions. So I think he is someone who in fact, the more you know him, the less you warm to the idea of having him…I said rather, I said at one point, you know, he’d be our version of President Ahmadinejad, the crazy guy with his finger on the nuclear button. And I think there’s actually quite a bit of truth in that.”

— Mark Steyn on John McCain, not recently.

Eliminating the Bradley Effect

By John Parisella - Saturday, November 1, 2008 at 6:41 PM - 21 Comments

In recent weeks, a lot has been made about the so-called Bradley effect. There is some dispute about the real significance of it. However, most agree that only on election day will we see the true impact of the racial factor.

It is clear that any African-American candidate vying for the presidency had to be outstanding. He had to run a near-flawless campaign and advocate for policies that resonated with large segments of the population. The latest polls would indicate that Barack Obama fits that candidate’s profile.

Characterized as a post-racial candidate and running in an election where the economy seems to trump all the other issues, there are grounds for optimism among Obama supporters. But this election has been full of surprises. John McCain is finally making a case for his view of the world rather than making personal attacks. Will it be enough and is it not too late? Continue…

The McCain-Palin campaign

By John Parisella - Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 10:28 PM - 10 Comments

With a few days left to go, polls overwhelmingly point to an Obama-Biden victory. While we may justifiably quote Yogi Berra about it “not being over until it’s over,” the current political context and the conduct of the McCain-Palin campaign go a long way to justify the optimism in the Obama camp.

It may still be too early for post-mortems, but the Republican campaign has been among the most erratic and inept I have seen. Much of the blame is directed at the unpopularity of the Bush administration and the failure of Republican policies. All this is true, but McCain cannot escape his fair share. His impetuous style, his tolerance of character attacks on his opponent, and his abysmal choice of a running mate have complicated an already challenging task. The sad irony is that, should McCain lose, he will look back on having not been the man so many have come to admire. He can defend the Palin choice all he wants, but Continue…

Will it be election chaos?

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, October 24, 2008 at 12:00 AM - 0 Comments

The “butterfly” ballots of Florida’s Palm Beach County that snarled up the 2000 presidential election with their hanging, pregnant, and otherwise perplexing “chads” have since been replaced by optical scan cards—but a recent test during a local judicial election found that new machines that count them couldn’t come up with the same result twice. As early voting gets underway across the sprawling, decentralized American election system, technical glitches and pre-emptive partisan lawsuits are putting nerves on edge in anticipation of the record throngs expected on Nov. 4. In North Carolina, voters wanting to pick a “straight Democratic ticket” have to remember that they need to vote for Barack Obama on a separate presidential ballot. In West Virginia, some Democratic voters said touch-screen voting machines literally changed their votes from Obama to John McCain before their very eyes. The state’s deputy secretary of state Sarah Bailey told the Charleston Gazette on Friday, “Sometimes machines can become miscalibrated when they are moved from storage facilities to early voting areas.” She ordered a recalibration.

And the election lawyers have been mustering. A Democratic attorney in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Charles Lichtman, has boasted that he will effectively lead the largest law firm in America on Nov. 4 when he commands close to 5,000 lawyers who will show up at the polls to assist voters, resolve conflicts, and if necessary, sue. Republican lawyers have sprung into action in Ohio, where they sued the secretary of state, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, to provide lists of voters whose registration information does not match information in other state databases. Brunner says most differences are due to clerical errors. (Even Joe Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber,” the now famous critic of Obama’s tax plan, has his name misspelled on Ohio voter rolls as Worzelbacher.) The case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which found last Friday that the state party did not have standing to bring the lawsuit. No matter, others are in the works.

Distrust permeates the system. Part of the Obama campaign’s strategy is to register legions of new voters—especially among young people and African-Americans, who tend to vote Democrat. Republicans are suspicious of the groups doing the registering. One such group, ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, handed in registration forms with some false names such as Mickey Mouse and addresses that turned out to be empty lots. The group, which is obligated by law to turn in all the forms, blamed low-wage workers trying to make more money by padding their numbers. But the FBI is investigating, and during the last debate McCain accused ACORN of “maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” He could be right—if Mickey actually gets to cast a ballot.

It was all supposed to be better this time. After the debacle of 2000, Congress passed a federal law, the Help America Vote Act, to avoid similar mishaps. It included money for new machines to replace problematic systems such as Palm Beach County’s punch-card butterfly ballots, and a system that would allow voters who believe they are wrongly deemed ineligible to cast a provisional ballot and have their cases resolved after the election. But as it turns out, since 2000 things have gotten messier. Before George W. Bush vs. Al Gore, an average of 96 lawsuits involving election law were filed each year; since 2000, the annual average has more than doubled to 231, according to Richard Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “The system wasn’t good before 2000, but in some ways it’s gotten worse,” he says. “Part of the problem is more people are looking for problems. Litigation has become an important piece of campaign strategy for both campaigns.”

Megapundit: The age of meritocracy

By selley - Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 1:57 PM - 26 Comments

Must-reads: Dan Gardner on the end of capitalism; Don Martin and Janet Bagnall on gender politics.

The long and winding road
From racial politics to gender politics to regional politics to carbon taxation to the resurrection of the Liberal party.

Why, George Jonas asks in the National Post, would Barack Obama declare himself honoured and humbled at the support of Colin Powell when, “in theory, [he] stands against everything Powell has stood for, from party affiliation to policy”? Because “these days descent trumps ideas,” he answers—yes, he’s going there, and unencumbered by any evidence we can detect. “In periods of tribal reversion it matters less, say, that Powell, a Republican, has been pivotal to an Iraq policy that Obama, a Democrat, has been running and railing against, than that they’re both African-Americans.” Actually, scratch that, he does have evidence—only it’s to the contrary, namely his “fascination” with John McCain’s loss of momentum among women even after he brought Sarah Palin aboard.

Janet Bagnall‘s latest philippic in the Montreal Gazette against the Palin phenomenon is one of the more coherent arguments we’ve read that her selection wasn’t just an isolated and regrettable political incident but an actual step backwards for women in politics. If, as has been suggested, “her real appeal was her malleability”—if she offered herself to the GOP as “an empty vessel into which America’s most right-wing conservatives have poured their tired old policies”—then her candidacy can legitimately be seen as a victory for “unreconstructed tokenism.” If she didn’t, of course, then the whole argument kind of falls apart. And, frankly, we still don’t see any logical reason Palin should impact the fortunes of accomplished, capable women in politics.

Continue…

Powell's Decision

By John Parisella - Monday, October 20, 2008 at 10:05 AM - 13 Comments

The decision by former Secretary of State Colin Powell to endorse Barack Obama surprised more by the logic of his choice than by the actual selection. Clearly, it was a severe indictment of John McCain’s judgement and temperament. His references to the Palin nomination and McCain’s performance over the last few weeks during the financial crisis seemed in line with the views of many observers, including noted conservative columnists.

This is not good news to the McCain camp, despite the obvious counterspin. Though McCain can count on the support of other former Republican secretaries of state, Powell’s endorsement is significant and comes at a bad time for McCain.

A Clear Victory For Obama

By John Parisella - Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 10:03 AM - 7 Comments

Unlike debates conducted entirely on radio, televised debates reveal more than just policies and issues. They provide insight into temperament. Body language becomes an important ingredient as it often shows true sentiments and the capacity to deal with controversy or adversity by the participants.

If John McCain was undoubtedly competitive on content, he clearly lost — and lost badly — when it comes to body language and tone. Throughout the debate, the Republican seemed on the verge of losing his temper at any moment. Obama, by contrast, appeared cool and collected. He was reassuring even if he lacked some passion.

McCain needed a game changer. He needed to show stature and best his opponent on content. He had to counteract the perception that he is erratic and temperamental. He failed to do so. It was not a bad performance on substance, but he failed on style and was unable to undo some of the negative perceptions that have arisen in this campaign.

Obama had a solid, though not spectacular, performance as he has had throughout the three debates. McCain, on the other hand, has been uneven throughout the three debates. Obama did not hurt himself in this debate while McCain failed to improve his situation in the campaign. As a result, Obama wins.

The curse of Palin

By John Parisella - Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 5:48 PM - 7 Comments

Lyndon B. Johnson is widely thought to have been the only vice-presidential candidate in recent history to have made a significant difference in the election of a president. This year, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the vice-presidential nominees, in large part because the primary season featured many high-profile candidates. The relative inexperience of Barack Obama and the love/hate relationship John McCain entertains with his own party have also placed greater emphasis on their running mates

There’s no doubt McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin has energized the Republican base: the large attendance at McCain/Palin rallies is often attributed to the presence of the Alaska governor. Republicans also like to tout maverick nature of their ticket and how they will bring their brand of change to Washington. However, Palin’s interviews with mainstream media outlets have been an embarrassment and have raised doubts about McCain himself. Parallels are often made with the selection of Dan Quayle, who was arguably the most mediocre choice as running mate since the end of WWII. Another common reference point is Thomas Eagleton, who was badly vetted and had to withdraw from the ticket of Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern in 1972. Continue…

McNasty

By John Parisella - Friday, October 10, 2008 at 5:22 PM - 0 Comments

That was the nickname given to John McCain at another time in his life. For some, the nickname was a reference to his explosive temper. For others, it reflected his pugnacious temperament when pushing his ideas forward. Whatever the reason, it clearly defines a person not afraid of standing up to adversity. It also speaks to a determination that may not always be pleasant for those in his way.

Recent polls indicate momentum in favour of Barack Obama, but John McCain has nonetheless made this a very competitive race. It would be imprudent to conclude it is already over. Remember, McCain has a way of coming back. A year ago, he was hurtling towards political oblivion; his campaign was in disarray and most observers concluded that it was a matter of time before he would quit the race. But the fiery, never-give-up war hero rebounded. This blog has said all along that McCain was a viable candidate and was potentially the most difficult opponent for any Democrat to face. Just three weeks ago, he was leading in the polls and there were grumblings about whether Obama could recover and close the deal.

The Palin choice, however, has shown the impulsive side of McCain. While it was promising at first, it has since shifted the ‘doubt’ factor away from Obama and toward McCain. The perceived incompetence of Palin has made voters focus on McCain’s age and health. I had always believed that no matter what happened, the appeal of McCain would remain intact. His courage, his perseverance, and his character would prevail even if the campaign got heated and he was facing defeat. I was wrong.

The McNasty side of McCain has led him to character assassination as a campaign tactic. Granted, Obama has not been reluctant to use negative advertising and raise questions about McCain’s character. But McCain has gone the extra mile, pushing negative to the level of despicable. Even the most die-hard McCain supporters—aside from the social conservative base of the Republican party—are ill at ease with the tone he used at the recent debate and on the campaign trail. Unfortunately, we can expect even more underhanded attacks against Obama before the race is over. We are a long way from the noble campaigner that McCain was in 2000 when he ran against George W. Bush. It is sad that McNasty has finally prevailed over McCain.

Potter: There’s a reason they sell us electoral Big Macs

By Andrew Potter - Thursday, October 9, 2008 at 12:00 AM - 0 Comments

I arrived at work one day last week to find someone had placed a John McCain “Call to Action” figure on my desk. You can have one too—they are widely available online for only US$13.95—but perhaps you’d prefer the Sarah Palin model, a bit pricier at $27.95? Meanwhile, Barack Obama’s image is emblazoned on a short dress by designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, recently on display at Paris Fashion Week.

Here in Canada, it is hoped a sweater vest will change the PM’s image from aloof alien to folksy family man, while NDP ads have been fighting back against their leader’s “Taliban Jack” label by calling his position “The New Strong.”

Yes, whatever your partisan leanings this election season, there is a brand for you. Politics seems more and more a branch of marketing, with parties and leaders packaged and sold using the same techniques used to sell energy drinks, NBA players and everything in between.

A lot of people find this highly objectionable. At best (goes the complaint), the consequence of turning politics into marketing is the Big Macification of civil discourse. At worst, it turns us into “Manchurian voters,” the manipulation that goes on in political advertising leading to people being basically tricked or bamboozled into voting for a false image that masks a sinister agenda.

This view is widely held. It also happens to be completely wrong. The selling of politics does not undermine democracy, it enhances it, and the branding of political parties and leaders it not a tool for manipulating voters, it is a means of enabling democratic participation.

Consider how brands work. The central question that every consumer faces is, “How do I know I’m not getting ripped off?” How do you know that the bag of flour isn’t adulterated, or that these new shoes won’t fall apart the minute you get home? Unless you’ve managed to follow the entire production process from start to finish, you don’t. You trust the flour isn’t full of bugs because Robin Hood says so. You have faith the sneakers will withstand a running season or two because Nike has put its swoosh on them.

Political brands work the same way. In an election, the question every voter needs an answer to is, “How do I know what I’m buying into with my vote? How do I know I’m not getting snookered?”

Obsessed? You betcha.

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, October 9, 2008 at 12:00 AM - 0 Comments

In the days after John McCain unveiled Sarah Palin as his running mate, David Plotz started having dreams about the Alaska governor. Plotz, who edits the online magazine Slate, said the dreams were “non-specific” but negative. “She appeared as a threatening ominous figure,” Plotz said in an interview, adding, “I don’t usually dream very much.” His colleagues were dreaming about Palin too. “I thought, this is odd. I don’t think anyone is dreaming about Joe Biden.” So Plotz asked his readers if the same thing was happening to them. He got roughly 700 responses—of which 200, he says, chastised him for writing about something so frivolous. But the rest were eager to share. Conservative men dreamed they were marrying the pistol-packing hockey mom or performing acts that Plotz deemed “unrepeatable.” Some women dreamed she was their pal. “And there was a huge set in which Palin killed animals, or ordered the dreamer to kill animals. In one, she shot all the animals in the zoo. In one, the dreamer was an animal killed by Sarah Palin,” says Plotz. There were several in which Palin “appears as a genial, sympathetic figure and morphs into a scary person murdering animals.” In others, she “emasculated” McCain, who appeared as a shadowy figure fading into the background.

It didn’t take a dream interpreter to see that Palin had burst forth from the backwoods of American politics with her rifle aimed right at the fragile psyche of Democrats. Those doomed animals? For a while it seemed they were Democratic electoral hopes. Before Palin was unveiled, Barack Obama was leading by three to four points in the polls. In the week after her convention debut, most polls showed either a tie or a lead for McCain. “It looked like everything Democrats had hoped for was going to go for naught,” says Plotz. “There was a panic about her that manifested itself in the subconscious.”

How bad did it get? Jon Wiener, a history professor at the University of California at Irving, with a Ph.D. from Harvard, confessed in a Sept. 11 posting on the liberal blog Huffington Post that he had developed an “obsession” and an “addiction” to Palin. “I read everything I can about her. I watch TV, hoping Wolf Blitzer will say something about her. I get irritable waiting for the next Maureen Dowd column about her. I’ve come to understand that this is not a bad habit, or a moral failing—it’s a disease.” Marty Kaplan, a speech writer for former vice-president Walter Mondale, wrote: “My therapist told me that I’d be astonished if I knew how many emergency calls she got the night that Sarah Palin gave her convention speech.”

And that was just the men. “All of my women friends, a week ago Monday, were on the verge of throwing themselves out windows,” an author and anti-war activist, Nancy Kricorian of Manhattan, told the New York Sun a week after the convention. “People were flipping out. Every woman I know was in high hysteria over this. Everyone was just beside themselves with terror that this woman could be our president—our potential next president.” Blog commentators declared themselves scared, disgusted and enraged. “I am angry. I am infuriated,” wrote the popular mommy-blogger Heather Armstrong on her blog dooce.com, where she rarely talks politics. One female attorney wrote to an advice columnist at the online magazine Salon that her work was suffering because she spent all her time looking online for more damning information about the governor.

There was a double bitterness for those who had supported Hillary Rodham Clinton, a woman who built her own political campaign, mapped out her own positions on the issues, dominated the primary debates, and raised her own funds. Palin, sweeping onto a ticket while praising Clinton’s “grace” and the cracks that she put in the glass ceiling, declared “the women of America are not finished yet”—like the perky cheerleader beating the frumpy valedictorian in the school election. Anti-Palin women’s groups were formed on the Internet, including Facebook. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization of Women, played it cool, limiting her Palin comments to, “Her policies are wrong for women.” But for Palin’s angry foes, it was more than a disagreement with her policies, which, after all, were John McCain’s. The repulsion was downright visceral.

Republicans came up with a name for it: Palin derangement syndrome—a cousin of Bush derangement syndrome, which the columnist Charles Krauthammer coined in 2003 to mean the irrational paranoia about anything having to do with the sitting President. “What all the attackers have in common is an almost pathological hatred and attendant desire to project upon Palin all of their worst fears, prejudices, and in some cases, fantasies,” wrote conservative commentator Cinnamon Stillwell in the San Francisco Chronicle. She noted that in Salon magazine, writer Gary Kamiya likened Palin to a “dominatrix,” while University of Michigan Middle East studies professor Juan Cole compared her to a “Muslim fundamentalist” and a member of the Taliban.

A Strong Performance by Obama

By John Parisella - Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 11:45 PM - 4 Comments

Barack Obama has just turned in his best performance of the campaign. While I believe John McCain delivered a spirited effort, Obama showed poise, stature, and a command of the facts that made him appear very presidential.

McCain needed to take the gloves off and he did. The only problem is that he sometimes showed a nasty streak that deterred from his otherwise solid arguments. The audience meter of uncommitted Ohio voters generally responded far less enthusiastically to negative attacks, of which McCain had many more than Obama — too many, in fact.

At this stage of the campaign, McCain needed a game changer. Tonight was not it. McCain lost, period.

Liveblogging McCain vs. Obama — Round Two

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 5:16 PM - 1 Comment

It’s a townhall format. This is supposed to favour McCain.

Let’s see if McCain managers to work in the words Bill Ayers. Sarah Palin wants him to. Meanwhile, Obama has been benefiting from the financial meltdown. The question is whether he has anything useful to say about it.

**

Obama gets the first question on responding to the financial crisis.

Obama says he wants to make sure CEOs don’t get golden parachutes. He wants to infrastructure projects to give people jobs. He wants to fix healthcare.

McCain says Americans are angry, upset and fearful, and he has a plan to fix the problem. He says it has to do with energy independence [*energy independence? kind of an odd way to begin the answer.] and keeping taxes low, and stop the spending spree in Washington. He’s talking about a package of reforms. We have to do something about home values. I would have the Secretary of the Treasury buy up mortgages. Is it expensive? Yes. But until we stabilize home values, we won’t turn around the economy

Tom Brokaw asks: Who would you choose for Treasury Secretary?

McCain lists Obama supporter Warren Buffet, or Meg Whitman of Ebay. Obama says Buffet would be a good choice, but says there are others. He doesn’t list names, but says the focus should be on the middle class. No Wall Streeters on the list.

**

Question 2:

What in the bailout package that will help regular people?

McCain is talking about suspending his campaign to go to Washington and help with the bailout. [It's unclear what he actually helped.] They made it to question 2 without attacking each other. Now McCain is attacking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and blaming “Senator Obama and his cronies” for resisting change to the institutions while accepting their money. Says Obama was the second highest recipient of their contributions in history. He’s talking again about buying up bad mortgages. “Some of us stood up against it.”

Obama is explaining that credit markets are frozen. His rebuttal to McCain is to blame deregulation of financial markets and says McCain is a deregulator. Says he never promoted Fannie Mae. “But you’re not interested in politicians pointing fingers.” So true. Obama says that the next president has to think about homebuyers and homeowners, not banks.

Aside from their attacks on each other, it’s hard to see much difference here on what they want to do going forward.

**

Question 3: How can we trust either of you with our money, both parties got us into this crisis? Continue…

BTC: Constructive criticism (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 5, 2008 at 9:32 PM - 1 Comment

In regards to this weekend’s homework, below you’ll find a rundown of the political stories the Globe, Star and Times included in their respective weekend packages (based only on the editions of each paper available in Ottawa, exact line-ups and story placement will vary).

Surely taking note of this blog’s call to comparison shop this weekend, the Globe published a 37,000 word profile of Stephen Harper in its Saturday Focus section. But even then the editors couldn’t help but vaguely apologize for doing so. Consider this graph.

“Figuring out who he really is could be dismissed as irrelevant but for one undeniable fact. Unlike prime ministers elsewhere, Canada’s are not first among equals. They are first and foremost – they decide how a government is structured and operates, and what decisions it makes.” Continue…

The Real Palin Effect

By John Parisella - Friday, October 3, 2008 at 1:34 PM - 11 Comments

Well, she did not crash and burn as many had expected. In a debate built up as a test of her qualifications and her capacity to serve as president should tragedy strike, Sarah Palin had to show she has a grasp of the issues and the ability to serve in the highest office in the land at a moment’s notice. It is obvious from listening to her answers and her exchanges that Governor Palin still has a long way to go. However, compared with the appalling interviews she did with Katie Couric last week, Palin did show the charm and likeability that got her supporters enthused about her candidacy in the first place.

Her opponent, Senator Joe Biden, went into this debate with a decided advantage. His experience and knowledge were beyond question, and if there was any doubt about his chances to win the debate, it had to do with attitude. Would he be condescending and patronizing, and consequently ramp up sympathy for Governor Palin? By all accounts, Biden had the best debate of his life. He looked presidential in stature and was reassuring should he have to act as president. When we compare the candidates, the “what if” factor undoubtedly favours Biden. In this regard — and the overnight polls seem to support it — Biden won the debate. Still, there was no knockout blow.

Continue…