Month: August 2008

"We will have diverted all that money to address the least likely threat while the real threats come into this country in the hold of a ship, or the belly of a plane, or are smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack," – Joe Biden, September 10, 2001.

Ross acknowledges Romney isn’t exactly a low risk pick and fumbles around for an appropriate McCain veep:

When I think of the veep pick purely in terms of the party I’d like to see the Republicans become, I suppose I’d be happiest with Tim Pawlenty or Eric Cantor, both of whom seem much more in sync with the broad thesis of Grand New Party than your average Republican pol, even if neither of them are running around screaming about wage subsidies or the weighted-student formula. So out of the options on the table, I guess I’m pulling for one of them. But from a purely political point of view, I think McCain could use a pick that sparks more media excitement than either Pawlenty or Cantor probably would; I’m just at a loss to come up with someone who fits that bill and passes my own ideological litmus tests.

I think Pawlenty would be the best myself. But Hutchison could be a smart move. Ridge would drive the Christianists nuts. Romney is just political poison. I think McCain has a tougher problem here than Obama – because his base and his swing voters are so far apart.

Wow:

Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain’s health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort…"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care. "So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

(Hat tip: Goddard)

Joan Didion’s classic essay, underscoring the disconnect between reality and the “inside” view at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, never gets old.

A shrewd essay by John B. Judis. Money quote:

Stanley Greenberg and Democracy Corps make a similar mistake in what is otherwise a brilliant study of how voters in Macomb County, a white working class area north of Detroit, plan to vote this fall. Greenberg found Obama trailing McCain by 46 to 39 percent in this bellwether county, which Bill Clinton won in 1996 and John Kerry lost in 2004. Greenberg found that a third of Macomb voters were worried that Obama "will put the interests of black Americans ahead of other Americans," but concluded that Macomb’s voters "do not seem to be voting predominately on race." Instead, he contended that Macomb voters are more worried about Obama raising taxes.

Concerns about Obama’s race and his being a tax-and-spend liberal, however, are intricately related. Psychological studies showing that white voters will judge a black candidate to be less competent also show that they will judge a black candidate with the same views as a white one to be less moderate and more leftwing. Worries about race reinforce worries about taxing and spending.

Some good news in a new California poll (PDF here) for those who want to support gay couples in stable relationships:

Proposition 8, which would amend the state constitution to eliminate same-sex marriage, is favored by 40 percent and opposed by 54 percent of the state’s likely voters.  Democratic (66%) and independent likely voters (59%) are against it, and Republican likely voters are in favor (60%).  The last time voters decided this issue—in 2000—they approved a ban on same-sex marriages by a wide margin (61% yes, 39% no). 

This is an issue on which the right has lost the center. In general, propositions need heavy majorities in the summer polling to stand a chance in the fall. But there’s a worrying enthusiasm gap:

A majority of likely voters (57%) in favor of Proposition 8 say it  is a very important issue to them, while less than half (44%) of those opposed to the measure consider  it a very important issue. “It’s early in the campaign season, and in the end, the vote on this measure, like the other two, could be hard to predict,” says Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO.  “Overall views on gay marriage have not budged in a year.  Californians who plan to vote for Proposition 8 appear to hold that view with greater intensity than the opposition — which means they are very motivated to vote.”   

George Packer’s view of the convention:

Conventions are about disorientation, estrangement, and fragmentation. I’d always heard that they’re better to watch on TV. Well, it’s true—unless you come for the parties, which most people seem to do. Otherwise, the actual proceedings are a distant rumor. The press corps is seated at rows of “writing stations” up in the loge seats—reporters with heads bent over their Blackberrys, endlessly scrolling through messages, or staring at laptop screens and surfing the Web to take in the convention coverage of other news sites, some of it probably written by reporters three rows down, who are also scrolling and staring and surfing. No one is looking up at the convention floor, miles away, or listening to the drone of speeches. The speakers are nearly invisible specks at the podium, and their faces fill huge screens mounted all around the arena, so that if you watch at all, you watch on TV.

That’s why I’m still (a little guiltily) on the Cape, where it’s been near-perfect weather this week, as it often is at this time of year. Psst: September is the best time to come here.

Allahpundit proposes.

Joe Klein looks at the history of the month:

We have just now completed the month of August, which is the cruelest month for Democrats, the month when Republicans go for the jugular, trotting out arguments — some valid, most scurrilous — that paint their Democratic rivals as weak, élite or unpatriotic. This is a relatively new phenomenon in American politics, the Bush family’s gift to the process. Ronald Reagan never staged an ugly August. He attacked his opponents, but on the high ground of policy. His most famous advertising gambit was a balm: "Morning in America," a series of ads filled with gorgeous American images that didn’t even mention Reagan’s 1984 opponent, Walter Mondale. But then Reagan was operating at the beginning of a political pendulum swing, utterly confident that his ideas were better than the tired industrial-age liberalism and post-Vietnam pacifism of the Democrats.

"I’d love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations," – John McCain, 1999.

The broad record of McCain, however, shows a very solid and long support for unborn life at every stage of development.