Month: September 2008

He does an about-face on Palin. Money quote:

I’ve also thought for the last several weeks that people like Andrew Sullivan were being unduly critical of the McCain campaign’s Palin media strategy. That strategy didn’t strike me as particularly unusual or alarming. It’s common for campaigns to be selective about their chosen interviewers, and it didn’t strike me as significant — or bothersome — that they wanted to give Palin some time to acclimate to the national scene and prepare herself before submitting to standard press questions. I was wrong about that, too.

To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.

I confess this has occurred to me too:

Yes, you ALMOST want to look away, but can’t.  It reminds me of when I watch Ricky Gervais in “The Office” or “Extras” and half cover my eyes or wince, while laughing, as pathetically unqualified characters try to fake their way through life.  Sadly, with Palin, this is real world, grownup stuff.

Yes. Palin’s lies are like Gervaisian lies. They are really bad ones, contradicted by reality that everyone else sees. But she’s still there and allegedly serious people are asking us to take her seriously. And yet it’s impossible. And so we are now required to simply squirm for six weeks. Squirm. People talk sometimes of a national embarrassment. If the Palin candidacy isn’t one, what is?

Max Blumenthal attends September 20 and 21:

On the first night of services, Muthee implored his audience to wage “spiritual warfare” against “the enemy.” As I filmed, a nervous church staffer approached from behind and told me to put my camera away. I acceded to his demand, but as Muthee urged the church to crush “the python spirit” of the unbeliever enemies by stomping on their necks, I pulled out a smaller camera and filmed from a more discreet position. Now, church members were in deep prayer, speaking in tongues and raising their hands. Muthee exclaimed, “We come against the spirit of witchcraft! We come against the python spirits!” Then, a local pastor took the mic from Muthee and added, “We stomp on the heads of the enemy!”

That’s the Christianism I’m worried about, guys. And Palin is its vehicle into the White House as we face down Islamist Iran over nuclear weapons. And we’re supposed to think that Palin is fine? For God’s sake, wake up.

A pretty staggering poll reveals that even Alaskans believe, by 43 to 37 percent, that Joe Biden has the better background and experience to be vice-president, and by 44 to 32 percent, that Biden is better prepared to handle an unexpected international crisis. They prefer Palin on energy and Wall Street reform. But not by much. If this is how Alaskans feel, what about the rest of the country?

I don’t buy this entirely, but it does worry me that we get closer and closer to the election and we have had no substantive debates and no meaningful interaction with one vice-presidential candidate:

McCain’s let’s-postpone-the-debate idea may not be a real possibility now that Obama has indicated he won’t play ball. But here’s a factor to consider with the proposal itself: by the time the next scheduled (or, as McCain would have it, "first") presidential debate takes place, 16 states will already be voting. That includes battlegrounds like Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

It’s bad enough that voters in a half dozen states are casting ballots right now, before a single debate has been held and after only one opportunity to hear one of the vice-presidential candidates field questions from a reporter.
 

McCain cannot face the actual campaign on this issues – because he’s on the losing side of almost all of them – and so it’s all about bells, whistles, shiny objects, drama queen spectacles and propaganda. And in McCain’s rattled head, he tells himself that he’s pure because he once offered a series of public debates with Obama and Obama turned him down. That’s enough for McCain to launch into this totally bizarre and unstable fall campaign. Yes: I said "unstable." What other word currently describes him?

Mike Allen:

State by state, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill). is showing signs of breaking open a presidential race that looked deadlocked through much of September. A new wave of polls released Wednesday showed decisive leads for Obama in the critical states of Colorado, Michigan and Pennsylvania. That follows noticeable progress in polls in Virginia, which had looked safe for Sen. John McCain, and Florida, which had looked promising for McCain. This is the first time that one of the candidates has dominated state polls in the most closely contested battlegrounds.

It doesn’t surprise me, but it may surprise others.

A reader writes:

Just thought you’d like to know that McCain ads are still running here in South Florida. Saw one this morning during the Today Show.

Hmmm. Another reader:

I know TV ad’s are hard to get down but I was treated to 2 ads this morning (the congressional friends ad and one other) during my morning news. This was on a local channel here in West Michigan, not national cable.

If you have seen a McCain ad on TV today, let me know.

A reader homes in on what we are learning about John McCain:

I’m poring back in memory, over all the touchstones of McCain’s recent public life, and it’s all starting to make sense: his "stands" on tobacco litigation, campaign finance, immigration, taxes, even (briefly) torture. All ultimately about a self-dramatist creating a drama at which he is the center.

All failed efforts, but one now sees that success or failure – or principle – was not at all the point, ever. Who cares about those things when you get to be at the center of a great drama?

So now, as with canceling the first night of his own convention (over a storm, incidentally, that inconvenienced no one), he is lurching from one dramatic centerpiece to the next, trying to upset the metrics of this election, trying to recapture that old magic. In a moment when calm is called for, he sets his hair afire.

I know these tendencies a little too well: I’m like McCain in some ways. But that’s why I decided I wasn’t cut out for electoral politics.

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

 

A reader writes:

Two of my employees called to say they couldn’t make it in to work today because of the financial crisis. They think it’s pretty funny. I don’t.