I am very skeptical about Sarah Palin, and it has nothing to do with "experience." I think that the experience issue is a red herring. Really, who has expereince to be president except a former president? It is nearly impossible to get the requisite foreign policy knowledge and experience, and that shouldn't be a prerequisite be being president. You have aids and experts that brief and advise you, and in most situations you will use a career diplomat to handle complex and difficult negotiations. All I really care about (on that front) is that the candidate shows that he or she can make difficult desicions (as opposed to just weighing the various options indefinitely) and can serve as the executive administrator of a large organization. [however, it is also improtant to me that a candidate not be so resolute and determined that he or she prejudges an issue, and that's that] Obama has no more "relevant" experience than Palin does--and Obama has no less than Abraham Lincoln did. If you did a study comparing the consensus top and botton ten-15 presidents with their experience entering their term(s) in office, I suspect that you will find absolutely no correlation whatsoever between performance and experience. So that's not why I'm skeptical of Sarah Palin. I'm skeptical because I see her as nothing more than a prop--just entertainment, really. I see her as misdirection from the issues in the way that a magician misdirects the audience when performing a trick. I see that her publicly stated positions on the issues is limited enough so that no one really knows how she stands on most of the issues. I see that she did not meet with the press until she had been thoroughly briefed on "her" positions. This is similar to the Republic strategy in nominating supreme court justices with limited judicial experience, so no one really knows how they may rule on hot-button issues. Sarah Palin may turn out to be a strong politician. She may turn out to be the "future" of the Republican Party. Right now, though, I see her as the invention of a political machine who we know nothing about. I think that the Democrats are spending too much time worried about her, to be honest. I think the Democrats win on the issues, and the Republicans will try to make this election about anything but the issues. Critiquing Palin just takes the Democrats off their message. In my view, they have to just say, look, Sarah Palin would probably be a capable V.P., even though we don't know much about her. That said, this is why you should vote for us. You should vote for us because the economy sucks; government agencies have been gutted and their decision making process has not been transparent. You should vote for us because our foreign policy decisions have been horrible, and the rest of the world hates us, which has made it difficult to create an alliance even when dealing with issues like Iraq and Iran. You should vote for us because John McCain is no longer the "maverick" he was five or ten years ago, but is now surrounded by handlers that are either career lobbyists or were high ranking officials in Bush's administration--and that, therefore, his administration is likely to be a continuation of the Bush administration. You should vote for us because the Bush administration has attempted to hide their decision-making process--possibly violating laws in the process--and that the government belongs to the people and should be open. You should vote for us because the Department of Homeland Security (created by President Bush) is a disaster, and the DOJ (and possibly other government departments and agencies) has vetted job applicants for career positions on the basis of their political affiliation. etc., etc., etc. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work. But Sarah Palin should be marginalized, and the only way to do that is to effectively ignore her.
Dumpy, you're right and you're wrong. Everything you wrote is probably right, I don't find fault with a thing. What's wrong about it is it is the kind of strategic thinking that's lost Democrats their presidential elections all along. The appeals are to the base, and probably only to the hard core base at that. In fact, it is the kinds of things Obama's been saying as his ratings in the polls have declined. GW Bush isn't running for a 3rd term! What he probably needs to do is take up McCain on all those debates so people can see the two side by side. He needs to focus on 3 to 5 ideas and promote those so we're not inundated with a bunch of policy wonk speak. Any more than that, and people can't get their head around it all. He might have to introduce additional people as those who'd fill some of his cabinet spots, so people would feel comfortable with what his administration would look like. And perhaps most importantly, he's got to change the perception that he's elite and destined to be president and the next Kennedy - few of us resemble the Kennedys when we pay our bills. The inevitable thing didn't work for Hillary. It might not hurt if Biden came up with a sudden illness and had to withdraw so he could conveniently get Hillary on the ticket.
You're probably right on the three-to-five idea thing. The debates will be interesting, especially to see how McCain describes his policies and couches them in a way that is different from President Bush. Jon Stewart ran this great little clip after McCain's acceptance speech, where he juxtaposed McCain's calls for change against what George W. said in HIS acceptance speech eight years ago. They were nearly identical. BTW, the thought of Hillary on the ticket disgusts me.
Obama needs to figure out what to do, and fast. There's not that much time left. His campaign right now is in free fall mode and is on the verge of imploding and taking out the Democrats down the ticket with him. No one poll means that much, but a steady drip drip drip of bad poll news does affect the brand in the minds of the voters. There's no immediate turnaround kind of thing that can be done, it's likely to take a week or even two to get traction. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...ial_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll McCain being up in the market means people are selling Obama and have much lower expectations for him winning than they did a week or two ago.
As for Hillary on the ticket, I have zero like for the woman, but.... Nixon held his nose and took LBJ on the ticket and eeked out a win in 1960. Reagan held his nose and took GHW Bush on the ticket and overcame a huge summertime lead in the polls to win in 1960. Clinton held his nose and took Al Bore on the ticket (Gore, you may remember, raised Whitewater and otherwise forced the Clinton team to get its Bimbo Patrol team put together).
Obama should be down in the polls for the rest of the month and he will. Normally the convention that goes second usually holds onto the lead for the next month up until the debates. I think it's really premature to say Obama's campaign is on the verge of imploding when the debates haven't happen yet and that's usually the most important political event leading up to the election. If he's down in October then it's panic time for the democratic party. I've been following state by state polling for the last month in a half. The map has always been in Obama's favor and it really still is even though McCain is starting to gain ground. The only thing his convention has done for the electoral college is take states like Georgia, North Carolina, Montana, and South Dakota and make them a strong republican states instead of just leaning republican. He's also gained a lot in the south where he was going to probably win know matter what. McCain has done a good job of bring home his base. Obama hasn't done that yet in two key states, although Pennsylvania and Michigan are still leaning his way and he probably will win but he will have to spend money which he as a lot of and time which he probably would rather spend in a state like Ohio or Colorado. Right now you have Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Florida, and New Hampshire all toss ups. Although NM and NV are leaning one way. NM to Obama and NV to McCain but both are in the margin of error in most polling. The more this map takes shape the more McCain's path is like Bush's in 2000 where as Obama has quite a few roads to victory. Win Ohio or Florida or Virginia and he probably wins. I think VA and FL are probably McCain's to lose though. Win Colorado and make it a tie or win Colorado and NH. Ohio, Colorado, New Hampshire and even Virginia are so close that they'll go either way at this pint. I do kind of think Virginia will start to lean McCain as we get closer to the election though. My point being from a electoral map perspective, this is as close as 2000.
that's all the politics are about, these days. the parties know which states they are going to win, which they are going to loose, and which they have to fight for. as long as they get their 51%, that's all they care about.
It is partly because, more than ever, americans are choosing to live in the same areas with people who share their beliefs. Neighborhoods, cities, metro areas, and even in some instances entire states heavily lean one way or the other. Fifty years ago, all or mostly all states could be considered toss-ups, either because there were an equal number of democrats and republicans, or just because the independents and undecideds outweighed those taht had already made up their minds in advance. So, for instance, a republican spending money in Maryland or a democrat spending money in Idaho is just a waste of time now.
I am worried about the Palin pick as well, just the lack of experience, and I just don`t know if she can gather a country`s support behind her. and while I`m worried about Barrack`s experience in the same way, I really feel he has the charisma to draw people behind his cause, which I do think is important. and I know this election isn`t Barrack vs. Palin, it`s just the parallel of lack of inexperience is brought up a lot.
This article does a good job of summarizing my feelings about the two political parties these days. The media as well. http://www.upi.com/news/issueofthed..._hard_but_it_may_backfire/UPI-81241221234472/ ABC's Gibson grilled Palin hard, but it may backfire By MARTIN SIEFF Published: Sept. 12, 2008 at 11:47 AM WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- There were no surprises, no knockout zingers, but also no bloopers Thursday night in Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's first TV interview since becoming the Republican vice presidential nominee. Charles Gibson of ABC News was out for blood and inherently applied a double-standard compared with the kid gloves George Stephanopoulos used on Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois on Sunday night. Gibson was out to embarrass Palin and expose her presumed ignorance from the word go. By contrast, when Obama referred to his "Muslim faith" on Sunday and did not correct himself, Stephanopoulos rushed in at once to help him and emphasize that the senator had really meant to say his Christian faith. By contrast, Gibson tried to embarrass Palin by referring to her Christian faith in asking people to pray for U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Palin countered by pointing out she was following the precedent set by Abraham Lincoln. Palin also expressed her support for Georgia and Ukraine joining the U.S.-led NATO alliance. That statement was predictable and consistent with the current policy of the Bush administration. The policy has dangerously raised tensions with Russia, but Palin is hardly alone in the conservative/Republican consensus in expressing her support for it. Palin's assessment of foreign policy was competent and not embarrassing. Although she initially exhibited ignorance of the Bush Doctrine on pre-emptive strikes that has been a central pillar of U.S. foreign policy after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, she recovered quickly and then made the case clearly. Tactically, she made the mistake of trying to be friendly and informal with Gibson, who assumed a superior, professorial and critical stance toward her. She would have been far better going on the attack to rattle him. The double-standard Gibson applied to Palin, compared with the uncritical media platforms repeatedly offered to Obama, who has had zero executive experience running anything, was especially striking. ABC and Gibson focused on Palin as if she were running right now for the presidency rather than the vice presidency. He and other media pundits, by contrast, have never asked the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, if he has ever had to make a decision on anything. Gibson's aggressive approach appeared to take Palin by surprise: He was clearly attempting to put her on point by presenting her as having extreme religious views. This again, however, appears to be a double-standard, as Palin grew up in the Assemblies of God, one of the largest Christian denominations in America with 16 million members, and is now a member of the Wasilla Bible Church. Even now, Obama has yet to receive any comparable grilling on his 20-year attendance in the congregation of the notoriously racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The focus on Palin's faith and family, as well as the controversy over Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment in Virginia earlier this week, confirmed the swift demise of civility in the 2008 presidential campaign. This is especially ironic, as both Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, owed their victories over Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York in the Democratic primary race and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the GOP one to their perceived inclusive tolerance, uplift and vision compared with their main opponents. In the long sweep of U.S. political history, the worst dirt that has been thrown at either of the presidential candidates pales compared with the claims that Thomas Jefferson had fathered a child by a black slave in the 1800 campaign -- the newspaper editor who published the accusations eventually was found dead floating in a canal -- or the false claims by Republicans in the 1944 campaign that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was senile. FDR by that point was indeed a dying man, though he did not know it, but he was mentally as sharp as ever. The context of the increasingly desperate -- and ugly -- attacks on Palin and her alleged lack of experience is that the Obama bandwagon, which swept all before it from the Iowa caucuses through the end of June, is now stalling badly and, even more worrying for the Democrats, the malaise may be spreading to the congressional races. The latest USA Today/Gallup poll has the Democrats only 3 points up on the Republicans on the question of which party people would vote for today in their congressional district. Indeed, the Obama campaign is now saying it is ready to take the gloves off against McCain. They rolled out a new ad Friday mocking McCain as out of touch and old-fashioned, even though it was McCain who picked a young woman as a running mate while Obama opted for an old white guy who's been sitting in the Senate for 36 years. With more than 50 days still to go until the actual election, it appears dangerously early in the campaign for the Obama camp to go negative, especially as so much of his appeal has been based on rising above the old negatives to begin with. Isn't it early in the campaign to resort to that? Is it a sign of panic? Whatever her inexperience and other shortcomings, Palin did not fall into that trap in her ABC interview. At no point did she appear fearful or threatening. Gibson's aggressive questioning on her religion and her son's coming military service in Iraq, by contrast, runs the risks for the Democrats of strengthening support for Palin among working-class, married women, especially those with husbands or sons serving in the military. The pattern of previous presidential election interviews and debates has always been that individuals who come across as intellectually superior, arrogant and condescending forfeit support that goes to their perceived victims. This dynamic played a crucial role in propelling George W. Bush into the White House eight years ago. It remains to be seen if Gibson's perceived arrogance and condescension will give Palin another boost. It certainly didn't help the Democrats that ABC's chief political correspondent, Stephanopoulos, who had rushed to Obama's aid only four days before, was wheeled on to discuss her interview with Gibson as soon as it was concluded. Liberal Democrats predictably will cite the interview as evidence that Palin is not prepared for the vice presidency. Republicans will equally predictably cite it as evidence that she is. How centrist voters will react to it remains to be seen. One thing is clear: This isn't a transformational election on either side. Whoever wins, the ugly old cultural and political divisions in America remain -- and they are deeper than ever.
And this one is spin, but it's good spin. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202457_pf.html [SIZE=+2]Charlie Gibson's Gaffe[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]By Charles Krauthammer Saturday, September 13, 2008; A17 [/SIZE] "At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' " -- New York Times, Sept. 12 Informed her? Rubbish. The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong. There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different. He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?" She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?" Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense." Wrong. I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine. Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." This "with us or against us" policy regarding terror -- first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan -- became the essence of the Bush doctrine. Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine. It's not. It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy's pledge in his inaugural address that the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson's 14 points. If I were in any public foreign policy debate today, and my adversary were to raise the Bush doctrine, both I and the audience would assume -- unless my interlocutor annotated the reference otherwise -- that he was speaking about the grandly proclaimed (and widely attacked) freedom agenda of the Bush administration. Not the Gibson doctrine of preemption. Not the "with us or against us" no-neutrality-is-permitted policy of the immediate post-9/11 days. Not the unilateralism that characterized the pre-9/11 first year of the Bush administration. Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed "doctrines" in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents. Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine. Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage. letters@charleskrauthammer.com
And oddly, I google for "Bush Doctrine" and I'm not finding a whole lot about pre-emptive war, but rather they talk about the spread of democracy. This one from Feb 2003, a month before Iraq: http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.15845/pub_detail.asp The Bush Doctrine continues a tradition that can be traced to the Monroe and Truman doctrines. It is an attempt, in a new century and under new strategic circumstances, to "foster a world environment where the American system can survive and flourish," as Paul Nitze put it in 1950, in the famous "NSC 68" memorandum. Blessed now with a global balance heavily weighted in favor of the United States, the Bush administration has declared itself ready to remove the rogue regimes and terrorists it regards as uniquely dangerous. For Americans, normal power calculations of "threats" and "opportunities" have been colored by an abiding faith in a set of political principles believed to have universal application. Americans have come to regard the exercise of their power as not simply a force for national greatness but for human liberty.<o></o>
I don't care if he wants to ask her tough questions, but it's not exactly even handed that they don't ask Obama the same questions, or McCain or Biden. In retrospect, she aced the first interview with Gibson, even the so-called "deer in the headlight moment."
Every day she refused to speak with media, she made her first interview tougher and tougher. She gave the impression that there was something to hide, so Gibson tried to go through as many subjects as possible. If she was open with/comfortable with the media from day one, like Obama, McCain and Biden, then she would have got softballs, too. She did do okay, but probably because she's been coached by McCain aides since the day she was picked. Had she been interviewed before the convention, it would have a totally different story.
I don't know how they could prepare her for hours of interviews on every subject Gibson might ask. That she knew the Bush Doctrine and Gibson with his "gotcha" question didn't know, says something (very much in her favor).
I got told by the Obama campaign today to vote absentee in Wisconsin instead of Missouri. That tells me that Wisconsin is tightening up (I think some polls have shown it at 3), and they are giving up on Missouri. Makes quite a bit of sense though, as if he loses Wisconsin, he probably loses the election, and Wisconsin has been decided by less than .4% the last 2 elections, and was the closest state last election. I think Obama's plan is going to be Kerry States + Iowa + New Mexico is his base. That gives him 264 EV's. Plan 1 is probably Colorado. Plan 2 Virginia or Nevada. Plan 3, Florida or Ohio. This is another reason why I think Hillary would have been a fantastic pick. When Obama made his pick, it seemed as if there were 264 EV's that were very likely going to go his way. He just needed 6 more. Arkansas is worth 6 EV's, and would have given him the win. I can't see a Clinton losing Arkansas, even as #2 on the ticket, unless McCain had put Huckabee on the ticket, which probably would have suicided his campaign in other important states. Also, I'm getting tired of this half standard with Sarah Palin. She came off sounding like a buffoon in her ABC interview. She clearly has very little idea of what she is talking about, and just has her buzz words, which she goes into a canned response when she hears them. In addition, what she said about seeming to want to continue the Bush Doctrine, and possibly positioning the United States for a war with Russia was disgusting to me as well. Wasn't this supposed to be a softball interview for her anyhow? What's she going to do when it is time to come on Meet the Press?
I thought she didn't know enough about foreign policy? Now she wants to start wars with Russia and continue the Bush doctrine?! There's no better double standard in politics today than the Obama-Palin battle. Obama's surrogates go on MSNBC and the like and question her ability to assume the presidency if God forbid something happened to John McCain, because she's too inexperienced. It's like these guys got hit in the head a few too many times. And to top it off, I love the answer they give regarding Obama's experience. "He's been tested and tried for the past 20 months." Are these people kidding? But really, now that I think about it, I think it'd be great for the Obama campaign to talk about experience. I'd welcome that argument. If they go with that and assume a defensive position in this thing, they're going down.
