painting by Alex RossEven I think Obama is a lightweight. Just kidding. I'm so sick of the notion that Obama is an empty suit, but the constant bombardment of that message has worked.
Americans are easily hoodwinked. We did after all, vote for Bush - twice. If it happens again, we'll only be able to kick ourselves. I know, I know. It's totally unfair for those of us who know better.
Really, how much could Obama screw things up after Bush? The only way is up. I'm thinking the office of president is getting way too much attention.
What about the people that Obama will surround himself with. Hopefully, tomorrow we'll know who his vice president is and who knows, maybe he'll even name a couple of other positions.
We get McCain and we're going to have a bunch of old guys -- as in old fashioned ideals. Obama has some superior advisers. He's head and shoulder above McCain in smarts. McCain has Phil Gramm.
In the past two days, Obama's supporters at the town halls have been asking: What are you going to do about the negative campaigning? To which Obama replies that the republicans are good at campaigning but bad at governing (you'd think we'd know that by now) and he says he's striking back and he's in it to win it.
But the media has bought McCain's message for now, and much of it had to do with the republican kickoff at Saddleback.
People forget that the audience was nearly all republican and highly conservative and live in one of the most wealthiest areas of the U.S.
The media responded to the audience's delight at McCain's panders, I mean answers. But now, Mr. Sound Bite is considering a vice president without a pro-life bent and they've sent up warning signals. The republicans are being controlled by a talk radio host. McCain goes from "life begins at conception" to making his No. 2 a pro-choicer.
The purpose of the Saddleback show was to get Obama's views out to the conservative base, so republicans could rein in any stray evangelical who might've considered voting for Obama. In the past two days, the abortion debate, at least from the republican side, has heated up. Obama now kills live babies.
But soon, the media will rally back to Obama. It's like herding goats. Then it will sway to McCain and somewhere along the way, Americans will make up their minds.
The purpose of the Saddleback show was to get Obama's views out to the conservative base, so republicans could rein in any stray evangelical who might've considered voting for Obama. In the past two days, the abortion debate, at least from the republican side, has heated up. Obama now kills live babies.
But soon, the media will rally back to Obama. It's like herding goats. Then it will sway to McCain and somewhere along the way, Americans will make up their minds.
Electoral Vote: While voters constantly complain about negative ads, campaigns use them because they work. A new LA Times National Poll shows that a month of ads attacking Obama as a lightweight unready to lead have erased his lead nationally. The two are in a statistical tie. Obama's advantage in the electoral college has also vanished. If you compare the 2008 electoral college graph with the 2004 one, the parallels are striking. Kerry led throughout the summer until the Swift Boat ad kicked in, and it was downhill from there. Kerry never recovered.
It will be interesting to see if Obama has studied the 2004 campaign and goes negative himself. He has three possible themes. First, he can paint McCain as out of touch with how many Americans are struggling economically. If he wants to get personal (as McCain has), he can depict McCain as the man with $520 Italian shoes, half a dozen houses, a wife worth $100 million and the view that someone making $4 million a year is not rich There is some evidence that he will continue to run a positive national campaign but start hitting McCain on the economy in specific media markets. For example, in Ohio, he's hitting McCain because Rick Davis (McCain's campaign manager) helped broker a deal to move 8000 jobs from Ohio to Kentucky. A second theme is that McCain is an honorable man but at 71 is losing his marbles (can't tell a Sunni from a Shi'ite, thinks Czechoslovakia is still a country, etc.). A third plausible theme is that McCain used to be a maverick but in his pandering to the Base has now repudiated everything he used to stand for (was against, now for Bush tax cuts; was for, now against his own immigration bill; was against, now for torture, etc.). In at least one way, Republicans are much smarter than Democrats: they fully realize that the way to win is to attack your opponent relentlessly, preferable on a single topic. This year's topic is Obama's lack of experience. Basically, you can't trust your kids' safety to him.
