The War Within

From Andrew Sullivan:
I think it's now fair to say it's a war. My view is that after the McCain peeps had made that crazy decision and realized after the fact what they had on their hands, they put their best face on it. They knew that the normal rules for a veep - a press conference, full media accessibility, airing of all the biographical details - would have required the candidate to quit before November. So they tried to shield her from actual democracy - a dangerous decision for the rest of us, but a rational, cynical decision for a campaign running a delusional liar as the potential next president of the US. Palin of course, lives in her own little, somewhat nutty, world and now believes her manifest destiny has been thwarted.

It's a massive, unmissable clusterfuck and has been for two months. They just can't hide it any longer. And the pick is a devastating one - because it basically destroys John McCain's credibility as a presidential decision-maker. His first major decision as a future president is one of the worst in American political history. That alone should be enough to seal his fate next Tuesday. You need nothing else.

(Photo: Robyn Beck/Getty.)

A PSA

Charles Meets Barack

A Wink

Why He's Winning

I get goosebumps I tell ya.

Olbermann's Special Comment

Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama

The Washington Post For Obama

Barack Obama for President
Friday, October 17, 2008; Page A24

THE NOMINATING process this year produced two unusually talented and qualified presidential candidates. There are few public figures we have respected more over the years than Sen. John McCain. Yet it is without ambivalence that we endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president.

The choice is made easy in part by Mr. McCain's disappointing campaign, above all his irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president. It is made easy in larger part, though, because of our admiration for Mr. Obama and the impressive qualities he has shown during this long race. Yes, we have reservations and concerns, almost inevitably, given Mr. Obama's relatively brief experience in national politics. But we also have enormous hopes.

Read the rest here.

Fact Checking The Debate

Debate Reactions

Peter Suderman:

Neither McCain nor Obama are doing themselves any favors bickering back and
forth about who has the nastiest campaign, but McCain, after a strong initial
attack pushing Obama to repudiate some especially nasty attacks that didn’t come
from the Obama campaign, comes off looking petulant, rambling, and cranky – a
spoiled bully nagging the principal to punish another kid who once called him a
name.

Brian Beutler:
John McCain says Sarah Palin knows a lot about having children with autism. Presumably he thinks she knows more about this than anybody in the country. Presumably he also thinks autism is approximately equal to Down Syndrome.

James Joyner:
Overall, I don’t see how McCain helped himself tonight, much less hit the home run he needed to put himself back into this thing.

Dreher:
OK, that's over. And so is the McCain campaign. He was more aggressive than he's been so far, and he came close to landing some blows on Obama. But he never really connected, and for the most part this debate was as platitudinous as they all have been. McCain came off as sour, agitated and petulant. Obama -- man, nothing rattles that guy. McCain was two tics away from a vein-popping "You can't handle the truth!" Jack Nicholson moment, I felt. At one point, I thought: Which one of these men would I want in the White House when the 3 a.m. phone call comes in?

Why So Angry?

Challenging the Fear

Backlash: Six Challenges to McCain's Racist Fearmongering

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted October 15, 2008.

In the minutes following the second presidential debate last week, CNN analyst and former Reaganite David Gergen was gripped by an apparent fit of honesty. Amid the prevailing view that Obama had come out ahead, Gergen warned that it was still too soon to say that Obama had the race in the bag. "I think it's too early to declare victory," he said. "because Barack Obama is black."

Gergen's blunt analysis acknowledged what many Americans know to be true, but have not vocally admitted in this historic presidential campaign. "Until we play out the issue of race in this country," Gergen said, "I don't think we'll know (how Obama's race will affect him)." So much for "post-racial" America. As we see the country "play out the issue of race" in these closing weeks of the presidential campaign, fearmongering attacks from the McCain camp have spiked to obscene new levels. While forced recently to push back against some of the most blatantly racist public remarks about his opponent, McCain is largely responsible for stoking mistrust for Obama, repeatedly calling Obama "too risky" for America, asking "Who is the real Barack Obama?" and approving campaign ads that plumb the lowest depths of racist fearmongering. Even the often-repeated claim that Obama will "kill jobs" characterizes Obama as a predator politician who will endanger Americans.

McCain may be the one who "approved this message," but much of the dirty work has been carried out by the campaign's resident pit bull, Sarah Palin. On Oct. 4, at an appearance at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., Palin warned about the Democratic presidential candidate:

"This is not a man who sees America as you and I see America. We see America as a force for good in this world. We see America as a force for exceptionalism. … Our opponents see America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who would bomb their own country."

The well-documented result has been a chillingly heightened lynch mob atmosphere at McCain/Palin rallies, where McCain's lines asking, "Who is Barack Obama" now meet with shouts of "terrorist!" and "kill him!" At an event in Allentown, Penn., according to MSNBC, "At one point one man could be heard yelling, 'Off with his head,' when McCain spoke about Obama's tax plan."

This "is the Willie Hortonization of Obama," University of San Francisco associate professor James Taylor told the San Francisco Chronicle. Or perhaps more accurately, it is the "Osamafication" of Obama -- a brutal and nasty campaign to appeal to Americans' basest instincts and worst fears.

Read the rest here.

Olbermann Takes On The Lunatics

14 Points

Poll: Obama Opens 14-Point Lead On McCain
CBS News/New York Times Survey Shows Major Swing Among Independents, Suggests McCain's Strategy May Be Hurting Him

(CBS) Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is entering the third and final presidential debate Wednesday with a wide lead over Republican rival John McCain nationally, a new CBS News/New York Times poll shows.

The Obama-Biden ticket now leads the McCain-Palin ticket 53 percent to 39 percent among likely voters, a 14-point margin. One week ago, prior to the Town Hall debate that uncommitted voters saw as a win for Obama, that margin was just three points.

Among independents who are likely voters - a group that has swung back and forth between McCain and Obama over the course of the campaign - the Democratic ticket now leads by 18 points. McCain led among independents last week.

McCain's campaign strategy may be hurting hurt him: Twenty-one percent of voters say their opinion of the Republican has changed for the worse in the last few weeks. The top two reasons cited for the change of heart are McCain's attacks on Obama and his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate.

Read the rest here.

Palin's Alternate Universe

Grand Old Panic?

"Kill Him"

A McCain*Palin supporter has a suggestion.

http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/articles/2008/10/14/news/doc48f4ba8994588930223377.txt

Fanning the Flames

McCain-Palin supporter at a rally, Oct. 11 (Screen Shot Courtesy of YouTube)

McCain and the Raging Right
By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Are we witnessing the reemergence of the far right as a power in American politics? Has John McCain, inadvertently perhaps, become the midwife of a new movement built around fear, xenophobia, racism and anger?

McCain has clearly become uneasy with some of the forces that have gathered around him. He has begun to insist, against the sometimes loud protests from his crowds, that Barack Obama is, among things, a "decent person."

Yet McCain's own campaign is playing with powerful extremist themes to denigrate Obama. When his running mate, Sarah Palin, first brought up Obama's association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, who has become a centerpiece of McCain's attacks, she accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists." What other "terrorists" was she thinking about?

Read the rest here.

Six Decisions That Might Have Changed The Election

A PreMortem for The McCain Campaign

By Howard Wolfson
The economic crisis dealt the McCain campaign a fatal body blow. None the less, the choices that Senator McCain has made during this race will impact the margin of his defeat and the fortunes of other Republicans on the ballot. Today it's worth considering what Senator McCain could have done differently. The usual caveats about hindsight apply.

1) Avoid Faustian Bargains.
Campaigns don't begin on announcement day and Senator McCain's most fateful decision predated his. Following the election of 2000 John McCain enjoyed a national reputation as a moderate maverick who was willing to challenge the voices of intolerance within his own party and work across the partisan divide. After 9/11 Senator McCain changed course dramatically and yoked his fortunes with President Bush's. This strategy clearly helped Senator McCain capture his party's nomination — but it left him poorly positioned to compete in a general election in the current political environment. The John McCain of 2000 would still be giving Senator Obama a run for his money — unfortunately for him that John McCain no longer exists.

2) A Second Act for Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin's introduction to the American public was a strong one. She helped to rally the Republican base and drew interest from blue collar voters and some women who might not have otherwise given John McCain a second look. Since then her performance has been poor. Her interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric were embarrassments and instead of rallying swing voters she spends her days on the campaign trail engaged in increasingly vitriolic attacks on Barack Obama. What if Gov. Palin had instead spent September engaged in a series of round table discussions with families struggling to balance work and family and unveiled innovative family friendly policies designed to appeal to those blue collar women who had served as the backbone of Hillary Clinton's campaign?

3) A Different VP Choice Entirely.
The choice of a VP speaks volumes to the American public about the candidate making it. Given her performance on the trail it's hard to argue that Gov. Palin has helped Senator McCain. What if he had chosen Gov. Tom Ridge, a pro-choice former Governor or former Senator Joe Lieberman instead? Either would have burnished Senator McCain's bipartisan credentials in a way that Gov. Palin did not. Would the choice of Mitt Romney have helped credential Senator McCain on the economy? At least Romney could discuss the economic collapse with some degree of knowledge.

4) Distance from George W. Bush.
George W. Bush ends his second term in office as the most unpopular President in the last fifty years. Once Senator McCain had secured his party's nomination he should have been out every day trying to find a high profile way to demonstrate that he would be a very different President than Bush had been — especially on the issue of the economy. Instead he allowed Senator Obama and Democrats to define his prospective first term as President Bush's third. The last thing the American public wants is four more years of the last eight. Senator McCain never made a compelling case that he would do anything differently. In 1992 Bill Clinton ran as a "different kind of Democrat." in 2000 George W. Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative." Both men sought to distance themselves from unpopular associations with their own parties. That approach was arguably more important this election cycle and Senator McCain never even made a serious attempt to implement it.

5) Attempt to Define Senator Obama Earlier.
Senator McCain's efforts to hang Bill Ayers around Senator Obama's shoulders are totally irrelevent to the current mood of the country and only serve to reinforce how out of touch he is with the real concerns of the American people. They are also much too late to do any good. The swiftboating of John Kerry began in August of 2004. If John McCain had wanted to tag Senator Obama with Mr. Ayers he should have begun months earlier.

6) A Coherent Response to the Economic Crisis.
Senator McCain's response to the economic crisis — first lauding the economy, then suspending his campaign to pass a bill that failed on its first try, threatening to skip the first debate — was lurching, incoherent, and tone deaf. This was a critically important test in the campaign; an opportunity for voters to assess the actions of both candidates in the midst of a real time crisis. John McCain failed this test. A high profile, bipartisan summit with a mix of economists, business leaders and ordinary Americans to consider and articulate solutions to the crisis would have served Senator McCain much better.

What am I missing?

Hitchens For Obama

Money quote: Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.

Vote For Obama
McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace.

By Christopher Hitchens Posted Monday, Oct. 13, 2008, at 10:44 AM ET

I used to nod wisely when people said: "Let's discuss issues rather than personalities." It seemed so obvious that in politics an issue was an issue and a personality was a personality, and that the more one could separate the two, the more serious one was. After all, in a debate on serious issues, any mention of the opponent's personality would be ad hominem at best and at worst would stoop as low as ad feminam.

At my old English boarding school, we had a sporting saying that one should "tackle the ball and not the man." I carried on echoing this sort of unexamined nonsense for quite some time—in fact, until the New Hampshire primary of 1992, when it hit me very forcibly that the "personality" of one of the candidates was itself an "issue." In later years, I had little cause to revise my view that Bill Clinton's abysmal character was such as to be a "game changer" in itself, at least as important as his claim to be a "new Democrat." To summarize what little I learned from all this: A candidate may well change his or her position on, say, universal health care or Bosnia. But he or she cannot change the fact—if it happens to be a fact—that he or she is a pathological liar, or a dimwit, or a proud ignoramus. And even in the short run, this must and will tell.

Read the rest here.

The Boilerplate "Socialist" Smear

What Right Wingers Mean When They Call Obama a "Socialist"

Right-wing attempts to paint Barack Obama as a socialist aren't just disingenuous. They're rooted in a history of conservative smears against black leaders.


Adam Serwer October 13, 2008 web only

On Saturday, Georgia Congressman John Lewis went nuclear on John McCain, releasing a statement that seemed to compare McCain to segregationist George Wallace. "George Wallace never threw a bomb," Lewis wrote. "He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional rights." The civil rights icon continued, "Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed one Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama."

Lewis accused McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin of "sowing the seeds of hatred and division." He was referring to the angry tone of recent McCain rallies, where cries of "kill him" and "off with his head" have made many people anxious about the potential for violence against the Democratic nominee.

It's no wonder that the tone at McCain rallies remind Lewis of the bad old days. In recent months, conservatives have sounded increasingly retro with their attempts to paint Obama as a socialist or communist. In some ways, this accusation is typical far-right boilerplate. Obama certainly isn't the first Democrat running for president to be accused of communist sympathies. And as usual, the accusations are rarely linked to policy specifics. But the difference with Obama is that, in the eyes of the right, it's not just his political affiliation that implicates him as a socialist. It's his ethnic background.

Read the rest here.

Funny of the Day

McCain Endorsed By Financial Sponsor of Terrorists

Okay, this was only SLIGHTLY tongue in cheek, but yesterday the McCain campaign put out a press release announcing its endorsement by Leonora Annenberg. Who cares, you might ask. Annenberg and her husband Walter gave the former terrorist William Ayers $50 million. They also gave money to Rick Santorum, Strom Thurmond and Mitt Romney. Annenberg was Nixon's ambassador to Britain. If Obama is "palling around with terrorists," the Republican Annenbergs are funding them.