aggregation

From today's Chicago Tribune:

Just as McCain's politics are largely shaped by his experience as a prisoner of war and Obama's by his embrace of his racial identity, Palin's approach has been shaped by her relationship with God. Palin sees her government work as paling in comparison to a greater mission.

Her pastor thinks her religion would shape her views on foreign policy: [more...]

Rev. Tim McGraw, Palin's pastor when she became mayor of Wasilla, said believers look to Israel for signs of the coming end times and where they are in God's plan. That would undoubtedly influence Palin's approach to foreign policy, McGraw said.

"I believe Sarah would not live in a fragmented world," he said. "The idea that Sarah would take this huge influence of the worldview that really only the Bible and the relationship with Jesus opens up ... and suddenly marginalize it and put it over on the shelf somewhere and live apart from it—that would be entirely inconsistent."

The New York Times linked to this video of Sarah Palin addressing her church. I call it Sarah Palin: Valley Girl. You have to watch this.

The McCain media handlers will revamp her speech and body language in the next few weeks. It's important to see the real Sarah Palin now.

Update: I'm reading the MSM media accounts of the Colorado Springs rally and they are over-trumping Palin. She was nowhere near the star of the rally. John McCain was. She did a 12 minute introduction of him and to my ear, did not receive greater applause than him. I didn't even hear "Sarah" chanting -- perhaps those in front of the stage were doing it but no one was chanting Sarah among the big crowds outside the hangar. When she spoke, it was almost all about him. It was a military crowd (The Air Force Academy, Peterson AFB and Fort Carson are all in the area -- in addition to the evangelical churches) and McCain and the politicians and right wing radio host that preceded him played the patriotism card to the hilt. The music included everything from G-d Bless America to Glory, Glory Hallelujah. More tomorrow afternoon in my Salon article, but keep in mind, it's not a partisan article.

Saving social security was the issue du jour on the campaign trail. John McCain, speaking to an AARP conference, did his best to frighten the audience.

"Social Security is going broke. Social Security is going broke. Hello?!"

McCain's plan to address the projected insolvency of the Social Security Trust Fund is to "reach across the aisle" and "change Washington." He also promises "the creation of a bipartisan commission to propose solutions." Hey, while we're at it, let's get a bipartisan commission to tell us how to get out of Iraq. Oh, we did?

[more ...]

Barack Obama proposes to apply the social security payroll tax (now capped at $102,000 of income) to earnings that exceed $250,000 per year. Obama has a plan to address insolvency. McCain doesn't.

McCain does have a plan to permit workers to invest some of their social security payroll deduction in private accounts. In his AARP remarks, Obama associated McCain with President Bush's 2000 privatization plan. Privatization isn't a favored word in the senior citizen vocabulary, so it's no surprise that McCain denied that he would privatize social security. McCain assured the audience that his plan was voluntary and would be offered to younger workers without affecting their benefits.

Perhaps partial privatization (for now) would be a more accurate label for the McCain plan. Whatever you call it, McCain hasn't explained what he'll do if workers decide not to privatize their social security investments and the Trust Fund "goes broke. Hello?!"

Update: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is on the right track on how to go after Palin.

*****

Greg Sergeant at TPM outlines two possible plans of the Obama campaign for dealing with the Sarah Palin issue. One seems to be do nothing, see how it plays out and continue to fight against McCain. The other is to point out that Palin is upstaging McCain which shows...I'm not sure what.

The problem with not fighting back against Palin is that the Republicans are using as their central argument that Obama is inexperienced, ignoring that their VP candidate has no relevant national experience that qualifies her for Vice President. Palin doesn't hestitate to make that argument against him, and I shake my head every time I hear it, wondering how she of all people can make that claim with a straight face. [More...]

I heard 2 hours of Obama-bashing by various politicians today at the McCain-Palin event in Colorado Springs. Those arguments may work if Obama doesn't fight back against them.

McCain should be criticized for choosing someone with such a lack of experience for the second most important leadership position in the country. Nothing reflects more poorly on his judgment.

And Palin should be mocked for crtiticizing anyone's lack of national experience when her's is zero.

Having seen Palin today, my impressions are she isn't remotely qualified to make a major decision for the country.

She was ho-hum, not star quality. Her role was to introduce John McCain -- a campaign aide could have done that.

McCain is running on a G-d, America and apple pie platform. There's nothing heroic or particularly accomplished about her. She has a lot of baggage. I think a lot of Democrats are distressed at the amount of media attention Palin is getting and are waiting for Obama to hit back hard. We want to see a fighter, and he's not fighting back. Instead, millions are being infected by the Republican spin that he's not qualified and will bring economic doom to the country.

I listened to Obama's speeches in Indiana on the radio today, and he mocked McCain's message of change, saying people aren't stupid enough to buy it. I think everyone rolls their eyes by now at the word "change" and what he should be attacking is McCain's poor judgment in his VP pick. Who's stupid enough to think Sarah Palin could lead in a crisis if something happens to McCain? And who's stupid enough not to worry about it?

I have been wondering for the past week, have we gotten lost in the pages of The Onion, the online and print satiric newspaper, or maybe we’ve simply merged with the wood-pulp of The Sun or The Examiner…

“Daughter So Jealous of Mother’s Newest Baby, She Has One of Her Own”…

“Frontrunner with Middle Name of Hussein Tries to Claim Going to a Muslim School for Two Years Does Not Make Him A Muslim”…

“12, 000 Small American Flags Prepared for Transport from Invesco Field to DNC offices, are Stolen by Provocateur To Give GOP One More Useless Thing To Make a VERY IMPORTANT CENTRAL ISSUE”…

Meanwhile, in a huge clashing and sliding of econ tectonic plates, the Feds are Taking Over Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. I have a report tomorrow as soon as I speak with the one finance/econ guy who is the smartest man I know about explaining such things to us, or at least me, the great unwashed.

Re the small flags from the DNC, and their thousands of signs as well, that blown backward and inside-out bumbershoot story amounts to this: I spoke to two persons at DNC downtown when I was in Denver today: 12,000 flags were wrapped along with thousands of signs for pickup. A worker called the Republican headquarters in Denver ‘to report’ the travesty that wasn’t. Some of the GOP people took the worker at his/her word that these were on the loading dock and therefore (in the worker’s mind) were being thrown away. They weren’t. They were waiting for transport. According to DNC cleanup coordinators, someone (said worker? no one knows) took quite a few of the flags from stadium without permission. Oh, and someone thought to take pictures of the flags wrapped for transport.

My husband USAF 21 years verifies what several of you have already offered… just to answer the questions swirling on Internet… to dispose of flags soiled, torn beyond repair, unless heirloom or commemoration flags carried during battle or other significant event, such as commemorative burial of a veteran, the proper conduct is to burn completely, and to bury the ashes. It is, in military, a ceremony. In private, it is asked that it simply be done with respect.

re Election 08 and its incessant urban-legend-like stories flying through the air like huge clots of muck looking for a wall to stick to… I don’t have a brick wall at hand, only a plaster one. And, maybe it is because life is particularly grim right now, but believe me… I am so so tempted to apply forehead to wall… except I am afraid I would lose more IQ points than I already have watching the flotsam and jetsam floating on the surface of the GOP DNC stories in media… while an Economic El Nino bears down with hard game.

_______
The Onion Man is from the streets of Seattle

Sarah Palin cites not only her 18 months as Governor of Alaska to defend her conservative, reformist record, but also her 6-year stint as Mayor of Wasilla.

According to the Wall Street Journal, however, her signature accomplishment as Mayor was not exactly an example of conservative leadership or executive competence.

Under her guidance the city pushed for an expensive indoor sports complex to be paid for by city taxpayers and financed through bonds. After much local discussion of the complex, it passed a citywide referendum by 306-286. Yes, that was the TOTAL vote in the referendum, suggesting just how small the electorate is in Wasilla and how small the budget was for the city. This was a big deal, even if a tiny fraction of the city’s 8,000 residents bothered to vote on the complex financing plan.

Anyway, it turned out that the city did not have proper title to the land on which the complex was to be built, and was taken to court. There was a three-way dispute between the City, the Nature Conservancy (which owned the land) and a Fairbanks developer. The City had to pay out $1.3 million in extra litigation costs as a result of the dispute, and the city is still dealing with the large debt incurred in the deal.

I have some sympathy for Palin here. In my home town of Maryville, Tennessee we had a similar sort of dispute over a new Civic Arts Center. It was to be jointly funded by the City of Maryville, the City of Alcoa (next door), Blount County, the State of Tennessee, the Federal government and Maryville College. Remaining financing was to come through private donations. In the middle of community discussion over the Center, Blount County pulled out of the funding arrangement due to protest from some voters that the project was an “elitist boondoggle.” The project is still going forward (it sits in front of my office), though is somewhat scaled down without the Blount County money.

This was a project that both Democrats and Republicans supported, though some in both parties opposed it as wasteful. While this county is dominated by the Republican Party, it is a fairly mainstream business-oriented party and not an ideologically libertarian or social conservative party. Lamar Alexander, a real gentleman and a common-sense moderate conservative, is actually from our town and he exemplifies much of the GOP here. Nevertheless, as many conservative activists pointed out, this project was NOT an example of conservative behavior at work. I’m not a conservative and I’m glad the Arts Center is being built. I think it will do great things for this community, which is already growing quite fast. And while there were minor delays in construction, the project is taking off without a hitch. But I certainly see that a true small-government conservative would never support such a project.

I see the Wasilla sports complex as a similar sort of project. I generally love these sorts of major civic projects. Yeah, they’re expensive. But they are great places for the entire community to come together.

But they are hardly the stuff of small-government conservatism. And more importantly, they better be executed right. In our case, the Arts Center could have been completely derailed when the County pulled out. But creative leadership from the project directors allowed the Center to go on with relatively little changes (a somewhat smaller auditorium). It’s almost impossible to imagine the city failing to secure a title over the land; it would be a massive scandal.

And yet, that seems to be what happened in Wasilla. In the signature accomplishment of Mayor Palin’s tenure, she botched the purchase of land for a major sports complex. Her loyalists on the council there say “litigation happens.”

Is that the kind of executive leadership we could expect from Palin in Washington? Is she going to botch a similarly gigantic project and say, “stuff happens?”

Normally, these kinds of things wouldn’t be so important. But she’s holding up her executive leadership as an example of what she’ll bring to Washington.
How that impressed McCain is beyond me…unless he didn’t bother to check.

McCain and Palin are presenting themselves as change agents who will bring a new way of doing things to Washington. I’m not seeing it.

On Iraq, they want to fight until victory is achieved. That’s the long-time Bush aim. They want to keep the Bush tax cuts that are so weighted to the rich. Where’s the change? They want to appoint the same-caliber Supreme Court Justices when vacancies open up. No change there.

The major differences displayed to date by McCain and Palin when it comes to policy, in fact, seem to be with each another. McCain says he wants to work together with Democrats. Palin wants to shake things up and confront the devils. You can’t do both. You either cooperate or you duke it out. Which way is this ticket leaning?

Obviously, they’re leaning in as many ways as they can get away with. Let’s hope they are obliged by press and voters to be a tad clearer during the next two months.

Is executive experience a serious issue in the campaign or is something politicians in both parties pull out when it’s in their best interest to try and use it against an opponent? What does recent political history show? Columnist Bill Steigerwald in this Guest Voice takes a look at it. Guest Voice columns do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice or its writers.

Executive Experience Is A Joke

by Bill Steigerwald

Good thing George Stephanopoulos wasn’t a Sunday morning TV pundit in 1912.

That was the year an egghead named Woodrow Wilson won the Democrats’ nomination for president — on the 46th ballot — and chose Thomas Marshall as his vice president.

Based on his agitated reaction on his Aug. 31 show to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin being picked as John McCain’s VP, Stephanopoulos would have had a stroke over the combined executive inexperience of the Wilson-Marshall tandem.

And what qualified Wilson to become president of a far simpler, humbler America? Besides writing books pushing Big Government Progressivism and running Princeton University for eight years, that is? How about two years, one month and two weeks as governor of New Jersey?

Period.

Wilson’s veep actually had more executive experience than Wilson. Tom Marshall had been governor of Indiana for more than three years, having been elected in 1908 as a dark-horse compromise candidate.

And what else had qualified Marshall to be placed a mere heartbeat or stroke away from the presidency for eight years? Nothing –unless you count being “a popular speaker” and “competent small-town lawyer” in Columbia City, Ind. (current pop. 7,000).Stephanopoulos is a devout Democrat, so he wouldn’t have noticed Wilson’s and Marshall’s shallow leadership credentials — which still surpass Barack Obama’s and are almost the equal of Gov. Palin’s career executive experience.

But let’s get real. This whole debate over experience is foolish. Wilson did turn out to be one of our worst presidents ever, in terms of the long-term damage he did to America and the Western Europe. But no rookie president or rookie VP – no matter how supposedly experienced they are — is really ever ready to do his job.

And as for Gov. Palin, she’s Maggie Thatcher compared to many recent No. 2 choices — most of whom have become political trivia questions.

Even staunch conservatives can’t remember Bill Miller, Barry Goldwater’s running mate in 1964 and a former seven-term congressman from near Buffalo.

George McGovern’s initial pick in ’72 was Tom Eagleton, a first-term U.S. senator and ex-lieutenant governor of Missouri. Though relatively qualified, he had to resign after it was learned he had had mental problems. He was replaced by Peace Corps founding director Sargent Shriver, who had high administrative skills and lots of Kennedy in-laws but had never been elected to anything.

And Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, the veteran Texas pol George Dukakis chose in 1988? He’s remembered for ridiculing Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana, who eventually lived up to his questionable experience by setting the modern standard for bumbling VPs while serving George H.W. Bush.

Speaking of lots of inexperience, Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale’s Hail Mary in 1984, was only a third-term congresswoman of Queens. And let’s not forget John Kerry’s North Carolina sidekick, John Edwards. Rich and almost as pretty as Palin, he was a trial-lawyer-turned-first-term-U.S.-senator.

With Obama and his thin resume atop their ticket, Democrats are throwing rocks at Palin from a glass house. But Republicans look as silly by insisting that Palin is “ready to lead on Day 1” if McCain falls over dead at Thanksgiving.

Republicans should speak the truth — that while Palin is smart, competent and conservative, she obviously doesn’t know diddly about foreign policy today.

But, GOP bosses should say, she’s cramming like crazy and we’re praying that President McCain lives at least four more years so she can learn on the job — just as tough guys like Coolidge, Truman, Nixon, LBJ and Bush I did.

Bill Steigerwald is a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. ©Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc.

Larry J. Sabato’s CONVENTION MEMORIES

One of the privileges of age is an assumed right to bore others with remembrances. Here are a few of mine about national political conventions.

We are in the midst of convention season, a grand attempt to make interesting two weeks of predictable political propaganda staged for TV. Barack Obama becomes the reincarnation of John F. Kennedy, while McCain takes on the visage of Theodore Roosevelt. Dashes of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan will be added for spice. Yes, civic education is well served by the weeks devoted to politics-and we at the Center for Politics celebrate that-but the saccharine quality leaves a disagreeable aftertaste.

It was not always so.

My own political awakening began at my father’s knee in 1960. A World War II veteran who came back to the United States with civic fire, Dad was determined to make me a good citizen. So we watched both conventions together, almost gavel to gavel. Regular programming was suspended and the three networks-the whole of TV at the time-broadcast them live. While just seven years old, I was fascinated by the thousands of shouting adults in crazy hats, parading around the halls with placards and banners. The vote count at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles was dramatic, and John Kennedy did not go over the top until Wyoming was called at the end of the list of the states.

MORE

Isaac Wood’s REPORTS FROM THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION: Day One Preview and Review from St. Paul

Isaac Wood’s Anxiously Awaiting the Alaskan’s Address: Day 2 Review and Day 3 Preview from St. Paul

Isaac Wood’s Attack Dog: Palin and Simple :: Reacting to Palin and Anticipating McCain

In my post, “’Right’ Convention, Wrong Country?”, I commented on how the Republican attacks on Democrats—who make up about one-half of voting-age Americans—and their selected candidates, gave me the sensation that I was watching a political “revival” in some foreign country.

I also noted that,
My feelings that this convention was not being held in the U.S.A. were reinforced when the cameras scanned over a sea of faces supposed to represent the diversity, the kaleidoscope that is the United States of America, but, instead, was 99 percent white.

After reading a couple of articles, including one from the Dutch “De Telegraaf,” I have to admit that my impression that 99 percent of the Republican delegates were white, was somewhat overblown.

In “A White Convention,” in De Telegraaf, Jan-Kees Emmer writes (translation soon available on WatchingAmerica.com):

It had already attracted my attention in the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, where Republicans convened. The audience was noticeably whiter than the one at the Democratic Convention last week in Denver. On my way to Wasilla, I came across the numbers in the New York Times. And they don’t lie. Not only was the Republican Convention indeed much whiter than that of Democrats, but also when compared against previous Republican gatherings, the attendees have become considerably “one-sided.”

Then Emmer sets me straight: “93 percent of the Republican delegation is white.”

A whopping six percentage points less than what I had estimated!

Perhaps what led me to settle on that percentage was that the cameras of the TV channel I was watching the final night of the Republican National Convention consistently, unfailingly, and repeatedly (are there any other synonyms?) kept scanning back to the same, nice-looking, somewhat senior, black man on the Convention floor.

Since we are talking about statistics and since I have mentioned the New York Times, it may be interesting to see what Patrick Healy has to say about this subject in that newspaper.

In his “Two Conventions With No Shortage of Contrasts,” he notes such “overwhelmingly white” attendance at the Republican Convention, and says “…the contrast in racial and ethnic demographics is perhaps most visible to viewers of the conventions, being held this year on consecutive weeks…” and provides the following statistics:

According to polls of delegates conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, 93 percent of the Republican delegates are white (compared with 85 percent in 2004 and 89 percent in 2000), while 5 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are black. The Democratic delegate pool in Denver, according to the survey, was 65 percent white, 23 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic, roughly the same as at other recent Democratic conventions.

Healy further comments:

Both the content of the messages and the color of the faces reflect a clear political reality. In 2000 and 2004, Mr. Bush and one of his top lieutenants, Ken Mehlman, worked explicitly to win more black and Hispanic votes. This year the Republicans are aggressively reaching out to the base of their party — white, male, conservative — while making a new appeal to women with the addition of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska to the ticket.

It appears that at least on this one issue—appealing to the white, male, conservative base, and ignoring minorities—John McCain, is definitely distancing himself from Bush.

The question is, will this particular attempt at separating himself from Bush turn out to be a wise “degree of separation?”

Finally, back to the observer from afar, Dutch journalist Jan-Kees Emmer. Emmer is on his way to Wasilla. It will be interesting to see what an independent journalist will report from the Big City. Will keep you posted here, and in WatchingAmerica.com.

It seems that Sarah Palin’s reputation for being a ‘barracuda’ has captured the attention of the planet. Now William Waack, O Globo of Brazil’s chief foreign columnist, has weighed in - warning U.S. Democrats in part:

“Attack a woman like Palin, and the result is to make her a victim of machismo, sexism, prejudice, etc. Turn your back to her and you’ll be left with a nice bite on your rear end. And Obama’s must be hurting now: Palin attacked him in a way that not even Hillary Clinton had the audacity to do. She didn’t even spare Obama’s wife Michelle.”

So will the choice of Palin do the trick for McCain? Waack adds:

“Irony, sarcasm and good humor are components of a well-organized speech to a chosen public when one is playing at home (as is the case for the Republican convention). It’s difficult to calculate how well Palin will be able handle the pace of the next nine weeks, especially when she’s no longer a novelty. The election isn’t lost for the Democrats, but Obama-Biden is still far from a guaranteed victory on Nov. 4.”

By William Waack

Translated By Brandi Miller

September 4, 2008

Brazil - O Globo - Original Article (Portuguese)

You don’t have to agree with what Sarah Palin says to admit that the Republican candidate for the vice presidency of the United States has been a great sensation for the Republican convention. At the moment this text was sent for publication, the candidate for president, John McCain, has not yet spoken - so I’m taking a risk by saying that his speech will have less of an impact than the words expressed the night before by his companion on the ticket.

The question that has continued being asked since last Friday, is whether Sarah will add votes or get in the way of the Republican campaign, which seems much less organized and aggressive than the Democrats, at least until now. My opinion is that she will add votes, and a lot, simply because I believe she has shuffled the cards in a way that is irreversible.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated and English-language foreign press coverage of the U.S. election.

In 35 years of newspapering and teaching, I developed a quiet amusement over the general public’s almost total ignorance of how the news media does its job. Then, last year, I received the following email from a reader, one Stuart Jewell, complaining about media content: “It’s strange to me, that almost all columnists and reporters assume the talent of being able to define what ‘the people’ want to know and how urgently they want to know it.”

His words struck not my newspaperman’s heart, but my media educator’s brain. I thought: “It’s not strange at all. Columnists and reporters don’t assume anything. They go to journalism school, where they learn the definitions of what the people want to know, and how urgently they want to know it. The study of journalism, and all the other media forms, is as black-and-white as learning English. The media uses definitions, rules and values that are as clear-cut as the conjugation of verbs.”

Suddenly, and clearly, I understood that Stuart Jewell’s problem was not ignorance. It was illiteracy. Media literacy is not a required subject in American schools, from kindergarten to university. Jewell had offered a judgment of a vital democratic institution without any sort of a knowledge baseline. With his focus, I expanded my ongoing research into the media-public relationship, and I found a gap, between the media and the public.

This gap has always been there but it really started to open in 1950s America.

David Halberstam, in his comprehensive history, “The Fifties,” noted it: “It was in the fifties that the nation became wired for television, a new medium experimented with by various politicians and social groups.” Only 10 years later, “television had begun to alter the political and social fabric of the country, with stunning consequences.”

It was a literacy gap. All the knowledge about the new medium resided with the experimenters, knowledge to which the general public had no real access. At the heart of the gap was a code, centuries old, but simple and easy to learn in college and university media degree programs. I teach it to 200 new students a year. It should be taught to everyone.

Never before have I seen that gap more apparent than in the Republican convention and the events surrounding it. In May 2007, U.S. Dept. of Labor statistics indicated 1.07 million media professionals in an adult population (15 and over) of 240 million. In 21st-century America, if you are not a media professional, you are, like Stuart Jewell, essentially media-illiterate. In this illiteracy, Americans accuse the media of bias, irresponsibility, moral decay, Hannah Montana. And many of those accusations are true, because media professionals, in a media-illiterate world, know they can get away with it. The gap has become a wedge. The result is an American crisis, creating fear and mistrust, even loathing, of a media institution that is the life blood of democracy.

At the Republican convention were thousands of Stuart Jewells (with millions more watching) and a handful of media professionals, most notably a Republican strategist named Steve Schmidt. So notable was Schmidt’s presence in the proceedings that he is the subject of a long profile in the Sunday, Sept. 7, New York Times. Using media tools, Schmidt manipulated public response that brought the audience, who had no idea why, to a frenzy. Democratic media professionals did the same thing last week at Denver, but in St. Paul, there was an ominous difference. Schmidt attacked the media, again and again, in ways that were not legitimate. He did not do this viciously; he did it as a professional using media tools to evoke a response.

If the public understood that, all would be well. But they didn’t and don’t. In their media illiteracy, Schmidt the media pro knew he could get away with it. And that is a huge part of the American crisis, going forward from this convention.

The public doesn’t understand, because they have never been taught, that people are the authors of the media code that the professionals use, and thus are the source of all media, particularly journalism, or what Americans have always called a “free press.” That connection is consistently revealed by professionals seeking to define exactly what journalists do. In a 1987 speech, Jeff Greenfield, now of CBS, laid it down nicely: “The bedrock theory of the free press is that once society decides to invest ultimate power in the people, they must have access to the widest possible range of information.”

Thus the source of the power of the press must be the power of the people, who can access their power through only one source, the power of the press. The natural, enduring strength of this circularity is acknowledged by the deliberations of the nation’s founders. The place for their guarantee of a free press was not in the Constitution, which established the government, but right at the top, No. 1 in the Bill of Rights, which protected the governed. The press belongs not to the Constitution, but to the people, who created it. Journalists, educated in these realities and principles, write to it, write to the people, as if through a window which no power, natural or man-made, can close.

Steve Schmidt is trying, though. If he succeeds, he will have succeeded in pulling the plug from the First Amendment. Somebody needs to get him to talk about that. But for Sunday’s New York Times profile, he declined to be interviewed.

For an instant next Thursday, the election-year tide of acrimony and attack ads will be rolled back as Barack Obama and John McCain come together at Ground Zero to mark the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 2001.

“All of us came together on 9/11–not as Democrats or Republicans–but as Americans,” the candidates said in a joint statement today. “In smoke-filled corridors and on the steps of the Capitol, at blood banks and at vigils, we were united as one American family.

“On Thursday, we will put aside politics and come together to renew that unity, to honor the memory of each and every American who died, and to grieve with the families and friends who lost loved ones. We will also give thanks for the firefighters, police, and emergency responders who set a heroic example of selfless service, and for the men and women who serve today in defense of the freedom and security that came under attack in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.”

The idea of a joint appearance was broached by Obama in a congratulatory phone call to McCain after his convention speech, and the two will be appearing afterward in a forum at Columbia University.

It may not be a healing moment for the candidates, but for the rest of us, their actions on Thursday will be a reminder of the true spirit of patriotism and civility that Americans are hungering for in public life.

Cross-posted from my blog.

When you’ve got no record to run on, this is the kind of bull you pull.

Days before the anniversary of September 11, on the same morning that John McCain and Barack Obama released a joint statement pledging to avoid politics in light of the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, McCain’s campaign accused Democrats of throwing away 12,000 American flags.

“The campaign says the flags were recovered from Invesco Field after the Democrats concluded their convention there,” Fox News reported, “and they are going to be used as part of the warm-up ceremonies before McCain takes the stage” for a rally in Colorado Springs, Col.

But according to a senior official involved in organizing the Democratic convention, the McCain camp is simply lying about the flags.

“All of the flags at Invesco were picked up and put in bags and into storage, along with the unused flags and campaign signs. The flags were going to be donated, and the signs were going to be sent out to be used elsewhere,” the official said, speaking anonymously since he was not authorized to talk to the press.

It is so shocking that Fox News is the MSM outlet pushing this story. Not. It’s sort of like the story Carl Cameron made up about John Kerry back in 2004. Intriguing because this is a news channel whose anchors refused to stand during the pledge of allegiance at the Democratic convention.

DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney on the latest more of the same from the McCain campaign:

“American flags were proudly waved by the 75,000 people who joined Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention. John McCain should applaud that, but instead his supporters wrongfully took leftover bundles of our flags from the stadium to play a cheap political stunt calling into question our patriotism. On the same day he agrees to join Barack Obama at Ground Zero on September 11, John McCain attacks the patriotism of Obama supporters who so proudly waved the American flag at our historic event in Denver just days ago.”

I know, Sarah Palin is a Washington outsider with no direct ties to the current administration. In that sense, she does represent a clean break from George W. Bush. But when you get past the narrative and look at her positions on actual issues, she’s much closer to Bush ideologically than McCain is.

The Palin pick was designed to fire up the segment of the Republican party that has always had the most enthusiasm for Bush: social conservatives (i.e., the Christian right). She has succeeded in exciting that crowd, but not by bringing any radically new ideas to the table. On the issues, she represents new packaging for a lot of the same (and often out-of-touch) ideas:

Abortion. Palin is strongly pro-life, and has suggested that she would oppose abortion even if her own daughter were raped. A lot of Americans are pro-life to an extent, but her views are pretty extreme and the country isn’t as evenly-divided on this issue as it sometimes seems. Only 18% of Americans agree that abortion should be illegal in all cases, and the majority (53%) consider themselves pro-choice.

Iraq. We’re still learning about her positions related to Iraq (and she still seems to be learning them as well, saying last year that “I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.”). However, speaking to ministry students, she has described the war as “a task from God.” That’s eerily similar to language Bush has used, and considering 64% of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq, it’s not exactly a mainstream sentiment.

Ethics. Outing Valerie Plame. Firing attorneys for political reasons. Destroying White House e-mails. Warrantless wiretapping. The list of the Bush administration’s abuses of power is long, and the last thing we need is another Machiavellian executive branch. Palin, however, has been accused of firing employees for personal/political reasons… several times. Troopergate is the most well-known case, but she has also been accused of firing a police chief who didn’t support her as mayor and pressuring a librarian who (hypothetically) refused to ban books(!).

Global warming. John McCain has been praised for his relative sanity (particularly compared to Bush) when it comes to addressing global warming. Palin, on the other hand, admits that Alaska will be affected by a changing environment “because of its location,” but does not “attribute it to being man-made.”

Education. She supports “school choice,” but still seems committed to funding public education. That’s a pretty boilerplate Republican position, so it’s not a major deal. But she also favors teaching creationism alongside education and is opposed to explicit sex education (I’ll refrain from commenting on the irony and obvious consequences…).

Obviously, I picked the issues where she’s closely aligned with Bush. Take a look at her other stances for yourself. She’s a talented speaker and politician and has started out as a fairly-popular VP pick, particularly with the Republican base. But McCain needs independents and moderates, not the base, to win and, as Palin’s views become more well-known, a lot of those voters may be turned off.

McCain’s strategy is to keep her in a cone of silence and away from the media, hoping the campaign-driven narrative will overshadow issues. That’s a risky strategy. We still don’t know a lot about her ideas about issues like foreign policy, and she’s still new enough to the national scene to be able to offer new positions or clarify statements that might not appeal to the swing voters the campaign is targeting. The media silence leaves only her past statements to provide some sort of indication about where she stands and what she believes.

Cross-posted at Ablogistan.

The religious right's love affair with Sarah Palin didn't prevent Leslee Unruh, president of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, from questioning whether Palin has strayed too far from a centerpiece of religious right orthodoxy.

John McCain and the GOP platform say children should be taught that abstinence until marriage is the only safe way to avoid pregnancy and disease. Palin's position is less clear. In a widely quoted 2006 survey she answered during her gubernatorial campaign, Palin said she supported abstinence-until-marriage programs. But weeks later, she proclaimed herself "pro-contraception" and said condoms ought to be discussed in schools alongside abstinence.

Unruh hasn't exactly accused Palin of flip-flopping on abstinence-only education, but she criticized Palin for suggesting that kids should learn that contraception is an alternative way to avoid pregnancy. Unruh said Palin's mixed message is "disjointed" and unclear and urged Palin to get on board with a "clear and concise" abstinence-only philosophy. Two days later, perhaps having received a "shut up" memo, Unruh dismissed Palin's pro-contraception comments as "old" and said she supports Palin in every way. Yet Palin's spokesperson says Palin stands by her remarks. [more...]

McCain's campaign did not respond to questions about whether Palin's position is inconsistent with his.

The McCain campaign continues its insistence that teaching kids how to prevent pregnancy encourages them to become sexually active. As if they need encouragement.

Greg Sargent, while reporting on Obama's strategy vis a vis Palin (Obama agrees with me, do not focus on Palin), comes up with an interesting idea:

One idea that's being kicked around by Dems: Because huge amounts of media coverage of Palin are inevitable, why not start pushing the idea that she's upstaging the guy who's supposed to be at the top of the ticket? The idea here is that her speeches will energize audiences more than his will, and she'll prove a stronger fundraising draw than he will -- facts that Dems can point to in order to portray McCain as being diminished and overshadowed by his more-charismatic and energetic number-two.

(Emphasis mine.) I am not sure I buy it, but it is certainly a better idea than acting as if Palin is the top of the ticket.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

He got invited to the convention because he had pre-marital sex with her.

John McCain proclaims that he is for open government. Palin, meanwhile, is for closed government.

Palin’s handlers say she and her family have nothing to hide. But fisherman husband Todd Palin’s former business partner filed an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed, surely a coincidence in light of the National Enquirer chasing a report that Sarah and the partner did the do-si-do. (The motion was denied, while the papers make no mention of an affair.)

Hey, any politician makes a few enemies, but it seems like many of Palin’s are in her own extended family.

In a sure sign of things to come, McCain and Palin can’t even be truthful about little things. Like lying about auctioning the Alaska governor’s jet on eBay in an effort to clean up the excesses of her predecessor.

Not only is Palin woefully inexperienced when it comes to international and national affairs. She has never expressed a conviction of any sort on a major issue.

This is scaring the crap out of McCain’s handlers who knew nothing about Palin before their boss impetuously picked up the phone and called her, and they know little more about her now except that she brings an awful lot of baggage to the campaign — and that’s just the stuff that’s come out so far.

Of all that baggage, the most troubling is Troopergate. Palin, who lied her teeth off in connection with the investigation and tried to obstruct it, has now lawyered up because of her own culpability.

McCain’s buddies in Alaska are trying hard to quash the probe to avoid a messy “October Surprise,” while Palin has tried to put-off release of the official Troopergate report, which will be made public about the time of her sole vice presidential debate with Joe Biden.

Palin shares McCain’s ability to have different opinions on the same issue, among them sex education.

Palin also shares something with Cindy McCain: They both have airplanes!

Gloria Steinem, the queen bee of feminism, states the obvious in noting that all Palin shares with Hillary Clinton is a chromosome.

From Gerard Baker:

“What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?

“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let’s be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy.

“The other kills her own food.”

Like Obama, Palin arrives on the national stage with ties to a problematic ministry, in this case one that may turn off Jewish voters.

And as a Christianist, Palin has no problem comingling religion and politics, as in encouraging church leaders to pray that “God’s will” be done to bring out consturction of a big pipeline.

Finally, we direct you to the Palin Cone of Silence Watch, which is now in Day 8. Sarcasm aside, a leading conservative pundit argues why hiding her from the press matters so much.

Asks Josh Mashall: “Isn’t Palin supposed to move to Cheney’s undisclosed location after she gets elected, not before?”

From a New York Times article on where the campaigns are competing comes this.

Some campaign officials hope that Ms. Palin, an Alaskan, can broaden the ticket’s appeal in the Northwest, possibly gaining traction in states like Oregon and Washington, as well as shore up Mr. McCain’s standing with social conservatives who had, up to now, been lukewarm at best about his candidacy.

By this logic, Joe Biden should help to deliver Texas and South Carolina to Sen. Obama. Of course, he won’t, and the idea that a hard-right social con like Palin would do anything to help McCain in blue territory like the northwest is the kind of stupid that passes for Republican strategy nowadays.

Let’s go to the tape.

Oregon
2004: 52-48 Kerry
Current Bush Approval: 32%

Washington
2004: 53-46 Kerry
Current Bush Approval: 30%

If she helps anywhere, Palin will help in red states like North Carolina, where McCain is now being forced to spend campaign money in defense because Obama is so close to him there. Now the New York Times could have easily fact checked this absurd assertion from Team McCain. They have the vast research resources of the NY Times whereas I only have The Google. And yet…

UPDATE: Meant to add this

Oregon current polling: 48-42 Obama
Washington current polling: 50-39 Obama

By comparison Sen. McCain has a 3 point lead in North Carolina

Republican Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has now accomplished several major tasks: he was last-man-standing in the GOP primaries, he moved enough to the right to satisfy many Republicans and he hit — to use the now-tiresome cliche — “a home-run” among the party’s conservative base by picking conservative red-meat serving Gov. Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential choice. So what’s his next task?

Winning a good chunk of the undecideds and moderates because, as the Christian Science Monitor notes, he can’t win this election without them:

But the 8-1/2 weeks until Election Day will bring the real test: convincing enough undecided voters, many only now tuning into the race, that John McCain should be president.

That fight, political analysts say, will turn in large measure on Senator McCain’s ability to wrest the mantle of “change” from Sen. Barack Obama and win independents and conservative Democrats in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.

“The shift we saw at the convention was away from a strict reliance on the experience card, to a revamped message that McCain will bring about the right kind of change,” says Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota.

“This is not a Karl Rove play-the-base strategy,” he added, referring to President Bush’s former strategist who won elections with partisan wedges like gay marriage and abortion. “This is a really significant shift away from that.”

McCain has walked a political tightrope since losing the nomination to George Bush in 2000. His campaign in 2000 was about building coalitions aimed at a more bipartisan form of winning and governing. During the past 8 years he has relentlessly-wooed segments of the party that were out to get him in 2000 — from some GOP leaders in Congress to evangelicals. It wasn’t pretty. And in some of these circles “bipartisanship” is considered weakness or disloyalty. A combination of his efforts (skill) plus other 2008 primary candidates flopping or canceling themselves out (luck) helped him win.

This new battle could be a truly tougher one:

“The Palin nomination excited and united the base,” says James Campbell, a political scientist at the University at Buffalo, in New York. “Now he has to win over moderates.”

By Professor Jacobs’s estimate, McCain would have to win some 55 percent of independents and more than 15 percent of Democrats – a tall order – to defeat Senator Obama.

Palin’s pick excited the party’s base and the negative press and blog coverage about her solidified GOP party base support for her pick. She became a hero because of her enemies.

Now it moves into a new phase:

Obama, who accepted the Democratic presidential nomination last week, leads McCain by nearly six points in an average of polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics. Less than a third of Americans approve of President George Bush, the party’s standard-bearer for the past eight years.

Voter surveys earlier this week found that a Palin vice presidency makes scant difference to most women. Even after her selection last Friday, Democrats were nearly 50 percent more likely than Republicans to feel enthusiastic about voting this year, according to a Gallup poll.

For Republicans, the race is likely to be won, or lost, in Pennsylvania and the populous Midwestern battlegrounds of Ohio and Michigan. Also important are a string of states Bush won in 2004 but where Obama now leads – even if by a whisker – in the polls: Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Up for grabs are economically struggling but socially conservative voters – both blue-collar and middle class – who may have stayed home or backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries and are now on the fence.

“McCain will win the South, Obama will win the East and West coasts,” says GOP strategist John Bell. “The real fight is going to be in the Midwest and in Pennsylvania.”

To win those states, he says, McCain has to paint Obama as a kind of wolf in sheep’s clothing – a traditional tax-raising liberal hiding behind an unearned image as bipartisan uniter. At the same time, he has to toughen his defenses against efforts by Democrats to tar him as an heir to Bush.

This will be the toughest tightrope yet for McCain to walk: saying he’s for bipartisanship when his Vice Presidential pick is decimating the Democrats and saying he’s going to bring change while the Demmies paint him as Bush Lite. He must convince undecideds and moderates that his administration won’t be Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity Nirvana but will be a new era where the views of non-conservatives will be respected and seriously considered as well.

That may be hard to do in a campaign laced with increasing mockery and sarcasm — which translated means showing a lack of respect and near-contempt. YouTubes, the mega-speed of the Internet, and the fierce competition among cable news networks for compelling and particularly-controversial product to fill airtime means McCain won’t be able to just take the high road and let his ads and Palin run a 50 + 1 party base mobilization campaign while he seeks to project a loftier image. It will be noticed if he does.

Unlike in the primaries, this time he won’t be walking a tightrope in danger of falling off due to Republican opponents shaking the wire.

This time he’ll walk a tightrope in danger of falling off due to Democrats shaking the wire, and it’ll tougher to pull this off with Democrats than battling his Republican primary opponents.

Or will it?

Cartoon by Frederick Deligne, Nice-Matin, France

The backlash keeps building and building. Because its an activity that leans left, the mainstream media is totally unaware of how pissed off people are. But then, who are involved in community organizing are pretty good at… organizing. Beware.

People do remember that Sen. Clinton became a major rallying point for the right, allowing them to unite in opposition, right? Okay.