Congressmen from Crazytown

I’m trying to figure out when congress became Crazytown. It’s bad enough that hysterical mobs call President Obama a socialist and a Nazi and accuse him of all sorts of nefarious plots and schemes, but when a congressman does the same thing it makes one wonder:

[Georgia Republican Rep. Paul] Broun, who last year made national news by comparing Obama to Hitler, called Cuba's former dictator Fidel Castro and leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Obama's "good buddy."

He also spoke of a "socialistic elite" - Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.

"They're trying to develop an environment where they can take over," he said. "We've seen that historically."

Look. If there is one thing that is not going to happen, it’s the cancellation of an election. We’ve held elections nine times during bona fide wars; we’re not going to cancel one because of the flu or an earthquake. (In 1918, we held midterms election despite fighting a world war and a flu pandemic. God forbid, but I’m sure we can do it again if we have to).

Sadly, it’s not just the crazies in the Republican caucus who get so hysterical that they develop delusions about canceled elections and martial law. In July, 2007 our very own Rep. John Olver said “at [a] meeting with constituents that he could envision the United States attacking Iran and Bush declaring martial law, suspending the 2008 elections.”

Can we just discuss the issues as they are presented, and not try to figure out how our political opponents are trying use those issues to become dictators? Because as far as I can tell, that is not and has not been part of anyone’s plan. On either side.

Don't get around much, anymore

Looks like what passes for right-wing punditry in Massachusetts has decided to close the cocoon a few days early. One of the top Republican blogs in the state had this gem earlier today:

Governor Deval Patrick delivered his State of the State address last night. Much like President-elect Barack Obama, his address was one of hope, but lacking in substance.

The disheartened Republicans must not get around much, anymore. How else to explain that they missed the detailed, substantive stimulus proposal unveiled in Washington yesterday. Not that I expect reality to encroach on conservative commentary...

Tags: Massachusetts Deval Patrick Barack Obama Republican

Talking myself down

I'm trying to convince myself that everything will be OK tomorrow. Looking at all of the polls (and believe me I feel like I've viewed a billion of them) I just can't see Obama losing, but I feel like I've been down this road before. Last election day, I sat down to watch the returns come in sure that Kerry was going to win, and I was very disappointed.

So yeah, I'm nervous.

In an effort to talk myself down, I decided to go back to last year and look at the polls and returns. What I found was comforting. Looking at the Real Clear Politics averages of the polls in last year's race, it turns out that the polls were right nearly all of the time...it was me who was wrong. Specifically, look at these 2004 projections, both of the national polls and the battleground states:

RACE            PROJECTION   RESULT
Nation-wide     Bush +1.5    Bush +3
Electoral Vote  Bush +54     Bush +38

Florida         Bush +0.6    Bush +5
Ohio            Bush +2.1    Bush +2
Pennsylvania    Kerry +0.9   Kerry +2
Wisconsin       Bush +0.9    Kerry +1
Iowa            Bush +0.3    Bush +1
Minnesota       Kerry +3.2   Kerry +3
Michigan        Kerry +3.5   Kerry +3
Missouri        Bush +4.2    Bush +7
New Mexico      Bush +1.4    Bush +1
Nevada          Bush +6.3    Bush +3
Colorado        Bush +5.2    Bush +5
New Hampshire   Kerry +1     Kerry +1

While this poll or that poll may have been wrong, the averages were very much on the money. Only two of the states (Florida and Nevada) were more than three points off their averages. Only Wisconsin went against the candidate projected by the poll average. In other words, the polls predicted the result almost perfectly.

So unless all of the polls are particularly bad this year, we should see Obama win the overall vote by around 7.3 percent and by a 338-200 electoral vote margin.

That's a little better, but I'm still nervous.

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama John McCain

National Election Predictions

Here is my guess at the electoral map. I think my Obama vote might be a state or two on the low side (or at least I hope so):



Senate: Democrats 56, Republicans 42, Independents 2 (Dems pick up 6 seats)

House: Democrats 265, Republicans 170 (Dems pick up 29 seats)

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama John McCain

Details

Can you tell where the Obama campaign filmed this commercial, released today:

Hint, look for these:



It's becoming widely accepted that John McCain's last desperate chance to win the election on Tuesday is by somehow winning Pennsylvania. Obama's campaign is so detail oriented and so complete, that they even film their commercials in the most important state and include nearly subliminal images that only a Pennsylvanian (or a road geek) would notice.

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Pennsylvania John McCain

McCain's Transplant Folly

Perhaps the worst moment for John McCain last night was this answer he gave when talking about his health care plan:

Now, 95 percent of the people in America will receive more money under my plan...except for those people who have the gold-plated Cadillac insurance policies that have to do with cosmetic surgery and transplants and all of those kinds of things.

Immediately when he said that, Michelle looked at me and asked "He thinks people should have to pay more for transplants?" She said it before I did, but I was thinking exactly the same thing. What kind of out-of-touch do you have to be to suggest that someone who needs a life-saving organ transplant should only have it covered under a "gold-plated Cadillac insurance policy" that would cost more than what 95% of Americans can afford?

Catching up on the reviews from this morning, I've seen some suggestions that he was talking about hair transplants, which makes sense because he joked in the last debate about needing those and he coupled the reference with cosmetic surgery.

But there are millions of people who have had a life-saving organ transplant or have a transplant recipient in their family (I have two relatives who have had kidney transplants, for instance). For those people, McCain's answer was jarring. I read a lot of commentary so I was able to get a better idea of what he was talking about, but I wonder how many others heard his answer the way I did and questioned what would have happened to them or their loved ones had McCain been in charge when they needed an organ transplant.

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain health care

The steady Barack Obama and the lurching John McCain

If there has ever been a photo that so perfectly captured the difference between two campiagns, this one is it:



Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain

McCain-Obama Round 3 Live Blog

Well, tonight's debate will either be one for the ages, or the most inconsequential debate ever. I'm hoping for the latter. Scott and I will be blogging live, starting at 9:00.

As usual, Scott is in blue, I am in red. And we're off...

9:01 -- I'm watching this on CNN, which is filled with a billion graphics. There are literally twice as many graphics on CNN's debate than there are when I play Call of Duty 4. That doesn't seem quite right to me. CNN has 6 pundits that will be adjusting little graphs depending on how they think the debate is going. So, in other words, they are live blogging too, only they are using color coded flash cards instead of all those pesky, confusing words. That pretty much sums up the difference between nodrumlins and CNN.

9:02 -- That and 4 million viewers. I'm on NBC, because they seem to show lots of split screens.

9:03 -- McCain could hardly even spit out Obama's name. Not off to a great start.

9:04 -- Fannie and Freddie! Drink!

9:05 -- McCain just got a +2 on Martin's dial. His half-elf must have equipped his Dagger of Ogre Slaying.

9:05 -- McCain's left hand/arm is shaking. For what that's worth.

9:06 -- On CNN, Obama's hair is really shiny. It looks kind of like field turf in HD, though.

9:07 -- Both of them are wearing their bracelets. Obama has been looking right at the camera. McCain apparently got the message, as he was looking right at Obama as he spoke.

9:08 -- McCain is flailing, and it's only 9:08. He's blinking like Joba Chamberlain in the bug game last year. It's probably all those lights in his face.

9:11 -- McCain certainly has a hard time attacking. He looks uncomfortable at it.

9:13 -- Isn't Joe the Plumber one of the guys Astrid brought to Game Night? <--- nodrumlins inside joke.

9:15 -- Does Obama seem a little defensive or off his game? I'm not sure what it is...maybe I'm just paranoid.

9:16 -- The "uncommitted voters of Ohio", who also have their own graph, seemed to really like what Obama just said; their lines almost went right off the top of the chart and pierced Martin's color coded debate bubble. That would have been cool. Now the Men are almost going off the top of the chart as McCain talks, but the women are down in the middle. Damn men, am I right, ladies?

9:18 -- Eliminating a tariff won't be a program cut. It will be another tax cut. McCain seems very angry. He seemed mad that Bob Scheiffer kept on him.

9:21 -- The "I'm not President Bush" line was a good one. Obviously rehearsed, but still a good one.

9:21 -- I think Martin might have passed out on his joystick; he's got McCain at +10 and -5 and Obama at +15 and -4, for an Obama lead of 11 to 5. Meanwhile, someone named Gergen, has them tied at 1 each. Both McCain and Obama, though, are beating the Red Sox by 8.

9:24 -- I hope Obama brings up the Keating 5. DO IT! Go for the juglar! Knives out!

9:25 -- He won't.

9:26 -- McCain won't look him in the eye and say it to his face. Bringing up John Lewis is putting it on a tee. He shouldn't go there.

9:27 -- I have no idea what McCain is talking about, with this Palin killing children thing. I'm not sure it's a good idea to introduce this idea to a viewing public that hasn't heard of it, especially coming from McCain's mouth.

9:29 -- Obama hasn't been doing as well with the undecided people of Ohio since it moved away from the economy. But, you know what? Screw Ohio. I'm so over Ohio it's ridiculous. They can float that vast wasteland into the ocean and sink it for all I care.

9:30 -- Thank you Oil Can Boyd.

9:31 -- Here's a new bailout idea -- we'll trade Ohio straight up for Iceland.

9:33 -- Obama could have been better on this. He seems to be goading McCain into talking about Ayers. I wonder why.

9:34 -- There goes McCain looking into the crowd again for support.

9:39 -- This part is going on too long for Obama, though I thought he did a good job of calmly dismissing all of it. I am a bit biased here, but frankly, I think McCain is flat out lying. I can tell because his pants are, in fact, on fire.

9:40 -- What did the dials think?

9:41 -- The current scores... let's see, need to do some math... carry the one... Begala has Obama up 8-5. Bennett has them tied 3-3. Castellanos has McCain ahead 16-15. Bergen has Obama ahead 2-1. King has them tied 8-8. And Martin has Obama ahead 28-3. The commissioner from Reno has Sugar Ray ahead 110-108.

9:43 -- Michelle: Sarah Palin "sure is not a role model for me...Give me a [expletive] break."

9:44 -- I'm not sure that's true; Michelle told me the other day she wants to name the baby Fenway Banknorth.

9:46 -- I wish Obama had taken the bait and talked about McCain as "erratic" by pointing out that he has had about five different economic positions in the last two weeks.

9:48 -- McCain thinks we can reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil in the next four years by building 45 nuclear plants? Is he nuts?

9:48 -- Castellanos just gave McCain +1 point and -1 point at the same time. The role of Castellanos tonight is being played by Harvey Dent.

9:51 -- McCain just called himself a traitor! "I am a free traitor"! Wow, there's the moment. Game over.

9:52 -- ...oh, wait. Nevermind.

9:52 -- I don't think McCain does himself any favors when he is sarcastic.

9:54 -- These guys can debate trade treaties with Peru and Columbia every day for the next three weeks, as far as I'm concerned. That discussion won't move one voter.

9:55 -- Obama said "midwestern" and Ohio voters went off the charts. Good, they recognize when someone is talking about them. Someone give them a treat. Next debate we're going to work on recognzing shapes and colors. So they can understand the CNN coverage.

9:57 -- How did the Toledo reference go over?

9:58 -- I wonder if the Bruins won.

9:59 -- They are behind 3-2 late in the third.

9:59 -- They're behind 3-2. That's one of the graphics on CNN.

10:00 -- And we're back to Joe the Plumber. Look, the only plumbers I want to hear about are named Mario and Luigi.

10:00 -- Was Joe the plumber the guy in that Kevin Costner movie where there is only one undecided voter in a tied race, or something like that?

10:03 -- F*** JOE ALREADY!

10:04 -- McCain just told Joe that's he's rich. You know that guy is going to try to collect on that promise.

10:05 -- He also just suggested transplants and cosmetic surgery were in the same class of medical procedure. Tell that to Ron the not plumber, you mean old bastard!

10:06 -- Well, for McCain it's in the same category. His first wife had to have cosmetic surgery, so he got a spouse transplant.

10:08 -- Back to George Bush's "Elections have consequences" clap trap.

10:09 -- Isn't that the Levitra slogan? Or, wait, that's something slightly different.

10:12 -- Mmmmm. Melba snacks.

10:14 -- Dodgers are rolling over. Weirdly, I'm pretty sure I saw Varitek and Ortiz in their lineup tonight.

10:16 -- How do the dials look? McCain seems to have been slipping as the night goes on.

10:17 -- About the same, mostly. Scores right now are Obama 13-4, McCain 8-4, McCain 28-24, Obama 3-1, McCain 15-13 and Obama 38-22. In other words, three of the pundits are Republicans and three are Democrats. Pretty useless.

10:20 -- Did McCain just propose a program where soldiers can become teachers when they leave the armed forces without taking certification exams? I honor the troops as much as anyone else, but I don't think they ought to be teaching without training. That's a ridiculous proposal.

10:22 -- Dad: So if they don't know math, they're going to teach them how to become a dragon gunner?

10:23 -- Watching this on CNN is maddening. I feel like I am steering a Submarine.

10:26 -- Bruins forced a shootout. Salvaging one point is a pretty good result.

10:28 -- McCain doesn't sound like he practiced his closing. Not a strong finish at all.

10:28 -- McCain has some serious choppers. When he goes into that sarcastic grin and laugh, he bears an eerie resemblance to Todd McFarlane's Violator.

10:29 -- Someone violated Todd McFarlane? How tragic. I hope he reported that to the authorities.

10:30 -- McCain just did a great Tim Conway impression when he stood up. Hilarious.

10:33 -- Probably a draw. I thought McCain was harsh, but that's the way he is. Obama seemed a little too reserved. I thought he missed a couple of opportunities to hit McCain, but he's most likely just trying to run out the clock.

10:36 -- The pundits seem to be calling it a split. They seem to agree that McCain was very good early but that he slipped midway through, allowing Obama to catch up. Anyway, I'm done. Later, internets.


Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain

Presidential Debate #2 -- Live Blog!

Tonight! Nashville! Live! Blog!

As usual, Scott will be blogging in blue, my commentary will be in red, and John McCain will be an old curmudgeon.

8:58--I'm scrolling through the channels heading for NBC and it strikes me that it doesn't much matter how desperate the economy is, as long as we're spending all of our free time watching Dancing with the Stars and The Biggest Loser, aren't we screwed anyway?

9:02 -- Speaking of which, Misty May Treanor blew out her achilles on Dancing With the Stars. Don't the Patriots get a supplemental pick for that?

9:00--And the idea that anything good is going to come out of a debate where the questions come from people who don't yet have an opinion on the candidates is ludicrous. What have these folks been doing for the last 16 months?

9:02--Oh Good, Tom Brokaw just gave me permission to cheer or boo.

9:03 -- Isn't that Rod Steiger?

9:06--I think I'd be really uncomfortable if I were the guy in the front row when McCain (or Obama) is essentially standing in my lap.

9:06 -- By the way, I am watching tonight on ABC, where they will be later interviewing a group of college students. First question: which member of High School Musical is hottest?

9:07--Did McCain just propose to directly buy back bad mortgages? Wasn't he against that last week?

9:08 -- By the way, Mom just announced that she would be more comfortable voting for Tina Fey than for Sarah Palin. Which... yeah, me too, actually.

9:09 -- You've been doing God's work there.

9:10 -- Warren Buffett is not going to be anyone's treasury secretary. What a stupid question!

9:10 -- I think he meant "Jimmy Buffet".

9:11 -- During Obama's last discussion of middle class tax relief, Mom said "That's fine for the middle class, but what about the lower class?" WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

9:11 -- Where did they find an undecided black voter?

9:14 -- Where the hell did John McCain just walk off to? Hey old man, your chair is the other way.

9:14 -- He was illustrating the hike that some people took when Freddie and Fannie were going under. Which I think took place in "Archie's Pal Jughead" #107.

9:17 -- Hey, that was Cindy McCain and Lindsay Graham in the back row. Now, if they are undecided voters, McCain is in worse shape than I thought.

9:17 -- Uh oh. Obama just mentioned other countries. That will lose 50,000 votes.

9:18 -- They're continuing over in Section F. Nice, that's where I parked.

9:18 -- That woman has huge baubles.

9:19 -- Yes. Start making the comparison between 2000 and 2008. Don't forget to point out that the Dow is lower now than it was then.

9:20 -- I'm actually kind of torn, here. The Bush Administration has been very good for the Boston Red Sox. Do we really want to risk changing the mojo now? Do we want to go back to the days of Jose Offerman?

9:22 -- I liked the sidelong look that lady in the front row gave McCain as he sidled up the rail. You know she was thinking, "one more step, buster, and I'm going to sock you, you creep".

9:23 -- Tom Brokaw used the entire one minute discussion time to ask his question. Clamp it you old windbag!

9:24 -- Was McCain doing an acrostic on that pad? You know there's something wrong with the question when the candidates have to take notes during it.

9:26 -- $3.80 for a gallon of gas in Nashville? Reason #246 not to live in Nashville.

9:27 -- There's a .43 tax that goes to help subsidize Vince Young's therapy bills.

9:28 -- Oh sure, a 78-year-old asking a question via the internet...at least one septuagenarian in tonight's debate knows how to use e-mail.

9:29 -- To be fair, though, her actual question was "what does this button do?"

9:30 -- "Of course we can attack both problems at once. We're Americans! What does he think this is, Kenya or something?"

9:30 -- McCain: "We're not rifle shots here, we're Americans." What? Huh?

9:31 -- Obama is rambling. He doesn't seem particularly comfortable. Actually, he looks more comfortable when he's listening to McCain that he looks when it's his turn to speak.

9:33 -- Brokaw's follow-up question was 33 second long!

9:34 -- Obama does seem a bit distracted. He's probably worried about missing Dancing with the Stars and Biggest Loser.

9:36 -- Look at that doughboy in the front row. I hope he gets to ask a question.

9:36 -- And McCain makes a Herbert Hoover reference. He just locked up Edith Bunker's vote.

9:38 -- McCain's entire answer on taxes was a lie. Glad to see Obama come back to it.

9:40 -- I know the crowd has been coached not to mess up the debate, but they look comatose. The robots in the Hall of Presidents are more animated than this crowd.

9:41 -- Michelle: "Did McCain just say that reforming Social Security is not that hard?" Me: "Yes."

9:43 -- Is Joe Lieberman his running mate or something? McCain brings him up in every other answer.

9:43 -- Mrs. Obama sitting behind the questioner. I wonder if she's been tempted to slip someone a question.

9:44 -- "Senator Obama says nuclear power needs to be safe or somthing like that..." Silly Obama. Nothing says safe like nuclear power. Just ask the Russians.

9:45 -- McCain looks like he's at summer camp writing to his penpal. He seems really pleased with what he's jotting down.

9:45 -- He's writing with a Shaaaaaah-pee!

9:48 -- Form a Manhattan Project to develop energy? Do we still have that many Nazi scientists?

9:48 -- Tom Brokaw just asked if we should build 100,000 garages across the country. Now that's a man in touch with the issues of the day.

9:50 -- The camera panned back so they could get McCain in the shot, right as he was giving a "choke a bitch" gesture with his hand to someone in the crowd. Nice.

9:50 -- McCain just waked across across the stage to get an answer from Lindsay Graham in the back of the hall! The guy can't even rely on his own notes, he needs help from his lackey in the crowd!

9:54 -- That's seriously crossing some state lines. So if I'm in Tennessee and I want to see a more qualified doctor, I just hop in my car and go to Arizona? Man, I hope I don't need a prescription.

9:54 -- Dude, no one is going to travel from Tennessee to Arizona to see their doctor. Georgia, maybe.

9:55 -- Michelle: He shouldn't try to tell jokes. He's terrible at it.

9:56 -- Interesting that McCain is giving Obama a hard time about "mandating" coverage when Hillary Clinton was criticizing him for NOT mandating coverage when they were debating during the primary.

9:59 -- Obama had a fantastic answer about health care, but he probably shouldn't be using Delaware as an example of what's wrong with the banking industry, seeing as his running mate has been called the "Senator from MBNA."

10:04 -- Obama seems to be hitting his stride. He's had a very good last 10 minutes. And now Brokaw is breaking the momentum with an interminable question.

10:04 -- MST3K crowd shot: pasty... pasty... pasty... beefy... pasty...

10:05 -- Yeah, if Gallup did one thing right with this representative sample, they accurately portrayed the relative heft of the American people.

10:07 -- McCain: "...and during the Boxer Rebellion, I stood up to my idol McKinley and warned against American intervention".

10:09 -- Section F is the clear winner tonight. Everyone gets a two-liter of Pepsi.

10:09 -- If McCain mentions Lieberman again, Section F gets free fries from Wendy's.

10:10 -- Is the debate being held on the old Let's Make a Deal set? Are they going to wheel out a mystery box any time soon?

10:11 -- Wait, I thought Reagan was his hero?

10:14 -- There's nothing worse than being green behind the ears.

10:15 -- "I know how to get him. I know how to get bin Laden." Then why don't you tell us? Why should we have to wait for you to be president? If you know how to get him, shouldn't you, you know, share that information?

10:17 -- That almost smacks of Reagan and the Iranian hostage crisis. As soon as he gets elected, they magically get released. Is McCain suggesting that if we want bin Laden to be caught, we just need to elect him, and the next day Pakistan will mysteriously present him in chains?

10:18 -- That's "McCain hero Reagan" to you.

10:20 -- I hate the term "petro dollars." Sounds like a Exxon credit card rewards program. Earn enough petro dollars and get a free car wash in Moscow.

10:20 -- Am I going to have to rent Eastern Promises to understand this section of the debate? Help me, Aragorn!

10:22 -- What's up with the goober in the trucker hat in the back of the section? Hey bud, if you're going to a forum with the next president of the United States wash your friggin' hair and make yourself presentable.

10:24 -- Stop yelling at Joe Sixpack, dude.

10:26 -- John McCain keeps bringing up this "League of Democracies." Where I come from, we call that NATO. I don't think we need another one.

10:26 -- I'm getting pretty psyched. It's almost time to hear from the ABC student council. This is going to be so entertaining and informative!

10:28 -- Yeah, I don't like this League of Democracies crap either. The last thing I want is for American actions to be vetoed by Aquaman.

10:31 -- I really think Obama would have been better served by answering the "What don't you know" question directly. That one shouldn't be that hard.

10:32 -- I think McCain is bonking this one worse, though. "I don't know what's going to happen" isn't really reassuring from the President.

10:33 -- Maybe. But you can go from that to "I may not know what's going to happen" to "I know how to
deal with the unexpected." (Not that McCain did).

10:34 -- Me: Did he just say "comrade"? Dad: He was indoctrinated when he was in prison.

10:37 -- Apparently Kodak sponsored tonight's debate...looks like every one of the audience has identical disposable cameras.

Well, I thought McCain won. Not by much, just a little. I don't think it changed much, though. Obama will still be up 5-7 points at the end of the week.

I thought Obama edged it out. McCain just seemed to be making stuff up towards the end. But what really matters is what the student focus group thought.

I'm not even watching ABC, but I can tell you what they thought. You'll have a couple of 20-year-old guys with wire-rim glasses and no hope of having a girlfriend saying that McCain won and that Obama is a Muslim terrorist. A couple of young ladies will be concerned about Darfur and global warming, and generally wringing their hands. And a couple of others who think Obama is going to save the world.

The students, by the way, are being wrangled by Charlie Gibson, who seems to be on the brink of doddering. I'm pretty sure I saw at least one dodder from him. First student interviewed: Brittany Fiffick, who is still undecided. Seriously? Still undecided? Here's an idea: let's change the voting age to 30. The general consensus from the undecideds is that they are now leaning slightly towards Obama. But you know what? Who care what any of these knobs have to say.

And with that, I think I'm done. Peace out, internets!

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain

McCain's Ancient History

One last point on Friday's debate that I forgot to mention in yesterday's post...

McCain consistently referred to historical events--both as an example of success and as an example of failure--in framing his answers to a number of policy questions. While I appreciate a good discussion of history, I wonder if his points resonated at all with large segments of the public. Here were three that stood out while I was watching:

I won't repeat the mistake that I regret enormously, and that is, after we were able to help the Afghan freedom fighters and drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, we basically washed our hands of the region.

Back in 1983, when I was a brand-new United States congressman, the one -- the person I admired the most and still admire the most, Ronald Reagan, wanted to send Marines into Lebanon. And I saw that, and I saw the situation, and I stood up, and I voted against that...

The point is that throughout history, whether it be Ronald Reagan, who wouldn't sit down with Brezhnev, Andropov or Chernenko until Gorbachev was ready with glasnost and perestroika. Or whether it be Nixon's trip to China, which was preceded by Henry Kissinger, many times before he went.

The problem is that to many of the viewers, the events McCain referenced might as well be ancient history. Someone who was voting age in 1980 when the Afghan-Soviet conflict was at it's height would now be at least 46 years old today. Someone of voting age in 1983 when Lebanon and the Soviet dictators listed would be at least 43. A listener who might have been making political decisions in 1973 when Nixon was visiting China would now be at least 53.

How many voters are going to hear those examples and think "Yeah, I remember what that time was like."? Some will, but McCain probably already has many of them. Unless a voter of my generation was paying unusually close attention for a 12-year old or studied this stuff in college, these examples are meaningless. For most people under 35 or so, most of what they know of these events would be based on the commentary of Rich Eisen or Mo Rocca on I love the 80s.

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain

"The average South Korean is three inches taller" and other thoughts on Friday's debate

I wasn’t able to see all of Friday’s presidential debate live, and the 40 minutes I did see of it on Friday was with the sound off and the closed-captioning on (I was at a birthday party at a sports bar…the idea was to watch the Red Sox beat the Yankees. Once the game got to 13-4 in favor of New York, a few of us were able to turn a couple of TVs over to the debate.). So for the legion of loyal readers who were hoping for an in-depth live blog…sorry to disappoint.

But I did watch it again over the weekend and a handful of things stood out to me.

• The quote in the title is a perfect example of what happens when a candidate tries to take a point that has a complex explanation and uses it as a talking point: it becomes complete gibberish. Here is the entire portion of McCain’s answer dealing with North Korea:
  
  

  As far as North Korea is concerned, our secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went to North Korea. By the way, North Korea, most repressive and brutal regime probably on Earth. The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag.
  
  We don't know what the status of the dear leader's health is today, but we know this, that the North Koreans have broken every agreement that they've entered into.

  When I first saw this response (on closed caption) I laughed out loud. Let’s forget for the moment the way the sentence in bold reads--it appears that John McCain is calling a tall South Korean individual a huge gulag (which suggests that the three-inch shorter North Korean person is a slightly shorter gulag). It’s funny because it kind of sits out there as a ludicrous, ridiculous piece of trivia.
  
  But thinking about it a little more, the fact that North and South Koreans have different growing patterns is probably strong anthropological evidence that North Korean society trails pretty significantly. The point McCain was probably trying to make is that the North Korean people are malnourished, do not have access to modern health care and a whole host of other factors that cause North Koreans to fail to thrive, all of which are the fault of Kim Jong Il and his father before him.
  
  I’m giving McCain the benefit of the doubt that he knows the rationale behind why the size of Koreans is proof that North Korea is a “repressive and brutal regime.” But the problem is that in a debate format, a candidate rarely has the opportunity to expound on these little nuggets. So unless the person watching the debate takes the additional step in his or her mind to walk through the reasons why a dangling piece of information matters, he or she probably hears that and wonders “What the hell does the height of a Korean have to do with negotiating with a foreign leader.”
  


• There has been quite a bit made in debate reviews of the fact that McCain would not look at Barack Obama when he was speaking about Obama, or when Obama was speaking him. I think that was probably more evident in the hall than it was on TV. We rarely got to see the two of them except on split screen and in that view it’s hard to tell where the candidate is looking. What the split screen did show was the little flashes of anger that hit McCain when Obama would attack him. He had that reflexive forced grin that says “you’re not bothering me! You’re not bothering me!” that makes it clear that he was quite bothered.
  
  The candidates seemed to deal with each other’s attacks in a very different manner. McCain hardly responded at all when Obama attacked him. While he sometimes had a hard time masking his facial expressions, he rarely attempted to counter Obama’s claims. I don’t know if he was purposely trying to ignore him, if he thought that parrying the claims would make him sound defensive, or if he had some other strategy, but I thought it had the effect of leaving Obama’s points out there unchallenged.
  
  On the other hand, Obama made it a point to respond briefly to nearly every attack. The risk in that is that he could have come off sounding defensive. Most of the time I thought Obama was successful in reframing the attacks and was able to do so without being defensive.
  


• Finally, I thought the debate played differently via closed-caption than it did with sound. Reading the answers at the bottom of the screen for the last 40 minutes and only seeing the candidates (but not hearing them), I would have scored McCain as the victor. There didn’t seem to me to be a whole lot that was different from what the candidates have been saying all along; I figured that the status quo on the foreign policy front was probably a McCain win.
  
  But when I rewatched it and heard their voices and their inflections and the points they found important enough to emphasize, I changed my opinion. McCain seemed just a little angry, a little rigid, and a little peeved. Obama seemed more cool and thoughtful…not aloof like John Kerry, but rational and controlled. Even if Obama didn’t win, he at least tied, which is all he needs to do right now.

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain

Obama, McCain should come together on bailout

If the financial markets are in as deep a crisis as we’ve been led to believe (I am skeptical of this), and if it is imperative that the government quickly bailout failing firms (I am very, very skeptical of this) than it seems like there is one way to get it done: Barack Obama and John McCain should co-sponsor the bailout bill and present a unified front in getting a bill that they agree on passed by congress.

Is that a pipe-dream? Absolutely. But reading the speeches of the two candidates yesterday, there is hardly a dime of difference between them. Each candidate laid out a set of broad principles that any final bill should include. Below, I have included exact quotes from their speeches (one in red, and one in blue). Can you tell which is which?

On oversight:
I have suggested a bipartisan board to provide oversight for the rescue. We will not solve a problem caused by poor oversight with a plan that has no oversight.

We should set up an independent board that includes some of the most respected figures in our country, chosen by Democrats and Republicans, to provide oversight and accountability at every step of the way.

On responsibility to taxpayers:
There must be a path for taxpayers to recover the money that is put into this fund.

But regardless of how we structure the plan, if the government makes any kind of profit on this deal, we must give every penny back to the taxpayers who put up the money in the first place.

On executive compensation:
No Wall Street executives should profit from taxpayer dollars.

The plan must include protections to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to further reward the bad behavior of irresponsible CEOs on Wall Street.

On earmarks and add-ons:
It is completely unacceptable for any kind of earmarks to be included in this bill.

Let me be clear--we shouldn't include this stimulus package into this particular legislation...

OK. John McCain’s speech is in red and Barack Obama’s speech is in blue (obviously, do you think I’d try to trick you with the colors?).

There are really only a couple of differences in the principles they outlined. McCain specifically mentioned that the legislation should be written in public, not “behind closed doors.” I expect Obama would probably agree to that. Obama has suggested that any bailout also include “the authority to purchase mortgages directly instead of simply mortgage-backed securities.” McCain probably would not go for that, but that seems like a fairly minor sticking point.

Obama also has proposed an economic stimulus plan that McCain would probably oppose, but Obama agrees that any additional stimulus should not be tied to the bailout bill, which is consistent with McCain’s position that there be no earmarks or add-ons.

Obama and McCain ought to sit down together Friday morning before the debate with just their senatorial aides (not their campaign people) and hammer out the framework for a bill. They could announce it at a joint press conference before the debate.

Failing that, the two campaigns could come together and jointly announce that the candidates will not support any bill that does not include each of their shared principles and will urge their colleagues to reject any bill that does not reflect those principles.

Will any of that happen? Of course not. Obama’s recent spike in the polls is largely tied to the financial crisis. From a political strategy standpoint, taking the issue off the table could negate that advantage. Conversely, McCain’s campaign could be looking at a political windfall if an unpopular bailout is passed by the Democratic congress with little Republican support. It would allow him to tie the Democrats to Bush and solidify his self-proclaimed “maverick” persona.

But if we really are at the brink of financial ruin, Obama and McCain should take the opportunity to lead…together.

Afternoon Update: Wow. This is encouraging. Apparently I should call on the campaigns to do things more often:

At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama’s call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Bailout John McCain Economy

Obama opens the door to the Keating Five

Barack Obama continued to hammer John McCain for his assertion that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" today in Colorado, but beyond that he also went somewhere he has not yet gone with McCain...the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980s. Here is the part of Obama's speech that is gaining the most attention:

Yesterday, Wall Street suffered its worst losses since just after 9/11. We are in the most serious financial crisis in generations. Yet Senator McCain stood up yesterday and said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

A few hours later, his campaign sent him back out to clean up his remarks, and he tried to explain himself again this morning by saying that what he meant was that American workers are strong. But we know that Senator McCain meant what he said the first time, because he has said it over and over again throughout this campaign -- no fewer than 16 times, according to one independent count.

But later on, Obama tied the current crisis to the policies of the 1980s:

It happened in the 1980s, when we loosened restrictions on Savings and Loans and appointed regulators who ignored even these weaker rules. Too many S&Ls took advantage of the lax rules set by Washington to gamble that they could make big money in speculative real estate. Confident of their clout in Washington, they made hundreds of billions in bad loans, knowing that if they lost money, the government would bail them out. And they were right. The gambles did not pay off, our economy went into recession, and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill. Sound familiar?

Although he doesn't mention McCain explicitly, I don't think it's any accident that he is referencing the major scandal in McCain's Washington life. Will the press pick up on it and bring the issue to the forefront? Is it a signal to Obama's supporters and the 527s that the Keating Five is on the table?

I hope so.

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Keating Five John McCain Economy

That should help a lot

After hearing Hillary Clinton's speech tonight, the press looks kind of silly for all of the bandwidth they wasted wondering about the Barack-Hillary rift.

That was one of the best speeches I've ever heard her give. As she was speaking, it crossed my mind that if she'd brought that to the campaign trail, Barack Obama might have been speaking tonight and Clinton on Thursday.

Bill Clinton will also be great tomorrow night. I heard him speak in Worcester two years ago at a Deval Patrick rally and he was fantastic. He is a uniquely compelling speaker and I'd be stunned if he doesn't command the crowd tomorrow. There is no doubt in my mind that he will bring the wood to John McCain while making a strong case for Obama.

There's been some discussion in the press that this convention is too much about the Clintons, but it's the Clintons' people (i.e. working class white Democrats) that can lock this thing up for Obama. Two nights of Hillary and Bill pounding McCain and validating Obama could go a long way toward that end.

Tags: Election 2008 Democratic Barack Obama Hillary Clinton Bill Clinton

Today's Sentinel: "Who should Obama pick for VP?"

The editors at the Sentinel and Enterprise must think following politics is a little like watching the olympics--you know, how you stay away from hearing the results so you can watch it on TV as though it were live. Apparently, they figured that all of their on-line readers would check out over the weekend and wait until later today to find out Obama's pick for VP, since they posted this article just before 8:00 this morning:

The article also includes this gem:

Former Gardner State Rep. and current Democratic state Senate candidate Brian Knuuttila was just as supportive of Clinton, but "doesn't think it's going to happen..."

Knuuttila said Obama could also do well by nominating a conservative democrat, such as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, to boost support in the south.

Um, Florida Governor Charlie Crist is a Republican...

The Sentinel posted an article titled "Obama introduces running mate Biden" a full two minutes later. Guess they didn't want to keep their readers waiting very long.

Tags: Massachusetts Sentinel and Enterprise Election 2008 Democratic Barack Obama Joe Biden

Joe Biden, good choice

I have always been a fan of Joe Biden, so I was happy with this morning's announcement that he will be Obama's running mate. Of all of the candidates that have been considered "serious" in recent weeks, he was definitely the best. Just a couple of quick thoughts...

1. He is the perfect candidate to solidify the "I'm with you" narrative that McCain has allowed with his gaffes about his many houses, etc. Biden is the least affluent of the 100 senators, famously (or soon-to-be famously) commuted by train from Wilmington, Del. to Washington every night during his early years in the Senate. And was a single parent with young children for years after his first wife was killed in an auto accident (compare that with McCain leaving his wheelchair-bound first wife for a young blond heiress). Hopefully McCain will choose Mitt Romney to help solidify the rich, multiple house-owning, out-of-touch Republican ticket.

2. Not everyone likes him. Michelle, for instance, doesn't like him at all. She thinks he is a smarmy know-it-all. I don't imagine that will change her vote to McCain (I'm guessing nothing short of Obama choosing Clark Rockefeller as his running mate would do that), but I wonder how he will play with other young women, or it if will even matter.

3. The GOP is already out with a couple of ads showing Biden saying Obama isn't ready to be president, that he like McCain, etc. Ultimately this wont matter a whit--every candidate has bad things to say about a rival--but the GOP has to do it because they're expected to. These things are a lot like the pitcher throwing over to first base to check on a runner over and over again. Most of the time it doesn't result in an out, but the pitcher has to do it anyway in attempt to slow the runner down a step.

4. I love the idea of sending out the text message at 3:00 AM. After so much talk in the primary about who would be ready to take the call at 3:00 AM, it seems perfect. But I'll bet that some Hillary supporters will see it as a slap to the face, and we'll start to see stories come across the wire any minute now about peeved Clintonites feeling like their candidate was being mocked. Deal with it.

Tags: Election 2008 Democratic Barack Obama Joe Biden

The Messianic President

No, not Barack Obama. As today's report from the Department of Justice reminds us, true believers already have their messiah. What did it take to get a "non-political" appointment in the DOJ? For one, an applicant had to go through the interview process:

Among other questions, the list included the following...

• [W]hat is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?

Reminds me of a childrens' hymn we used to sing at church:

Serve Him, serve Him,
Serve Him in the morning,
Serve Him in the noon-time,
Serve Him, serve Him,
Serve Him till the sun goes down.

Maybe the conservatives and right-wingers are right when they say Obama is being set up as some sort of Messianic figure. They would know. They've been serving their Messiah for seven years.

Tags: Election 2008 Messiah George Bush Barack Obama

Magic Number: 7

Jim Tankersley at the Chicago Tribune takes Barack Obama's lead in the Democratic Primary race and compares it to a baseball pennant race. If anyone has been having a hard time figuring out exactly where things stand, this analysis might help bring it into focus (at least if you're a baseball fan):

Clinton and rival Barack Obama have combined to secure about 88 percent of the available delegates in their nomination battle, the rough equivalent of playing 142 games in a 162-game baseball season...

At a similar point in a baseball playoff race, fans start obsessing over their team's "magic number," the games it must win--or its opponent must lose, or a combination of the two--to wrap up a postseason berth.

Obama needs to win about 36 percent of the remaining delegates, according to The Associated Press, to wrap the nomination. If the primaries were a baseball season and Obama were a team, there would be 20 games left to play, Obama would have a 14-game lead and his magic number would be seven.

If this were baseball, a Clinton comeback would be the greatest comeback in baseball history. It wouldn't happen in baseball and won't happen in politics. That's why Obama has started working on his getting his playoff rotation set instead of worrying about remaining contest.

Tags: Election 2008 Democratic Primary Barack Obama Hillary Clinton baseball

Mail bag: Whither Hillary?

I present to you the first No Drumlins mail bag (and most likely last, since it's taken me three years to get a letter) . Earlier today, a reader e-mailed:

[Will] Hillary back out now or will she refuse? ... When will she realize what is best for the party and just stop?

You will be proud. I'm leaning to vote D in 08. However, if Hillary happens to get the nomination, all bets are off.

I think she will go the Huckabee route and stay on for the next two weeks, then drop out after the May 20 primaries. She might as wellhold on a little longer, since she will win West Virginia May 13. Oregon and Kentucky will split on May 20 (OR for Obama and KY for Clinton) and Clinton will drop out the next day. That will allow her to drop out on a high note without embarrassing Obama, since he will also post a victory on May 20. If she drops out now, big losses in WV and KY could be embarrassing for him.

But I think the tone of her campaign will change. I think she will be going hard after McCain and stop the negative stuff against Obama. In a sense, Hillary will use the next two weeks to help mend the fences and start the process of getting her supporters to line up behind Obama, the same way Huckabee did after McCain essentially wrapped up the Republican nomination.

(By the way, this isn't original thinking on my part. One of the talking heads on MSNBC last night was passing on this scenario and I think it's right on. But you can give me credit for it if you pass it along.)

Now I am hoping against hope (and against "a place called Hope") that Obama resists calls to put Hillary on the ticket as VP. I think that would hurt him quite a bit in the general election. Obama won't pick up one vote by adding Hillary, but I'll bet there are those who would turn away from him if he did. If he feels like Hillary needs to be rewarded, he ought to promise her a spot on the Supreme Court with the caveat that if anyone in her camp breathes even a word of it, the deal is off. Not only would that reward Clinton (and she would probably make a good Supreme Court justice), it would keep her out of the 2012 race if Obama wins.

You'll be sorry to hear that Jackson is becoming a little Hillary supporter. He couldn't get to sleep last night so I brought him downstairs to watch the end of the Celtics game with me. During a commercial, I switched over to MSNBC to check the results and Hillary was just starting her speech. Every time her supporters would cheer he would clap his hands and yell "yay!" I asked him if he wanted to watch basketball and he said "No."

He was absolutely mesmerized by the speech (which wasn't very good, she sounded defeated. And by the look on Bill's face, it was clear that he had just realized that there would be no interns frolicking with him in the White House for the next four years. He appeared devastated). At one point he was chanting "Hill-a-ree! Hill-a-ree!" along with the crowd on the TV. When he got up this morning, I asked him who the lady in the blue jacket on TV was last night and he replied "Hillary."

On the bright side, he's developing his father's antipathy toward the NBA.

Tags: Election 2008 Democratic Primary Barack Obama Hillary Clinton

Charlie Gibson: Don’t know much about history

Last night, while hosting what is being widely criticized as the worst-moderated of the dozens of debates in this cycle, ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson asked what might just be the stupidest, most ill-informed, must-have-gotten-an-F-in-high-school-civics question imaginable. In an attempt to play gotcha with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as they each declined to name the other vice president should they win, Gibson followed up with this:

Just to quote from the Constitution again, "In every case" -- Article II, Section 1 -- "after the choice of the president, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the vice president."

If it was good enough in colonial times, why not in these times?

The question is so bad on so many fronts; it’s hard to know what he was thinking.

The qissue was whether or not the nominee would choose the other candidate to be their running mate. But the section of the Constitution that Gibson quotes refers to speaks about the general election. “After the choice of the president, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors” would be the loser of the general election. Applying that section of the Constitution to the current election would mean that John McCain would be the vice president of a Democratic president. It would have nothing to do with selecting a VP during the nomination process.

Further, it “wasn’t good enough in local times.” The elections of 1796 and 1800 were so divisive that they nearly brought the government down, as the vice president was essentially the president’s fiercest opponent. It was bad enough that the process was scrapped with the ratification of the 12th amendment in 1804. In other words, Gibson was quoting a section of the Constitution that was repealed 204 years ago.

“Why not in these times?” Is Gibson proposing to repeal the 12th Amendment and go back to the original design of the Constitution? Or is he proposing that the political parties should follow the same design? That might at least be entertaining. Could you have seen John McCain as George Bush’s running mate in 2000, after the way Bush and his machine just eviscerated McCain in South Carolina? Or going back to 1980, could you envision Ted Kennedy as Jimmy Carter’s running mate as brutal as that campaign was?

And on a semantic note, nothing that happened when the Constitution was written in 1789 “was good enough in colonial times” since the United States hadn’t been colonies of Britain since July 4, 1776, in case Gibson forgot (and I can’t believe that he did, since he and co-moderator George Stephanopoulos spent plenty of time asking about the patriotism of Barack Obama and his acquaintances).

If you didn’t watch the debate, you might get the impression that Gibson was just following up off the cuff. If that were the case, then one might be able to argue that he just mangled the history a little in his mind. But those of us who watched the debate know that Gibson planned to use this line of questioning all along, because they flashed a graphic with this quote on the screen as he spoke. So the only conclusion is that Gibson either intentionally quoted a section of the constitution that had been repealed over two centuries ago in an effort to take it out of context, or he didn’t realize that the clause he used as the basis for his question was no longer operable. Either way, it was shameful.

What was also shameful was the fact that neither candidate either had the quickness on their feet or the intestinal fortitude to call Gibson on his outrageous premise. The follow-up went first to Clinton. Her best answer would have been something like “Do you realize that what you are suggesting would mean that John McCain would be my vice president? I don’t think it was ‘good enough’ for our forefathers, since the repealed it almost as soon as they enacted it 200 years ago.” Or something like that.

Not to mention that Obama is a constitutional law scholar. I’d have expected that he would be jumping out of his suit to rebut the absurd premise of the question. I realize that standing on stage in front of 11 million people probably puts enough strain in the mind, but he is supposed to know that stuff inside and out. I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard the question, and all I have is a pedestrian bachelor’s degree in history.

At least it appears that this will end up being the last debate of the primary season. The next one we hear will be between Obama and McCain sometime in October, with the less-historically-challenged Jim Lehrer most likely in charge. What a breath of fresh air that will be.

Tags: Election 2008 Democratic Primary Barack Obama Hillary Clinton Charles Gibson ABC News