Two Year Sprint

From the Book of Barack, Chapter 44, Verse 271

Last October was a breakthrough month for political theorists everywhere, as I published via this blog the SNL Theory of Politics.  Essentially, the theory states that whichever flaw the comedy talk shows are focusing on about a candidate are the ones that actually stick, because those are the jokes that work--and the jokes work because they resonate.  As I explained last time:

"One way to tell what stereotype is going to attach itself to a Presidential candidate is to see which jokes about him/her stick around.  Every late night comic knows the routine--if you tell a Clinton joke, the punchline is that he's promiscuous; a Gore joke, that he's a bragger; a Bush joke, that he's dumb; a Kerry joke, that he's a flip-flopper.  And on and on." 

So, with that as a preface, here's a good line from Jon Stewart via this morning's Hotline Wake-Up Call:

"After a quick meet-and-greet with King Abdullah, Obama was off to Israel, where he made a quick stop at the manger in Bethlehem where he was born."

And so the comedy gods have learned the SAT-style format:  Clinton is to promiscuous as Gore is to braggart as Bush is to stupid as Kerry is to flip-flopper as Obama is to self-appointed messiah.

P.S. Anyone want to be geeky and figure out what the numbers represent in the title of this post?  (It looks super-obvious to me, but I could be way way off on how obvious it is.)

Side Dishes, Volume 3

July has not been a great month for this blog, and I have a lot of potential excuses.  Maybe it is the heat.  Maybe it is slightly more manic work hours taking away my blogging time.  Maybe it is because Batman came out this week.  But in any event, the country seems to be at that point in the two year sprint of electoral politics where the finish line is visible in the distance and the country consequently has those shooting pains from the bottom of the rib through the chest (or, geographically, from about Savannah, Georgia to Albany, New York.) 

So sorry for the slow blogging pace, which I hope will improve.  I can muster a few side dishes today; here they are.

--Obama recently announced that instead of giving his nomination acceptance speech to a bunch of delegates at the DNC, he will give it to a crowd of 75,000 Obamaphiles in Denver.  Brilliant--what a visual, and what a way to kick off the real part of the election (ie the part where normal people are paying attention.)  There is also speculation that this was meant to ensure that Hillary Clinton's people don't start something, so there aren't images of a divided electorate.

--I've been meaning to get this insight on this blog for a couple months, so now I might not sound too creative, but Democrats are losing the messaging war on gas prices.  My dad recently said that the reason Obama will win is $4-a-gallon gas (or rather, what that symbolizes about the Republicans' inability to manage an economic crisis), but that is rapidly becoming his biggest liability.  The percentages of people who want to drill NOW are increasing, and people don't believe that "investing in alternative energy sources" is going to help them any time soon.  (Neither would drilling, of course).  I heard Biden say on Meet the Press about a month ago that the oil companies already have leases on land that is unused, just sitting there, and that they are holding the oil hostage to keep supply deliberately short--if this is true, we need to hear this rebuttal articulated much more clearly.

--According to the map on this site, if the election were today, Obama would hold all states Kerry won and would pick up Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa.  According to the map on this site, he would win the Kerry states, plus Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, and Nevada--and the cite also lists Virginia, Missouri and North Dakota as ties.  I do not believe the election is as skewed toward Obama as the second site suggests, but Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa are indeed very likely Obama pick-ups.  (For both of these cites, the totals are updated frequently so the states listed may have changed.)

Of course, to discern these seats, the polls are all aggregated in a sloppy way, combining methodologies and using polls from lousy pollsters like Rasmussen and Survey USA.  However, I'd rather be up 4 states by dubious methodology than down 4 states by dubious methodology.

--Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) is in the new Batman movie!  I interned for him in 2004, and he is well-known as a huge Batman fan.  You can see his Oscar-worthy performance here.  Decades from now, movie critics will still be lauding his convincing role as "Gentleman at Party." 

The Body in the Senate?

Independent former Minnesota Governor and former wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura has hinted, though not yet confirmed, that he might get in the Senate race between incumbent Senator Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D).

I think if you want Franken to win, this might be just what he needs.  I've believed for a while that Franken can't win this seat because he has too much of a controversial body of work, which would be a shame--not only should this seat have been an easy pick-up against an unpopular Senator, but there may be danger of Obama losing ground on Franken's reverse-coattails in the much needed state of Minnesota.

But now, bring in a guy who has been elected Governor as a third-party candidate, and has beaten Norm Coleman before (he was the Republican Ventura was running against at the time), and that's a dynamic Coleman doesn't want.  Plus, Ventura is fiercely anti-Iraq-war, and would attack Coleman on that front. 

I think with this dynamic, any one of them could win in a squeaker.  I don't know too much about The Body, but I think I remember him being somewhat popular--so please someone let me know if I'm way wrong. 

I owe a real good post on Senate races--the map looks really interesting this time around--but I've been pretty swamped at work.  I'll try to get that up in the next week or so.

Unfrozen McCaveman Lawyer

Anyone remember that SNL sketch, "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer"?  Wikipedia summarizes it quite nicely:

Cirroc ([ki:'rok]), the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, was a recurring character created by Jack Handey and played by Phil Hartman on Saturday Night Live from 1991 through 1996.  He had been a caveman who fell into a glacial crevasse during the Ice Age, preserving his body well enough that some scientists who discovered him in 1988 thawed him out. He subsequently attended law school.

The gag was this; the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer's entire trial room strategy was to explain that as a caveman, ordinary things confuse him ("When I see a solar eclipse, like the one I went to last year in Hawaii, I think 'Oh no! Is the moon eating the sun?' I don't know. Because I'm a caveman -- that's the way I think.").  And he'd then go on to explain that despite his primitive brain and knowledge, even he--a caveman!--could see the truth inherent in his client's case.

Anyway, I saw a quote from McCain re: the economy in today's Washington Post Express that follows Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer's reasoning exactly.  I'll present it in two parts:

McCain:  "At its core, the economy isn't the sum of an array of bewildering statistics. . . "

Or, as Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer might say, "Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: 'Did little demons get inside and type it?' I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts."

McCain: " . . . it's about where Americans work, how they live, how they pay their bills today and save for tomorrow."

Or, as Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer might say, "But there is one thing I do know - when a man like my client slips and falls on a sidewalk in front of a public library, then he is entitled to no less than two million in compensatory damages, and two million in punitive damages. Thank you."

I rest my case.

Wes Clark, Lie Down Please, I'd Like You to Meet the Bus

On whichever day this stupid controversy hit, I did indeed wince at the Wes Clark quote, re: John McCain:

"I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."

That was the quote that we all are seeing now everywhere.  It was the soundbite that survived the headlines.  At first blush, I was taken aback, and thought it was a harsh, mean-spirited, and stupid thing to say. 

Until I looked at the full context.  Please take a minute to read through--this is edited only slightly for clarity, nothing substantive is omitted (and the full transcript is here):

Bob Schieffer: Well you, you went so far as to say that you thought John McCain was, quote, and these are your words, "untested and untried," And I must say I, I had to read that twice, because you're talking about somebody who was a prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy. He's been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for lo these many years. How can you say that John McCain is un- untested and untried? General?

General Wesley Clark: Because in the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk. It's a matter of gauging your opponents, and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in Air- in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn't a wartime squadron. He hasn't been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn't seen what it's like when diplomats come in and say, 'I don't know whether we're going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it publicly. He hasn't made those calls, Bob.

Bob Schieffer: Could I just interrupt you?  I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean-

General Wesley Clark: Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be President. . . Barack is not, he is not running on the fact that he has made these national security pronouncements. He's running on his other strengths. He's running on the strengths of character, on the strengths of his communication skills, on the strengths of his judgment. And those are qualities that we seek in our national leadership.

So, let's recap this back and forth briefly.  Schieffer says, how can you say McCain isn't tested if he was a POW?  Clark says, even though he was a hero and a POW, that's all well and good but not necessarily related to the type of experience you need to be President.  Schieffer counters by saying that Obama has not been shot down in a fighter plane--thus being the first one to bring it up.  Clark answers in a way consistent with his previous point, using the example that Schieffer brought up, and goes on to say that unlike McCain, Obama isn't claiming to have that experience.

THIS WAS TOTALLY LEGIT.  The sound bite sounds bad out of context, but I have no problem with it in context--Clark was responding to Schieffer's point.  In fact, he was making a pretty good point.

Obama, who knows that his patriotism is where the right wants to wage its campaign, quickly distanced himself from the remarks and, frankly, threw a great surrogate under the bus.  There is a lot of the We Will Not Be Swift-Boated This Time sentiment in the Dem Presidential campaign this time around--which is good--but sometimes this becomes hyperdefensiveness. 

Ultimately, the campaign handled this poorly.  Obama's reaction not only made this into a longer story, but it totally legitimized the claim, making Wes Clark guilty of something he wasn't guilty of.  That's disappointing. 

In Other News, McCain Changes the Oil on the Heterosexual-Talk Express

Riding the Metro into work today, I caught the following AP headline in the Washington Post Express:  "Gay Runs Fastest 100-Meter Dash in Any Conditions."  For a split second, I thought the author was talking about a gay person who ran the race and was calling him a "gay", which I thought to be an odd style desk decision of such an esteemed paper. 

Of course, two seconds later I realized that, duh, the guy who won is actually named Tyson Gay.  I bring this up because someone at OneNewsNow.com, a right-wing religious site, really needs to make sure they don't just publish any AP article that pops up on their RSS feed with the word "gay" in it. 

Otherwise, this happens.

Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials

HOWARD FENDRICH - 6/29/2008 11:42:48 PM

Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday.

His wind-aided 9.85 seconds was a fairly cut-and-dry performance compared to what happened a day earlier. On Saturday, Homosexual misjudged the finish in his opening heat and had to scramble to finish fourth, then in his quarterfinal a couple of hours later, ran 9.77 to break the American record that had stood since 1999.  One of the men who talked about challenging Homosexual in the 100, his former Arkansas teammate Wallace Spearmon, failed to make it to the final by the slimmest of margins.

Apparently an automated search-and-replace that swaps out "gay" for "homosexual" without any human intervention is a terrible idea. 

Update, 11:57 AM, June 30th 2008:  OK, someone at OneNewsNow.com found out about what a laughingstock this article was and changed it--so the link that you click above actually has it corrected to "Tyson Gay."  So just trust me that it was "Tyson Homosexual" at the time I posted this. 

Update, 10:11 AM, July 1st 2008:  Here is a link to a site that got the actual screenshot. 

Would You Rather?

Which Steve would you rather have a beer with?

Oregon Democratic Senate candidate (who lost in the primary to Jeff Merkley) Steve Novick, who made this ad?  (And, as a sidenote, this great ad that I blogged about previously).

Or Democratic Rep from Wisconsin, Steve Kagen, who said the following about the very cliched question that began this post: 

Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Wis.), whose state is home to Milwaukee’s Miller Brewing Company, sees no place for [beer] in his professional life. “I have listening sessions, not drinking sessions,” he says.

Kagen says if he were sitting down with the politician who would represent his best interests and those of his family, “it would be my hope that they would offer me fresh fruits and vegetables.”

Well, that answers that question.

Read it and VEEP

A lot of people (2) have been asking me who I think Obama will choose as his vice presidential nominee.  I have what I consider to be a bold, smart, and somewhat out-of-the-box prediction, so I realized that I urgently need to get my prediction on record in case some pundit makes the same prediction before I do. 

So I'll get to my prediction in a second; but first, I'd like to take a moment to go down the list of possible VEEP choices for Obama, and give a brief explanation why I don't think it is gonna happen.

Hillary Clinton:  Obama needs to resist this temptation (and I think he will).  Can anyone really imagine a productive White House with these two working together--and with Bill Clinton as the Vice President's spouse?  But more importantly, Obama's entire case rests on being the guy who is turning the page on the politics-of-old, and he has made the Clintons symbolic of the politics-of-old in the Democratic party.  Undermine that argument, and he has nothing.

Mark Warner:  Warner has star-power, that's for sure--and he may be able to deliver Virginia for Obama.  But he is right where he wants to be--winning a Virginia Senate race by a mile.  If he drops out of that race and the Dems find a new candidate, winning this seat--which is currently a near certainty for Democrats--becomes much more difficult, and probably leans to the Republican (ex-Governor and brief Presidential candidate Jim Gilmore). 

Tim Kaine:  The popular Virginia Gov might be a good choice--but I think if Obama is going to put a male candidate on the ticket (in the aftermath of nursing his wounds from Hillary-supporters), it better be someone with an amazing amount of charisma.  Kaine's national appearances have been iffy, and he's a bit too untested for the national scene at this point. 

Jim Webb:  See: Tim Kaine.  Another popular Virginian, another Obama supporter--but at the end of the day, another boring white guy who comes across as flat on tv.

Kathleen Sebelius:  Many are suggesting that the popular Governor of Kansas, an Obama supporter, would help shore up support with women.  Maybe, but I think Sebelius is a bit dull and doesn't have the force of personality that other candidates might.  Plus, I don't think she would be able to deliver Kansas to Obama, just in the way that John Edwards' presence on the ticket in 2004 didn't make a dent in North Carolina.

Ted Strickland:  Strickland probably could deliver Ohio to Obama--he won the gubernatorial in 2006 in a landslide.  But he put his chips on Clinton early and stumped for her during that pivotal primary which she won, so you have to wonder if Obama is eager to work with Strickland.  I do think if this ticket happens, though, it will be a tough ticket to beat; Strickland is my runner-up VEEP prediction.

Joe Biden or Wes Clark:  This is a catch-all category for the "enhance Obama's national security credentials" pick.  Lord knows I love Joe Biden, and Lord knows to a lesser degree that I kind of like Wes Clark, but these guys add nothing to in the way of geographic balance to the ticket (ie I don't think they put any new states in play).  Additionally, they don't look new and exciting the way the Obama ticket would need to look, though you could make the argument that he needs the VEEP to *not* be a star, just a resume-enhancer.

Ed Rendell:  The Gov help deliver Pennsylvania, but a) if Obama loses Pennsylvania, he's in real trouble anyway, so choosing a VEEP based on keeping a state rather than winning a new state puts Obama in a defensive pose right off the bat, b) he's a pretty difficult personality, and c) he was a Clintonite.

Janet Napolitano:  Governor of Arizona, she adds some gender diversity to the ticket and some regional balance, as well as some real ideas on how to communicate with southwestern voters.  The only potential problems, though, are a) she's not great on TV, b) she is an older unmarried woman, which may lead to more innuendo, and c) Arizona will still vote for their favorite son, John McCain, no matter how hard Napolitano campaigns for Obama.

Chuck Hagel:  Just in the way John Kerry thought about putting Republican John McCain on the ticket, some are suggesting that Obama cross over to the dark side and put the relatively-non-insane Chuck Hagel (R-NE) on the ticket.  After all, he is becoming anti-war, has bucked his party many times, and could provide an interesting contrast to one-time buddy McCain, whom Hagel has neglected to endorse at this point.  And it helps the argument of "We're not here to bicker, we're here to get things done, regardless of party."  Still, I think the likelihood of Hagel accepting is unlikely--plus, he is quite conservative on many issues, and the netroots, who could be huge fundraisers for Obama, really hate bipartisanship.  Frankly I think Hagel wants to be Secretary of Defense in Obama's administration--but I may have no idea what I'm talking about.  But I'd support that 100%!

Am I missing any easy ones?  I think this is the generally-accepted short list. 

OK, I think I've toyed with everyone long enough.  My official prediction, who I've seen mentioned only on the very long short lists, would be . . . Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

It just seems right to me.  I think as a woman she could be a great message-deliverer to women about Obama, but like Hillary (and unlike Napolitano and Sebelius), she is fiery, charismatic, and a real fighter.  In other words, she is the kind of woman that Hillary supporters could really get behind.  She won a tough election in Missouri that the RNC spent tons of money on, so we know she's been heavily vetted and there are no skeletons in her closet.  She might help win Missouri for Obama--or at least, I think that of her, Sebelius, and Napolitano, she is the woman most likely to help deliver her state.  Her relative youth and her energetic approach help advance the storyline that this ticket would usher in a new generation of American politics.  She was an early advocate for Obama, endorsing him right after his surprising loss in New Hampshire, which was a gamble that could have hurt tremendously but really paid off--so Obama may want to re-pay the favor (the Politico has a great article about that here).  Plus, I really, really like her.

As with each potential candidate, she has weaknesses, too.  If Republicans want to pit McCain's experience against Obama's inexperience, than Claire doesn't help Obama there--though I think "experience," even in a positive sense, is almost a dirty word these days among the discouraged electorate.  And she does nothing to burnish his national security credentials.  Still, I think the positives outweight the negatives and make this a very compelling ticket. 

So that's my prediction.  Obama/McCaskill '08!

Fox News and the Baby Mama Drama

From the AP: 

Fox News Channel referred to Michelle Obama as "Obama's baby mama" in a graphic on Wednesday, the latest in a trio of references to the Democratic presidential campaign that have given fuel to network critics.

The graphic "Outraged liberals: Stop picking on Obama's baby mama" was flashed during an interview with conservative columnist Michelle Malkin about whether Barack Obama's wife has been the target of unfair criticism.

For those of you who are little confused, Fox News generally refers to the spouses of white Presidential candidates, as near as I can tell, as their "wives."  For Michelle Obama, they feel comfortable throwing in the hip-hop lingo, for reasons I'm unclear about.

Remember that whole Imus controversy, when he said the mostly-black Rutgers Women's championship basketball team looked like a bunch of "nappy-headed hos"?  I don't think the media ever quite understood why the outrage was so deep.  Sure, it was a slur, and a racist one at that--but the bigger issue was this:  Here were a bunch of black female athletes, who have their whole lives had to overcome more barriers than I probably have, achieving something as great as a sports championship, during what should have been an ecstatic moment of celebration--and yet in the eyes of some, they will always just look like a bunch of nappy-headed hos, no matter what they accomplish.

Likewise the (justified) outrage about this is similar.  Michelle Obama is a Princeton graduate, a highly successful lawyer, a mother of two, and is married to the first black candidate to ever be a Party's presidential nominee.  But she's still associated with labels like "baby-mama" because that lingo is shorthand for black. 

And yes, I know that probably the idea stemmed from the fact that Obama simply rhymes with baby-mama.  Who cares?  Can you imagine, in your wildest dream, that if Cindy McCain's name happened to rhyme with baby-mama that they would ever ever ever refer to her as John McCain's baby-mama?

OK, let's move on, since I am only allowed to use the term baby-mama in a post so many times. 

Fox News isn't even trying to make its slander against Obama more discrete.  This is the second disgrace in a week, following the incident where a Fox News anchor asked if the fist pound between Barack and Michelle could be intrepreted by some as a "terrorist fist jab."  What??

The anchor apparently read that intrepretation on some website, but even reporting that intrepretation as anything but the rantings of a crazed lunatic is bad journalism.  But Fox, intentionally or not, is determined to keep slowly introducing "terrorist", "black radicalism", "muslim", and "anti-American" into every story about Obama to set the frame up against him.  

Change Is The New Black

Yesterday was primary day in Virginia.  The big battleground seat to watch in Virginia is VA-11, where longtime sort-of moderate Representative Tom Davis (R) is retiring.  The seat is in Fairfax, which is Northern Virginia, the part which is becoming rapidly more and more Democratic and is the primary reason why the Obama campaign thinks it can nab Virginia from the red column.  Emerging victorious yesterday for the Democrats was Gerry Connolly, while Keith Fimian won the Republican primary unopposed.

Anyway, I thought this was interesting: Fimian seems pretty sharp and is jumping on the change bandwagon, hoping to steal some of that territory from the Democrats.  He released this press release today, using the low turnout as a sign of diminished enthusiasm among Virginia Democrats.  I've bolded some of the interesting parts.

Dismal Turnout in Democrat Primary
For Immediate Release
June 10, 2008

(Fairfax, VA) - Today, in Virginia's 11^th Congressional District, a small handful of voters cast ballots to decide who will contest small businessman Keith Fimian in the general election this November.

“All of the enthusiasm for change on the national and local level evaporated in the face of two tired re-tread candidates slugging it out for the Democrat nomination today,” said Travis Smith, spokesman for Fimian. “Voters in Fairfax and Prince William were clearly disenchanted with their Democrat choices.”

Totals accumulated by the state board of elections show that fewer than 5% of eligible voters cast ballots in the 11^th District Congressional Primary in Fairfax County and even fewer voted in Prince William County.

“Voters in Fairfax and Prince William are clearly disenchanted about their prospects for the fall. I don't think Democrats were at all excited about their choices to begin with, now they are stuck with Gerry Connolly,” said Travis Smith. “He is simply more of the same, a tired, old politician who represents the politics of the past. If you want change, he is not the answer.”

Republican Keith Fimian was unopposed for the Republican nomination.

“Voters are looking for a change,” said Smith. “Career politicians are not capable of solving the problems we face as a nation and voters know it. They are looking for someone who is not part of the ‘pay to play’ system; they want someone who can bring some common sense ideas to the table. Keith Fimian is that candidate,” he concluded.

On Tuesday evening's election returns, Keith Fimian said, “I look forward to talking to voters in the 11^th District in the coming months about my positive bi-partisan plan to change Washington and improve northern Virginia's economy.”

Nevermind that Fimian's logic is disingenuous--the low turnout I think had more to do with election fatigue, given that Virginians had a Presidential primary that mattered when they normally don't--but this strategy is pretty smart, and Republicans are warming to it.  It is hard to make the argument that continuing to vote for the same party makes you the agent of change, but that's why Fimian is on it early. 

At the very least, this is much smarter than McCain's strategy to mock Obama's call for change as pie-in-the-sky idealism, though he may not have any better cards to play.