What A Real Leader Does

A real leader raises the level of public discourse. A real leader speaks to the public like equals. A real leaders does not dumb things down.

Joe Klein on Barack Obama – “Why Brack Obama is Winning”.

He seemed to be thinking in my presence, rather than just reciting talking points, and it took him some time to think through my question about gut decisions. He said the first really big one was how to react when incendiary videos of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s black-nationalist sermons surfaced last spring. “The decision to make it big as opposed to make it small,” Obama said of the landmark speech on race relations he delivered in Philadelphia. “My gut was telling me that this was a teachable moment and that if I tried to do the usual political damage control instead of talking to the American people like … they were adults and could understand the complexities of race, I would be not only doing damage to the campaign but missing an important opportunity for leadership.”

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself

Leon Wieseltier in the New Republic:

McCain feels with his heart, but he thinks with his base. And when he picked Sarah Palin, he told the United States of America to go fuck itself.

“Here’s to doing the right thing.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic writes a lyrical and poignant post about race and parenting in America and Obama’s grandparents.

The Powell Endorsement

Watch the show here.

This is huge. I think this story is going to dominate the press for the next 2-3 days. What does that mean? No news coverage for McCain.

Powell’s performance on Meet The Press was fantastic. He presented a clear, logical, measured argument for Obama. He was kind to McCain – he cited his strengths and he applauded his service. However, his reasons for supporting Obama exhibited Powell’s intellect, his rationality, and the quality of his character. It seemed to me to be his ultimate redemptive moment 5 years in the making. I found this endorsement incredibly moving and historic.

If this dominates the press for the majority of the week – reaching the undecided (or possibly even previously decided) suburban moms and military folks in the swing states (i.e. Florida, W. Virginia, Virginia), McCain may be unable to recover.

“Rope a Dope”

Andrew Sullivan discusses why “Barack Obama’s strategy of calm is provoking his rival into fatal errors.”

McCain never seemed to learn from the Clintons’ misjudgment of their rival. A key element of Obama’s strategy is classic rope-a-dope. He gets his opponents to splutter with irritation as “that one”, as McCain contemptuously described Obama in last Tuesday’s debate, glides towards them in the polls. He does his thing, raises masses of money, keeps his staff in perfect order and focuses on issues and themes. He can segue from the inspirational agent of change of the spring to the reassuring conventional pol of the autumn without anyone really noticing the seams. That takes political skill. You’ve either got it or you haven’t.

Obama rarely directly attacks. He subtly baits. His most brilliant rope-a-dope of the entire campaign was against Bill Clinton in the spring. In a newspaper interview, Obama cited Ronald Reagan as the last transformational president. He didn’t mention Clinton. The former president was offended by being implicitly dissed, took the bait and unleashed a series of unwise public scoffs at the young Democrat, culminating in a dismissal of Obama as another Jesse Jackson. Suddenly, black Democrats abandoned Clinton’s wife, and the Clintons’ base collapsed. Obama merely stepped out of the way as the Clintons self-destructed. He didn’t just end their campaign; he helped to bury their reputation.

What McCain Is Doing

Sullivan sums it up well. I am getting more scared, angry, frustrated, and disgusted every minute:

There was always going to be a point of revolt and panic for a core group of Americans who believe that Obama simply cannotbe president – because he’s black or liberal or young or relatively new. This is that point. As the polls suggest a strong victory, the Hannity-Limbaugh-Steyn-O’Reilly base are going into shock and extreme rage. McCain and Palin have decided to stoke this rage, to foment it, to encourage paranoid notions that somehow Obama is a “secret” terrorist or Islamist or foreigner. These are base emotions in both sense of the word.

But they are also very very dangerous. This is a moment of maximal physical danger for the young Democratic nominee. And McCain is playing with fire. If he really wants to put country first, he will attack Obama on his policies – not on these inflammatory, personal, creepy grounds. This is getting close to the atmosphere stoked by the Israeli far right before the assassination of Rabin.

For God’s sake, McCain, stop it. For once in this campaign, put your country first.

From the Desk of Mo Dowd

John McCain cynically picked a running mate with less care than theater directors give to picking a leading actor’s understudy. More…

Behind Every Angry Woman…

…is John McCain apparently. I am so disgusted by the fact that he is using this woman to smear Obama on his behalf. If he REALLY believed in the Wright and Ayers lies, then he should have brought it up during the debate last night.

What a pussy.

The View From Inside a Palin Rally

Linda Milazzo reports on her experiences inside a Palin rally on AlterNet:

Among this raptured crowd of 20,000 was a frightening mix of Christian zealots, anti-abortion fanatics, and mostly white suburban women and men reconnecting with their high school mentality. Bright colored pom-poms were everywhere — as if Sarah Palin were head cheerleader, the women were on her squad, and the men were the football heroes. Sarah Palin, the quintessential 4ever-school-girl had revitalized their youth and saved them from adulthood. Check out the red pom-pom “hair” on the man behind Palin. If that isn’t high school, what is??

While Palin’s peevishness is appalling, it pales in comparison to the dangerous ideology that she and her followers share. By unleashing Sarah Palin, John McCain has reinvigorated the anti-choice/anti-woman/anti-reproductive rights fanatics, who not long ago were at the forefront of domestic terror.

This Palin woman is out of control. Re-invigorating a base of supporters simply through hate and lies is disgusting. It worked for Bush and Rove for two years. NO MORE! How ANYONE can connect with these messages of hate and anger when Obama offers unity is beyond me.

Yes. We. Can.

Jonathan Chait Is In Love

Obama Crushes McCain

We miss you, Molly

What’s missing from this election? Molly Ivins.

McCain = Dean

Joe Klein writes about Obama’s steadiness.

“… I thought of Karl Rove. Back in 2003, at the height of Howard Dean mania, Rove was skeptical about Dean’s staying power as a candidate: “When was the last time Americans elected an angry President?”

The far left is constantly screeching about how Obama needs to be more “angry”. Sure, there is PLENTY to be angry about. We all know this. But what will angry do? What will angry accomplish? It will turn off voters who are seeking a calmness, a steady hand, and WISDOM after the last 8 years of corruption and impulsiveness.

What I find so interesting about current themes of the McCain is how they are tyring to co-opt the message of change by insinuating that Obama is more of the same. But McCain’s anger can not possibly be directed at Washington – since his party has been running the place for 8 years. No. It’s his natural anger. His character. Americans are noticing. And they don’t want any of it.

Holy %^&!

From Quinnipiac University poll:

FLORIDA: Obama 51, McCain 43

OHIO: Obama 50, McCain 42

PENNSYLVANIA: Obama 54, McCain 39

Dates conducted: Sept. 27-29. Error margin: 3.4 percentage points.

*

Why? McCain has had three horrible weeks… the Palin downspiral keeps spiraling downward, his campaign suspension stunt produced no results (he did not event SPEAK in the meeting at the White House, he clearly has no influence over house republicans, his impulsive and erratic tendencies were on full view), he had a snotty debate performance… the list goes on and on.

I do believe (at least the cock-eyed optimist in me believes) that Americans are smarter than we were 3 years ago… Katrina was a watershed and we now recognize incompetence and impulsiveness when we see it. In my view, McCain’s debate performance highlighted his stark contrasts with Obama, not necessary in terms of policies, but in terms of temperament. Americans noticed. Floridians noticed. Ohioans notices. Pennsylvanians noticed. After 8 years of Bush and Cheney shootin’ from the hip, mis-step after mis-step, error and error, reckless action after reckless after, the American people know it when they see it. I think we are yearning for calm and rational leadership.

I think these episodes were John McCain’s Katrina.

UPDATE: Nate Silver provides the raw data.

Bad Actress

Random Thoughts From an Ordinary Person

You know there are a lot of good actors out there. You give them a great script, then rehearse, and direct the heck out of them. Of course they need to look the part, so you bring in the crew to adjust and tweak hair, make up and costumes. It is done everyday at Steppenwolf, Goodman and on a million other stages. I just would like to see Sarah Palin off book. Hopefully, in the end, America will escort her out the stage door and dump her in the alley.