And In The End

I spent the day on Sunday in a swing state out canvasing and making calls. The Obama office was a mess, it was chaotic. But the people there were extremely focused and full of energy. These people were going non-stop. When you look at the strength of the campaign effort that has grown up around Barack Obama on can’t help but be amazed. The level of participation shows that people are really ready to take back ownership of their government.

So what happened to the McCain campaign. The offices are neat and orderly, and empty. FiveThirtyEight has an interesting photo essay by Brett Marty on the lack of participation on the McCain side. It seems as if they have already given up.

 

   These ground campaigns do not bear any relationship to one another. One side has something in the neighborhood of five million volunteers all assigned to very clear and specific pieces of the operation, and the other seems to have something like a thousand volunteers scattered throughout the country. Jon Tester’s 2006 Senate race in Montana had more volunteers — by a mile — than John McCain’s 2006 presidential campaign.

McCain: Campaign Is A Big Joke

Well not in so many words. Check out his two appearances on SNL.

ClICK on IMAGE to view SNL OPENER

CLICK on IMAGE to view WEEKEND UPDATE

It’s About The Children

The United States doesn’t fair so well in securing the well-being of our children. When you have people like WFTV anchor Barbara West who criticized Joe Biden for trying to turn the US into Sweden. As if that was a bad thing, we should be so lucky. Sweden is at the top of all quality of life and well-being charts. I guess you can teach people, but you can’t make them think.

Take a look at this study on the well-being of children in wealthy nations. Like Barack Obama said, we need to focus on stopping teen pregnancy. The United States has more than 45 births for every 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19. Significantly higher than any other OECD nation.

I don’t think we are going to solve this problem by teaching abstinence only sexual education and restricting access to birth control as the McCain team and particularly Sarah Palin has promoted.

Light blue is top third, dark blue is bottom third.

Not a Serious Campaign Effort

When I look at how the McCain campaign has been run, it seems like a half-hearted effort. Even John McCain seems to be uncomfortable or even embarrassed by it at times. 

So the question is, is McCain the disposable candidate the GOP felt they could sacrifice in a year they felt they didn’t have any hope of winning?

With the President’s approval so low and the country sliding into a deep recession, the chances for any Republican candidate were slim. Conventional wisdom is that an individual only has a few shots at running before they are considered inviable. He lost out in 2000 and at the age of 72 this is his last chance to run.

Perhaps the choice of Palin wasn’t so much a radical choice, as it was the only one left for him.

The Economics of it

When I look at the two candidates and their economic policies, I see two very different strategies. There is nothing that is radically new in each of their plans, but we have seen each of the strategies played out during different times of our nation’s history. Whether you label them Reagonomics, New Deal, Supply Side or Keynesian, what it comes down to is the idea of supply side growth or demand creation. 

These two strategies have significant differences when it comes to how the wealth is distributed. What constitutes an equitable distribution of wealth in this country is and what our moral obligation to it is, I suppose, a question for each of us to answer for ourselves. There is always a cost to be paid for living in a society such as ours. There is always so much anger over taxes, but investing in the country is not a bad thing. It is the way that money is spent that is troublesome. Take for example a trillion dollar war that has crippled the country, made it substantially less safe and which John McCain plans to pursue in perpetuity.

So let’s talk about basic economics. Tax reduction for the wealthiest individuals and for corporations has a supply side effect. This was Reagan’s approach, and it seems to be John McCain’s as well. He often states he is a Reagan Republican. What he has laid out of his economic policy generally reflects the Reagonomic, Supply-Side economic views that were so disastrous during the 80’s. Supply Side policy failed to produce anything other than a greater disparity in wealth and an enormous deficit. In my estimation, the real influencer on growth is demand creation.

Imagine All That Brain Power in One Place

Apparently, Sarah Palin needed some help out on the campaign trail, so in the tradition of John McCain, she picked who she thought represented the best and the brightest…Elizabeth Hasselbeck from the View. Just think of all the talent McCain and Palin administration would surround themselves with.

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.

The End of Rovian Politics?

ABC News / Washington Post poll, among likely voters:

On Ayers: 60% say Obama’s connection to him is not a legitimate issue.

On Palin: 52% say McCain’s choice of her for veep weakens their confidence in his judgment.

More challenges for John McCain: Likely voters overwhelmingly reject his effort to make an issue of Barack Obama’s association with 1960s radical William Ayers. Fallout continues from McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin for vice president, with 52 percent saying it weakens their confidence in his judgment. And on optimism, it’s Obama by 2-1.

“Nuclear Nonsensense”

From CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Nuclear Nonsense by Neil Steinberg

The most recent nuclear power plant to go online in the United States was the Watts Bar station in Tennessee, which started producing power in 1996, a scant 23 years after construction began.

Thus John McCain’s debate claim that, as president, he would somehow push through the construction of 45, count ‘em, 45 new nuclear plants without worrying about where they’d be placed or what we’d do with the radioactive waste drew quite a response, at least in me (“There hasn’t been a nuclear reactor built in 30 years!” I shouted at the TV).

A few days later, I found myself having lunch with a pal who works at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and I asked him what he thinks of McCain’s plan.

“No way,” he said. “He’s crazy. We’ll be lucky to build two nuclear plants in the next 10 years, and that’ll cost $18 billion.”

I’m all for boldness. But claiming you’ll solve our energy problems by spending money we don’t have on nuclear plants that won’t be built, well, that isn’t bold, it’s deceptive.

Alfred E. Smith Memorial “Roast”

The 63rd annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner provided a lot of laughs. The dinner is an event organized by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York to help children in need.  John McCain and Barack Obama each took turns “roasting” each other. McCain was surprisingly funny and very kind to Obama. I hate to say it but if McCain had showed more of this side of himself he would probably be doing a lot better off. Obama was just… well… perfect. Due to youtube time constraints the videos are embedded sequentially in 4 parts below. Enjoy!

 

McCain’s Set Part 1

McCain’s Set Part 2

Obama’s Set Part 1

Obama’s Set Part 2

It’s The Temperament, Stupid

Georgie Packer on McCain’s change over the course of the election:

The contrast now is so severe that it makes running for President seem like a personal disaster on the scale of a prolonged nervous breakdown leading to physical and psychological ruin. This campaign has done something terrible to McCain. And it’s entirely his own fault. Character is fate.

And Obama’s perennial steadiness:

Obama’s character is a political triumph. His cool, unlike McCain’s tic-filled anger, is tactically deployed; throughout the campaign it’s become his main weapon against crisis and attack.

But…

But if he wins, he’ll need to play far more of his psychic register to have any chance of succeeding at the impossible job he’s so skillfully pursued. He’ll have to draw on humor, on empathy, on audacity, on courage, in order to inspire the kind of confidence the country badly lacks and needs. He might even have to get angry.

Misconceptions of Obama fuel Republican campaign

Hayden Panettiere PSA: Vote for McCain

CLICK on IMAGE to view video

I Bet He’s Glad He Doesn’t Live In Arizona

John McCain might want to take a look at the laws in his home state of Arizona next time He is hanging out with Levi Johnston. Rather than dropping out of school and planning a wedding, he would be on his way to register as a sex offender. In the state of Arizona,

13-1405. Sexual conduct with a minor; classification; definition

A. A person commits sexual conduct with a minor by intentionally or knowingly engaging in sexual intercourse or oral sexual contact with any person who is under eighteen years of age.

As I read the law, he would be looking at a class 6 felony in Arizona. Of course I am not a lawyer.

Rational and Steady Wins The Debate

Looks like the initial polling gives a big win to Barack Obama in tonight’s debates. McCain seemed to lose ground not only with Independents, but with Republicans too. Five Thirty Eight has some early numbers, as does Daily Kos.

CBS polls say that Obama won 53% to 22% among undecideds.

[Update] Adding in Huffington Post coverage on this as well which has the Fox News post debate follow up.