Vetting, Part II

According to HuffPo, the McCain folks didn't do an archives search of Palin's hometown newspaper, the Valley Frontiersman ("Local News Covering Wasilla and the Matanuska-Susitna Valley"). Given how much of Palin's career was spent in Wasilla politics (and the minimal cover of Wasilla politics in Anchorage paper) this seems to be a really critical oversight. Growing up in Oswego the Pal-Times was the place to go for dirt on the local electeds. Weren't the McCain folks worried about potential scandals involving staffing for the municipal hockey rink? Accusations about mismanaging the budget for parks and recreation? Confrontations within the PTA over who has to bring the brownies?

In all seriousness, the failure to have somebody look into the details of Palin's time as Mayor of Wasilla belies the McCain camp's statements that it actually constitutes experience. They clearly didn't think that being mayor of a 5,500 person town was important, so I'm not sure why they think voters should believe them when they talk up Palin's "experience."

Unconventional

In an attempt to (among other things) avoid split-screen news coverage of the convention and Hurricane Gustav, the GOP is making some significant changes to their convention schedule.

Instead of speaking to the convention Monday night, Bush planned to fly Monday to Austin and San Antonio to meet with emergency responders and evacuees. The Republican National Committee was also chartering a DC-9 to fly delegates back home to affected states, according to McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.

Davis told reporters here that seven-hour program scheduled for Monday night would be pared down to a bare-bones afternoon session of roughly two hours devoted mainly to meeting the legal requirements involved with convening the party's nominating convention. He said that there would be no partisan speeches and that officials would assess what to do with the rest of the convention once it became clear the magnitude of the storm damage. He said that they would seek to make sure that "nothing new distracts from the" response efforts in the Gulf.

It will be very interesting to see how all of this plays with the media, and what impact it ultimately has on the race. The Monday night session of the Dems convention (with Michelle Obama and Ted Kennedy speaking) drew 22 million viewers. If a 30 second Superbowl ad costs about $3 million and reaches 80 million people, then 30 minutes of speeches by Michelle and Ted reaching 22 million people is worth about $45 million. This is a really blunt measurement, of course, and it's quite likely that the GOP Monday lineup of Bush, Cheney and Arnold would probably not be quite the same draw. Regardless, it's hard to overstate the importance of the chance to reach a massive national audience essentially for free.

On the other hand, it may be a relief to McCain's folks to have any easy way to keep W and co. and the administration's 30% approval rating off the stage altogether without any awkward questions.

The real benefit, however, is that being able to cancel the convention, juggle around speakers and charter rescue jets to fly delegates back to their kids gives McCain something to actually in the face of the hurricane. Senators can't really do much in the face of natural disasters other than appear on TV and call for federal aid or go to the disaster site for photo ops. Because of their campaigns, McCain and Obama have the added ability to mobilize their supporters to act and use their influence to try to get folks in the danger zone to evacuate. All of those things, however, are still just variations on talking. By having a convention to cancel and delegates to fly around, McCain has the significant advantage of getting to actually do something, no matter how peripheral to the real disaster preparations. This feeds into the ongoing narrative that McCain is a man of action while Obama is merely a talker. I'm interested to see what steps Obama takes to escape the box of that narrative.

Executive Experience

From the lone available news article ($) about Palin's 1996 campaign for mayor:

Wasilla Mayor John Stein has filed his intent to run for re-election this fall. City Council member Sarah Palin also has filed to run for mayor. If elected, it would be Stein's fourth term as mayor. In a written statement announcing his candidacy, Stein said he would focus on providing public services, such as road paving, parks and recreation and public safety, while keeping costs down.

Palin, in a separate statement, said her priorities include making the Parks Highway the state's top transportation project, increasing recreational opportunities, increasing public input to the City Council, and promoting fiscal responsibility without raising taxes.

Sure glad she's got executive experience. If something should happen to McCain, it's great to know that the Parks Highway and the nation's recreational opportunities will be well managed.

www.candidatemccain.org

John Kerry's convention speech had some great lines comparing Senator McCain to Candidate McCain-

"To those who still believe in the myth of a 'maverick,' instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let's compare Senator McCain to Candidate McCain. Candidate McCain now supports the very war-time tax cuts that Senator McCain once called 'irresponsible.' Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain's own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding me, folks? Talk about being for it before you were against it. Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself."

In an impulse buy, I bought the rights to the www.candidatemccain.org the other day. Anybody who's got some web skills or ideas about how to use this, drop me a line at cnyexpat@gmail.com or leave suggestions in the comments.

The positive side of Obama's "celebrity"

The responses of McCain and Obama to the pending landfall of Hurricane Gustav show critical differences in how they would govern.

McCain and soul-mate Sarah Palin head the gulf to "check on preparations" at the invitation of Mississippi governor Haley Barbour. Given McCain's inability to understand that the ability to walk safely through Iraq as part of an armored column doesn't mean that Iraq is safe, I'll be interested to see what he's "checking..." The imagination strains trying to picture him scrutinizing sandbag walls for proper construction... Basically the standard-issue response from the GOP over the past 8 years of showing up to get some photo-ops at the disaster site, but not actually helping.

Obama on the other hand plans to use his influence and e-mail list to mobilize his supporters to volunteer and send money after the storm hits.

"We can activate an e-mail list of a couple million people who want to give back," he said. "I think we can get tons of volunteers to travel down there if it becomes necessary."

It would probably be terrible for America to have a president who could get people to volunteer and sacrifice in the face of an emergency...

Troopergate

TPM on Palin's "troopergate 2" scandal:

The available evidence now suggests that she 1) tried to have an ex-relative fired from his job for personal reasons, something that was clearly inappropriate, and perhaps illegal, though possibly understandable in human terms, 2) fired a state official for not himself acting inappropriately by firing the relative, 3) lied to the public about what happened and 4) continues to lie about what happened.

The whole article is definitely worth a read.

UPDATE: A local news report shows Palin and her crew caught in a lie about the scandal (via Andrew Sullivan):

Among other things, characterizing her firing of Walter Monegan, Chief of the Department of Public Safety, as being done for his failures to tackle alcohol smuggling issues... shortly after praising Monegan publicly about his great work tackling alcohol smuggling issues.

Thorough Vetting

The Syracuse Post-Standard has an interesting article this weekend on Auburn, NY native Meghan Stapleton, Palin's former speechwriter.

Friday, Stapleton, a former TV news anchor in Anchorage, was fielding calls from fellow reporters from all over the U.S., as well as urgent requests from the McCain campaign. "They (the McCain campaign) just called and said, 'Hey, can you write a summary statement on the governor's accomplishments?' " Stapleton said. "They don't' really have anybody up here to do this."

So the McCain folks, as of Friday when they were rolling out the Palin pick, didn't know enough to write a summary of Palin's accomplishments? Perhaps because McCain had only met her once before he picked her?

Too extreme for America

Along with the "ridiculously unqualified" argument against Sarah Palin, the press has been slow to pick up on how extreme many of her social positions are. She's clearly outside of mainstream conservative Republicanism:

• She supports teaching creationism in schools: In a 2006 gubernatorial debate, the soon-to-be governor of Alaska said of evolution and creation education, "Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of education. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."
  

• She raised money for Pat Buchanan's presidential run in 1996.

• She supports a total ban on abortion, even in cases of rape or incest.

• She appears to oppose condoms and birth control, even for married couples.

James Fallows makes a great point comparing Palin to Clarence Thomas:

Thomas was a shrewd choice not simply because his race made it more complicated for Democrats to oppose him but also because, once confirmed, all evidence suggested to conservatives that he'd be the kind of Justice they were looking for.

Palin's extreme conservative viewpoints should put her right at home with those who think Thomas is their kind of Supreme Court Justice.

I hear she's very popular in Alaska

A great article on Huffington Post about how Alaska newspapers don't believe Palin is qualified to be VP has a couple wonderful quotes from her GOP colleagues in the state:

His paper found a number of leading Republican officeholders in the state who mocked Palin's qualifications. "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Lyda Green, the president of the State Senate, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

Another top Republican, John Harris, the speaker of the House, when asked about her qualifications for Veep, replied with this: "She's old enough. She's a U.S. citizen."

Via Matt Yglesias,

Nothing says classy like laughing while a radio host calls your cancer-surviving political opponent a "cancer" and a bitch and makes fun of her appearance.

So it looks like Sarah Quayle-Palin did not in fact fight the "Bridge to Nowhere" project:

...she told the Anchorage Daily News on October 22, 2006, back when she was running for governor (via Nexis):

Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina
Island bridges?

Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner
rather than later. The window is now--while our congressional delegation is in a
strong position to assist.

So she was very much for the bridge and seemed to be saying that Alaska had to act quickly—Ted Stevens and Don Young might not be in the majority much longer to secure pork for the state.

That brings her accomplishments down to 1.) Moving the Alaska legislature from Juneau to Fairbanks and 2.) Lowering property taxes in Wassila. Both pressing matters for the nation.

This morning on MSNBC, Pat Buchanan said about Sarah Quayle-Palin (after conceding that she'd have trouble debating Joe Biden about foreign policy):

“She’s probably a lot better on trade, on jobs going overseas, on drilling than a lot of Republicans,” Mr. Buchanan said.

I don't really see how the first two of these make any sense. According to wikipedia,

The oil and gas industry dominates the Alaskan economy, with more than 80% of the state's revenues derived from petroleum extraction. Employment is primarily in government and industries such as natural resource extraction, shipping, and transportation.

Given that the state has no manufacturing to speak of, little in the way of exports other than seafood, and jobs in resource extraction can't be exported, I have a hard time imagining her having much experience with international trade or with jobs lost overseas. To the extent that she is more familiar with "drilling" than most Republicans, who cares? The last time I checked, the VP doesn't spend much time wildcatting for oil. In fact, coming from a state so reliant on oil makes her almost certainly overly focused on fossil fuels .

So after all the hype... McCain goes for... Sarah Palin?

Initial thoughts- she has less than two years as governor. Prior to that she was Mayor of charming Wassilla, AK (population 5,400) and was on the Alaska Oil Ethics Commission. As governor of Alaska (population ~650,000, somewhat smaller than Fort Worth, TX), her chief accomplishments seem to be being the first governor inaugerated in Fairbanks instead of Juneau and passing an ethics bill (which seems to be doing a lot to improve ethics in Alaska).

I'm baffled by why McCain thinks this is a good pick... It throws away his argument that Obama is inexperienced. Given tht Palin is a former beauty queen and her husband is a championship snowmobiler, it's hard to talk about Obama being a lightweight celebrity (if last night's speech didn't dispel that canard for good). On top of it, I wouldn't be surprised if many Americans forget that Alaska's a state. There's a reason we didn't see Hawaii mentioned in Obama's promo video or speech last night- the non-contiguous states are seen by many folks as not being really part of America.

On top of that, Palin seems to hate polar bears.

For Democrats, what's not to love?

Update: Since I posted someone has seriously edited Palin's wikipedia page to make the bio a lot more glowing than it was earlier. I'm hoping that the page will feature a chart comparing her experience to Spiro Agnew (2 years as governor) or Dan Quayle.

"America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this."

Awesome

The Dallas Morning News by way of TPM:

McCain's campaign seems to think that the easiest way to make sure everybody has health insurance is to tell the census department to stop listing people as "uninsured," because at the end of the day they can always go to the emergency room:

Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.
"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved

Why stop there? It seems like we could solve lots of problems this way. Eliminate the penal code, and the crime rate drops to zero! End welfare benefits, and nobody's on welfare anymore! Don't publish a "poverty line" and nobody's poor!

Voila! Problems solved.

If you missed it last night, you should definitely watch John Kerry's speech from last night's convention. Great comparison of the many differences between Senator McCain and Candidate McCain. The highlights:

I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let’s compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain.

Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral.

Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill.

Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Sen. McCain wrote.

Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you’re against it.

McCain sounds like he needs a nap in this interview with Time:

There's a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us?

Read it in my books.

I've read your books.

No, I'm not going to define it.

But honor in politics?

I defined it in five books. Read my books.

[Your] campaign today is more disciplined, more traditional, more aggressive. From your point of view, why the change?

I will do as much as we possibly can do to provide as much access to the press as possible.

But beyond the press, sir, just in terms of ...

I think we're running a fine campaign, and this is where we are.

Do you miss the old way of doing it?

I don't know what you're talking about.

Really? Come on, Senator.

I'll provide as much access as possible ...

In 2000, after the primaries, you went back to South Carolina to talk about what you felt was a mistake you had made on the Confederate flag. Is there anything so far about this campaign that you wish you could take back or you might revisit when it's over?

[Does not answer.]

Do I know you? [Says with a laugh.]

[Long pause.] I'm very happy with the way our campaign has been conducted, and I am very pleased and humbled to have the nomination of the Republican Party.

You do acknowledge there was a change in the campaign, in the way you had run the campaign?

[Shakes his head.]

You don't acknowledge that? O.K., when your aides came to you and you decided, having been attacked by Barack Obama, to run some of those ads, was there a debate?

The campaign responded as planned.

A commenter on "transactional politics"-

I thought parts of Michelle's speech provided an excellent message: hard work, perseverance, and all-American "pull yourself up by your bootstraps." That should be the Democratic Party's message. The raison d'etre of government--a government led by democrats--should be to give people that extra push that they need to achieve the American dream: lowering healthcare costs, stimulating an economy that lifts all boats in the same tide, working on infrastructure that lowers the price of energy and decreases the amount of environmental damage that our generation bequeaths to the next. Sometimes that function necessarily will have to involve extra help in the form of handouts or small market inefficiencies (such as raising the minimum wage), but that should not be the primary focus.

I'm still trying to make up my mind on the wisdom of straight-up redistributive policies that tax the rich in order to provide enhanced services (health-care, education, housing subsidies etc.) to the poor. I think in many cases, particularly involving helping to catch poor kids up with their better-off peers, that these policies can make a lot of sense. What I more specifically object to is a political system where the fruits of these policies (or even those aimed at the middle-class, like tax cuts or using the strategic petroleum reserve to reduce gas prices) are offered explicitly as a quid pro quo for votes ("Candidate X will lower your gas prices").

McCain's unbelieveably misleading new ad-

The script reads; "Iran. Radical Islamic government. Known sponsors of
terrorism. Developing nuclear capabilities to 'generate power' but threatening
to eliminate Israel. "Obama says Iran is a 'tiny' country, 'doesn't pose a
serious threat,'" the ad continues. "Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren't
'serious threats'? Obama -- dangerously unprepared to be president."

Obama's actual words:

Strong countries and strong Presidents talk to their adversaries. That's
what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's
what Nixon did with Mao. I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela -- these
countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious
threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were
willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, 'We're
going to wipe you off the planet.'

"And ultimately that direct engagement led to a series of measures that
helped prevent nuclear war, and over time allowed the kind of opening that
brought down the Berlin Wall," Obama continued. "Now, that has to be the kind of
approach that we take. You know, Iran, they spend one-one hundredth of what we
spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serio us threat to us, they
wouldn't stand a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we
have to be bold enough to go ahead and listen. That doesn't mean we agree with
them on everything. We might not compromise on any issues, but at least we
should find out other areas of potential common interest, and we can reduce some
of the tensions that has caused us so many problems around the world."

Via Political Punch

Really? This is what we're reduced to? Basically we could do a similar exercise on one of McCain's speeches, given to the National Sheriff's Association this July:

Maybe you have heard the story of an ex-inmate named Don Cox, who received
a sentence of 90 years for being an accomplice to a murder right here in
Indianapolis in 1978. Mr. Cox would likely have spent the rest of his life in
prison, had it not been for the efforts of another man named Tim Streett. In the
short version of a powerful story, Mr. Streett is the son of the victim, and had
even been a witness to his father's murder. He is also a witness to the
possibilities of redemption. After years of bitterness, Mr. Streett sought out
the prisoner. In time, he even became his friend. And it was he who asked
prosecutors to seek parole for Mr. Cox. As Tim Streett explains his change of
heart, "Anger and bitterness -- that can build up. But true forgiveness
says, 'I forgive you, and it's over.'"

Across a prison and jail population of 2.3 million souls, there may be
some who will never find or even seek this path. But the way should be open to
all. This was the spirit of the Second Chance Act of 2007, a law designed to
make the walk out of prison, past the gates and razor wire, a one-way journey.
Ex-convicts need more than a few bucks and a bus ticket out of town. Many will
need job training, a place to live, mentors, family counseling, and much more.
Beyond government, there are churches and community groups all across our
country that stand ready to help even more. And these groups will have the
committed support of my administration.

The ad: "John McCain wants to forgive murderers... With Americans losing their homes, he wants to use hard-working Americans' tax dollars to give ex-felons free homes. He thinks that the families of victims of crime are "angry and bitter" and that they should just forgive the perpetrators. John McCain- in the war on crime, whose side is he on?"

On TNR's The Stump, Eve Fairbanks, Noam Schreiber, Jonathan Chait and others have been out at the convention asking Hillary supporters what exactly it is that they want-

Daniel Kagan, Colorado Hillary delegate: There's a lot of bad blood to wash
away. I will hold my nose and vote for Obama, but there are a significant number
[of supporters] who won't. [Mollifying them] would take an acknowledgement that
he allowed his campaign to smear his opponent's camp, that he allowed his
supporters to smear the other candidate [Hillary]. If he were to acknowledge the
mistakes he made, I would be happy.

Richard Morgan, Texas Hillary delegate: I don't know if anything is
going to be satisfying, but a roll call vote would be great. [The roll call vote
is an especially contentious issue in Denver right now -- the other option is to
let Hillary delegates vote for their candidate at their delegate breakfasts, but
not on the floor.] If they don't let me vote for Hillary, why did we go through
this process? It's not necessarily going to put it right, but it would make the
democratic process better.

Denise King, New York Hillary delegate (now helping Obama on rural
issues, but explaining some of the attitudes of her fellow Hillary-ites): A roll
call vote is really important. If we vote for Hillary in the roll call here,
that doesn't mean we're not going to vote for Obama/Biden in November! For first
time delegates it's important for them to be able to say, "I went to the
convention, I cast my vote!" If it were the other way around [and Hillary had
won], we would say, "Of course" [there can be a roll call vote].

This goes to my last couple posts- although I may have been a bit snarky about the woman to whom Hillary means "faith... freedom...", the above comments hammer home the point that a lot of these folks are treating the primaries like some kind of children's sporting event where the important thing is that everybody should get a trophy and an awards ceremony. This reflects a fundamental lack of seriousness about politics- that there are in fact actual positive and negative outcomes of enormous magnitude that stem from electing one president versus electing another. Over four thousand American servicemembers have died in Iraq in a war that almost certainly wouldn't have been waged by a President Gore. The massive increase in the deficit and national debt brought on by the Bush administration has immediate consequences in the credit markets and untold consequences down the line in the way in which it restricts the policy options of future leaders. These are serious consequences and so the decision on which leader to elect should be a serious one, and I for one resent the way in which a handful of unserious malcontents have hijacked the past couple months of political discourse and hope that their actions don't wind up being a deciding factor in this election.

Watching the convention so far, I've found my feelings torn when listening to speeches that willfully mischaracterize the Republicans' positions. For instance, Hillary's speech tonight that indicated that McCain would "give oil companies windfall profits" and that Obama would somehow lower Americans' bills.

On the one hand, as a partisan, I like the fact that Dems are hitting back at the GOP in a way that will resonate with voters. On the other hand it's a bit sad that we have to resort to ridiculous distortions in order to make our points.

Hillary's speech also continued the transactional type of politics that her campaign featured, and implied that Obama would carry it on as well- that electing Democrats results in some kind of handout or wealth transfer to "the people." This is one of the things that most annoys me about the Clintons specifically and many Dems in general, and is a theme I hope Obama's campaign doesn't begin to echo.

A Hillary voter, when asked by Andrea Mitchell "what Hillary means to her as a woman":

"Faith... Freedom.... what she means to me as a woman"

I sense a lack of intellectual rigor in the Hillary Holdouts. Rachel Maddow made a great point that now that Hillary has expressed exactly why it's important for her voters to go with Obama, the remaining Hillary voters who claim they're going to vote with McCain are now basically outside of the debate.

From Time:

The McCain campaign welcomed delegates to Denver with a new ad Monday, showing
Debra Bartoshevich, a self-described "proud Hillary Clinton Democrat,"
announcing that she opposes Barack Obama and will vote for John McCain. To back
up the message, Republicans arranged a press-conference in Denver Monday morning
with Bartoshevich and other Clinton supporters, who are all now backing McCain.
Midway through the event, Bartoschevich was asked if she was concerned about
McCain's pro-life voting record. At a podium paid for by the Republican National
Committee, with McCain aide Carly Fiorina standing nearby, Bartoschevich said
this: "Going back to 1999, John McCain did an interview with the San Francisco
Chronicle saying that overturning Roe v. Wade would not make any sense, because
then women would have to have illegal abortions."

Definitely something that McCain spoke briefly about during his 2000 run, along with an aside to the press that he didn't know what he'd do if his then 15 year-old daughter wanted an abortion. On the other hand, McCain in this election has been stridently anti-Roe, bringing up his pro-life positions at every event. At the Saddleback forum he decisively answered that life begins at conception.

Either Bartoschevich and the other Hillary die-hards aren't paying attention (hard to believe), are deliberately deluding themselves, or are baldly lying about what McCain believes these days. The Democrats (and particularly Hillary in her speech on Wed.) need to stand up to these obfuscations of McCain's real positions.

The new issue of Wired has a great article about a company called Better Place started by Shai Agassi, a former exec at SAP. The Better Place business model is to separate the cost of an electric car from the cost of the battery. The customer would own the car, and would be able to charge the battery for free at Better Place charging stands located in various lots, or could charge the car at home. Because the charges would take up to 4-5 hours using existing technology, the customer could also quick-swap batteries for a fully charged one at a Better-Place licensed garage. A GPS-enabled program running in the car would locate charging stations and garages and keep track of when the driver would need to duck in for a recharge.

Right now the company is setting up operations in Israel and is looking to expand to Hawaii, both of which are small, densely populated areas that are essentially "islands" (Israel in a political sense) with few drivers who take the vehicles long distances. It seems to me that an easy way to expand this program and start putting the initial infrastructure into place in larger areas in the U.S. would be to partner with Zipcar or similar car-sharing services that 1.) cater to people usually driving shorter distances, 2.) have progressive/eco-friendly customer bases that would be interested (or probably ecstatic) in driving electric cars, and 3.) already have lots set up that could house the electric chargint stations.

In Frank Rich's column today, he writes about how Michael Phelps' 8 medals were a bright spot for a gloomy nation:

This was a rare feel-good moment for a depressed country. But the unsettling subtext of the Olympics has been as resonant for Americans as the Phelps triumph. You couldn’t watch NBC’s weeks of coverage without feeling bombarded by an ascendant China whose superior cache of gold medals and dazzling management of the Games became a proxy for its spectacular commercial and cultural prowess in the new century. Even before the Olympics began, a July CNN poll found that 70 percent of Americans fear China’s economic might — about as many as find America on the wrong track. Americans watching the Olympics could not escape the reality that China in particular and Asia in general will continue to outpace our country in growth while we remain mired in stagnancy and debt (much of it held by China).

An important point to keep in mind is that, even with the current downturn, the U.S. economy is vastly larger than those of the rest of the world's countries. This map, renaming each of the states with a country with an equivalent GDP, gives a great representation- note Russia's GDP is about equal to New Jersey's...

Scheiber makes a good point here-

to the extent Biden has sometimes gotten tangled up on the subject of race (see here, here, and here), I think it actually helps Obama. There are a lot of voters out there still getting their heads around the idea of an African American nominee. Among other things, they may not yet have the vocabulary to discuss Obama's candidacy without expressing some of their thoughts inartfully, and they don't want to get pilloried if they trip up. The Biden pick tells them, in effect, don't worry about it, this is tricky for all of us. It reassures them that an Obama presidency doesn't mean every word they speak will be parsed by the sensitivity police. And, perhaps most importantly, that Obama himself isn't fazed by an awkwardly-worded sentiment. This strikes me as pretty critical.

On the timing of the Biden announcement:

I'm thinking that the Obama folks might have made the announcement on Saturday morning, traditionally a slow time for news, in order to get all of the junk out of the media's system now before anyone's really paying attention. Rush Limbaugh noted a couple days ago that he had 20 years worth of audio clips stored up about Biden, and I'm sure the rest of the media has been stockpiling Biden's Neil Kinnock plagiarism, 7-11 comment, etc. I watched Joe Scarborough this morning playing a lot of it. My bet is that on a Saturday in the summer, most people will note that Biden is the VP nominee and then not pay much attention until the convention. The media, with nothing else to talk about, will get a lot of the bad stuff out of their system now, allowing Obama to roll out Biden on their own terms during the convention.

A friend of mine writes about the Obama campaign's "Seven Houses" ad:

Actually I have to say this is cheap and sordid, and I'm terribly disappointed in Obama.

First, I wonder in what context McCain said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," because I could easily hear McCain say "The fundamentals are strong...but we have a lot of work to do..." Or the phrase could simply mean what it says...our fundamentals (capitalism, a large work force, etc.) are indeed strong. In fact, the phrasing tells me that McCain knows there are problems that need fixing, or else he simply would have cluelessly said "our economy is strong," without the qualification.

As for the fact that Obama is pointing out that McCain owns seven houses, well, this is appalling for a politician talking about "change" and promising a breath of fresh air from the usual politics. Its instead the same tired and cheap classism that politicans love to use and just makes the world a more painful place in the end. You could have said the same (and indeed far, far worse) for FDR, who lived in landed luxury while people waited in breadlines. And yet, a great president who loved and cared for his fellow citizens like few others have.

So I'm very angry that Obama is claiming that wealth makes a candidate immediately and necessarily incapable of understanding people's problems. (After all, Obama's not struggling to pay the mortgage on his very lovely house by any means. Shall we show him sitting happily in his well-appointed living room in the ad?).

Attack McCain's stupidity, his hypocritical (and disappointing) shift to the right, his inane ideas on drilling, his support for Bush's failed policies, his clueless economic ideas in general, and do it intelligently with a view towards educating the public about what a good economic policy would be. Don't take cheap shots filled with the same old shit that you claim you're moving us beyond.

This ad, just on its own, now just re-complicated my voting decision, which was just recently clear. Or, if Obama is doing it because he knows it will work, it made my hate my fellow Americans.

I agree that the part about "the fundamentals of the economy" is probably taken out of context, and that McCain probably understands that there are immediate problems with the economy.

On the other hand, I think that it's perfectly fair for Obama to point out that McCain has seven houses. McCain and his campaign have been hitting Obama incredibly hard on being an elite, or an "arugula-eater" and otherwise out of touch with regular Americans in a way that implies that McCain is a regular, down-home guy instead of the son and grandson of Admirals who, outside of his relatively brief Navy career has spent very little time with regular Americans... as soon as he came back from Vietnam he and his ex-wife were regularly hanging out with the Reagans. McCain is also somebody who came from comfort and married into a massive fortune that's well out of the reach of most Americans. I'll grant that Obama also is certainly not worried about his financial solvency like many Americans, but he also didn't have money until his books (which unlike most politicians he actually wrote himself). Also, living in Chicago with a couple of million dollars is a lot less distancing than living on a ranch in Sedona with $100 million.

I agree that wealth is by no means a disqualification to high office, and that FDR and other presidents who came from money have been able to still care about the poor and middle class. The problem with McCain is that, outside of veterans and active duty service members, he doesn't in fact seem to care much about regular Americans. He's shown almost no interest in any kind of credible economic program, outside of further oil drilling (which indicates that he either doesn't understand economics at all or is willing to baldly lie to the nation). I think it's fair to point out that it's possible that disinterest in economic policy at least partially derives from his distance from the economic pain people are feeling.

In conclusion, I think it does Oama and the country no good to sit back and allow McCain's campaign to paint Obama as an out-of-touch elitist and McCain as a down-to-earth hero without punching back. I think the goal of this ad was to neutralize McCain's thrust in that direction, and to the extent that it's successful in doing so I'm glad that it was made.

Potential Readers,

For those of you who stopped by periodically a few years back while I was teaching, welcome back. For those just dropping in, welcome. I'm going to try to write now and again about politics (specifically the upcoming election), with a bit of tech, foreign relations and other things thrown in. The main goal will be to write down what's on my mind here instead of bothering my friends and colleagues about it verbally. Comments are of course welcome.

Ambinder notes-

In any event, Hillary Clinton has NOT been called. (There's "news" of her not-being vetted, but the New York Times reported this a while ago.) Evan Bayh has NOT been called.and Joe Biden has not only NOT been called, it appears that everyone associated with him as gone to ground.

I'm starting to think more and more that it may be Hillary. Stringing everybody along like this requires some kind of big payoff at the end, and I don't think that Chet Edwards counts.