The Vig

A phrase which drives me absolutely insane is “you’re too young to remember, but…”  I’ve heard that way too much in my life.  I’m careful to never use it around anyone younger than me.  It’s condescending and arrogant.

I’ve had a few conversations with friends and relatives about Obama over the last year-and-a-half.  Not all of them invoke the “you weren’t around” phrase, but they almost all bring up 1968 when they think about Obama.  That’s something I haven’t allowed myself to think about.  While I remain convinced that the hatred of Al Gore was so intense in 2000 that he wouldn’t have survived his first term, I’ve believed that should Obama be elected, that he would make it.  Reading this stuff, however, gives me pause.

“And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,’” [Palin] continued.”Boooo!” the crowd repeated.

“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.

Was the guy talking about Obama or Ayers? I don’t think anyone but the man knows.  But if Palin’s rhetoric is generating this sort of response, and she’s linking the two as equals…does it matter?

Watching McCain and Palin whip the crazies into a frenzy is a frightening thing.  It’s the last move of a desperate campaign.

I proudly voted for McCain in 2000.  I thought he was the right guy.  Now I wonder if I ever knew him at all.

The Asian markets have only been open for a few minutes, but already they’re liking what they see of the Treasury Department’s plan.  The Shanghai Composite is up over 8.5%.  I don’t get it, but whatever.  Hopefully silver gets knocked down a little tomorrow so I can pick some more up cheap.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. John McCain’s chief economic advisor, and likely McCain Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm, scored a major coup today by getting one of his clients, UBS, written into the bailout.  Like you, I’m looking forward to hearing Senator McCain’s thoughts on Senator Gramm’s lobbying efforts

I sat and watched the Charlie Gibson-Sarah Palin interview with a couple friends of mine last night.  While I wouldn’t call them conservative Christians, they’re certainly right of center.  Pro-family, pro-life.  Anyway, they both sat and watched the interview and as it went on, they kept making comments like “can you believe that?” and “she has no idea what she’s talking about!”

These are two voters at whom the Palin nomination is aimed.  I asked them at the end whether she’d persuaded them.  Both answered yes.  They’re voting for Obama.

It’s a small sampling, I know, but I think there are a lot more like them out there.  At least I hope there are.

If you missed it on SNL last night, here’s the open in all it’s dead-on glory. I hope this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Tina Fey as Palin.

I emailed a friend in Ohio this afternoon to get a gauge on the mood there.  Ohio is the swing state this time around; whoever wins there will most likely be the new president.  The guys at the 538 have Ohio officially as a toss-up, but they include it in the red column.  If the election were held today, the 538 guys have McCain winning with just 272 electoral votes.

Ohio.  Ohio.  Ohio.

Anyway, I asked my friend if anyone there was even paying attention right now.  Afterall, Ohio State is playing USC this weekend.  He assured me no one cared about Obama and McCain.  For the next 72-hours, it’s all about Beanie Wells’ toe.

It’s been ten days since McCain announced his choice for vice president.  She has yet to face the press and may not for another two weeks.

Sullivan suggests she’s more of a chihuahua.

The strategy here is actually pretty cagey on the part of the Republican machine.  Rather than risk sending her out to make some sort of a gaffe, why not send the press into a tizzy and have them make the gaffes instead.  the reverse-double-whammy.  Genius, if you think about it.

Meanwhile, the propaganda machine will keep churning out junk like this.  And when that doesn’t work, just fill the press’ mouths with words.

You’re going to hear a couple of pro-Palin arguments bubble to the top over the next few weeks.  The first is that she’ll be surrounded (insulated?) by some really smart advisors.  They’ll do the thinking for her.  If you think back, one of my major concerns in 2000 was the fact GWB seemed sort of dumb.  The “he’s surrounded himself with really smart people (Rumsfeld, Condi, Ashcroft, Gail Norton!, Mel Martinez, Christie Whitman…you get the idea)”, so if he finds himself out of his depth, he can just consult with one of them.  That was good enough for me in 2000.  It doesn’t hold water this time around.

The second is actually a question rather than an argument.

Who vetted Barack Obama?

This is an RNC talking point which, when repeated by a member of Oregon’s delegation to the Republican convention last week, went unchallenged by Bob Miller.  Who vetted Barack Obama?  The same people who vetted Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee.  They’re called voters.  We’ve had over a year now to get to know Obama.  He’s been run through both the Clinton wringer and Hannity’s.  And he survived it all.  So don’t give me this “Obama was never vetted” crap.

The longer they hide Palin, the more I think the Republicans risk this thing coming back and biting them in the rear.

Mudflats says Sarah Barracuda is heading home for the next week.  If true, this will be a grave mistake.  In the next seven days, she will at least need to spend an hour getting massaged by Hannity.  And if she the McCain campaign is smart, she’ll need to spend another half-day doing phone interviews with the Lars Larsons of the world.  Doing these from Juneau instead of Columbus, where she would be taking her message directly to the voters they need, would be asinine.

A week out of the spotlight may wipe out her advantage after her week in St. Paul.

Support from other Americans and Alaskans is needed also to move forward with the proposed bridge between Revillagigedo and Gravina islands, she said. “People across the nation struggle with the idea of building a bridge because they’ve been under these misperceptions about the bridge and the purpose,” said Palin, who described the link as the Ketchikan areas potential for expansion and growth.
Ketchikan Daily News August 9, 2006

“Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer,” said Governor Palin. “Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island,” Governor Palin added. “Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened.” The Department of Transportation has approximately $36 million in federal funds that will become available for other projects with the shutdown of the Gravina Island bridge project. Governor Palin has directed Commissioner Leo von Scheben to review transportation projects statewide to prepare a list of possible uses for the funds, while the department also looks for a more affordable answer for Gravina Island access.
The governor’s official website. 9/21/2007

“She didn’t make the announcement here in Ketchikan. She didn’t alert local mayors that she’d made the decision. She didn’t notify Ketchikan’s Representative or Senator, or even the Congressional delegation, apparently, that a decision was made and an announcement was on its way. No, the effective end of three decades of effort towards a bridge was announced in a press release launched – perhaps coincidentally – early in the day to meet the East Coast media deadlines.”

Ketchikan Daily News Editorial, 10/11/07 - on Palin’s abrupt decisions to cancel the bridge funding by sending out a 5am press release to hit East Coast news cycles.

Fast forward to last night…

“I told the Congress “thanks, but no thanks,” for that Bridge to Nowhere.  If our state wanted a bridge, we’d build it ourselves.”

So now Alaskans never wanted the bridge?  Weird.  But she still took the money Congress had already given her.  Nice.  I wonder what that went toward instead.

She’d used that line a time or two over the weekend, but was shocked when she went back to it again last night.  The people of Alaska know what she said.  And they know that when the political winds shifted, so did she.

That speech last night scared the heck out of me because it was delivered well and with a smile.  But it’s a long time between now and election day.  You get the feeling that some of those images and quotes could come back to haunt them come mid-October.

I got into blogging by answering a forum post on O-Live back in 2004.  Kevin “Velveeta” Cosgrove originally brought two of us in to give our insights into the election and blog our thoughts in what turned out to be near real time.  My partner was David B. Wright.  He’s now writing at TwoPennies.

David made up his mind fairly early on that he would be voting for Kerry.  I still had a lot of post-Limbaugh baggage to overcome and didn’t make up my mind until late-October that things had to change.

He doesn’t post much these days, given the fact he’s now got a big boy job down in Las Vegas which allows him to have both a mortgage and a nice sled.  But every now and then he’ll pop-up with some thoughts on what’s going on in politics.  He’s made no secret he’s voting for McCain this time around, partly out of dislike for Obama, but mostly because he prefers the idea of divided government.  Fine.

I asked him yesterday whether Palin changed his calculus at all.  The answer?

McCain could have picked a ham sandwich (to paraphrase) as his running mate, and I still would have to vote for him for the good of the country.  That I happen to like him, and distrust Obama, makes that choice easier.  That he made a questionable pick for VP is a bit troublesome, but I understand entirely why he made that choice.  I’d have chosen differently, myself, but that’s OK.

Gulp.

McCain’s choice, his first true executive decision, shows an impulsive, risk taking side that I don’t think this country can handle during this time of both domestic and worldwide uncertainty.  In my mind it truly is more of the same.  And while I sympathize with Wright’s idea that government is at its best when its divided, I don’t think we can allow a religious zealot to be this close to the seat of power.  Especially post-Bush/Cheney.  This was the argument against Huckabee, you’ll recall.  Two years, or even four, of one-party rule will not bring this country down.  The Dems are particularly afraid of their own shadows and will not stray too far from the middle, no matter their rhetoric.

The question on everyone’s minds now is how many Davids are out there?  We’ll know sooner rather than later.

This guy is good.

Now, we’d like to welcome our newest player to the growing cast of characters in our little drama – Thomas Van Flein. Mr. Van Flein (don’t you just have to say that with an accent?!) has been hired to represent Palin in the upcoming legislative investigation into the firing of Commissioner Walt Monegan.

“But wait!” you may be asking, “What about the state Attorney General? Why can’t he handle this?” Why not AG Talis Colberg? Well, he’s the one that Palin sent out to do a pre-emptive sleuthing campaign to see what the Legislature was going to find out when they investigated her. Just so she’d have a heads up. So now Colberg, who has already been talking to everybody and his uncle about the Trooper, including Walt Monegan, has now opened himself up to being called as a witness! So he’s out. (And incidentally, he’s also going to take over the role of Governor of Alaska should Palin end up as the VP, and her Lt. Governor Sean Parnell win his bid for Alaska’s sole House seat. My head hurts).

Mine does too.  Alaska is a Republican version of Louisiana and this guy knows all the ins and outs.

Someday McCain will regret not leaving this can of worms in a Wal Mart parking lot outside of St Paul and just driving away.  I know he loathes Romney, as do I, but he would have been a much better candidate for the #2 spot.