The Vig

Seems pretty simple to me.

TPM is reporting tonight that the Clintons believe they’ve given Obama most of if not all of the information he’s asked for.  Parse that sentence for a minute and you understand why she must be kept out of this White House and walled off in the Senate.  There’s just too damned much baggage and too many leaks.  Even now.

Do I believe he’ll offer her the position?  Yeah, I do.

But….

If he doesn’t, what a brilliant move.  He’s forced them to give up everything, willingly.  Now should they decide to run against him in 2012, he’ll have the dirt from 2000-present.  You think that might be valuable?  So do I.

I don’t believe Obama would be that cold, but I would love it if he were.

NPR had a little bit on Obama the poker player last night.  In it, they interviewed James McManus, who’s Positively Fifth Street remains one of the greatest poker stories ever written.  McManus wrote an article on Obama back in February when he was still locked in battle with Hillary.

Obama’s analytical mind helped him excel at draw, stud, and hold ’em, and also at the sillier, more luck-based variants of the game that other players chose, such as baseball. Yet, even with the beer drinking and cigarette smoking, there were unspoken rules of conduct. When a married lobbyist arrived at a Springfield game with a person described as “an inebriated woman companion who did not acquit herself in a particularly wholesome fashion,” Obama made a face indicating that he wasn’t pleased. Link says that the lobbyist and his date were “quickly whisked out of the place.”

Obama never played for high stakes. Only on a very bad night could a player drop two hundred dollars in these games, typical wins and losses being closer to twenty-five bucks. Link describes Obama as a “calculating” cardplayer, avoiding long-shot draws and patiently waiting for strong starting hands. “When Barack stayed in, you pretty much figured he’s got a good hand,” former Senator Larry Walsh once told a reporter, neglecting to note that maintaining that sort of rock-solid image made it easier for Obama to bluff.

It will be fun to watch the Republicans bluster and bluff during his first 100 days and see if they can knock him around a little. Despite the fact he took down the two best political machines in the country in just under a year, they still don’t respect him.  I’ve no idea why not.

As it should.  From Slog:

Ms. Dunham’s absentee mail ballot was received and reviewed under the Hawaii standards for processing absentee mail ballots… She was alive at that time. Her ballot will be opened tomorrow, and it will be counted in the same way that all absentee voters would be treated under our law.

Imagine the joy Mrs. Dunham must have felt when she opened her ballot and saw her grandson’s name. I can’t.

Look who took his daughter out trick-or-treating last night.

Seriously. What’s not to like there?

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.

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.

So close, yet so far away.

I was out of town last weekend when Obama selected Biden to be his VP.  I exchanged a few texts with friends and advisers as I drove across the high desert.  Mostly they sought assurance that Biden would be a decent pick, particularly after I knocked him around a bit.  I remember thinking at the time that should Obama lose the election, the post-mortem surrounding Biden’s selection would be a most interesting read.  There had to have been another camp suggesting a different pick.  Ultimately it was Barry’s decision, and it’s one I can live with.  Biden will make a fine post-Cheney administrator, which is what Obama needs.

This Palin thing is a stumper.  When I first heard it, I immediately thought it was a cheap pander to the disaffected Hillary supporters.  And it is.  But in a way, I think it was the perfect pick for McCain.  He needed someone who could bridge the gap between his right wing and the moderates.  Someone who could be acceptable to both.  Romney wasn’t that person.  Neither was Rudy.  Or, really, Pawlenty.

In Palin you get a combination of Patty Murray’s “mom in tennis shoes” and Jan Crouch, with a little Charlton Heston thrown in.  Perfect!

The problem is the selection has completely turned off the very people it was meant to attract.  Betty with Sunglasses emailed this morning to ask if she should be worried about the selection.

“Worried?” I said, “the selection is aimed straight at you!  Outdoor-loving mom who loves her man and the baby Jesus.  What’s not to love?”

Betty, once a Hillary supporter, is 100% for Obama these days.  She’s exactly the voter McCain wants.  The thing is, I suspect that neither Betty nor the millions like her sees themselves in Palin.  Certainly not in McCain.  And that’s a problem.  If you’re going to gamble on one particular voting bloc (the voting Bettys!), you’d better be damn sure you understand them.  McCain and the Republicans don’t.

This lack of understanding won’t, however, keep Hannity and his ilk from beating Betty over the head with the fact she’s a hypocrite for supporting Hillary because she was a woman while failing to support Palin.  Guilt tripping those you’re trying to woo is not a good way to make friends and influence people.  In fact, it pisses them off.  Betty is more pro-Obama now than when she woke up.  Like I said…fascinating.

Sidebar: You know what else is fascinating?  This.  Give it a few minutes.  It’s really a slow burn.  It’ll sneak up on you.  Genius does that sometimes.  End Sidebar.

Sullivan was on fire today discussing everything from the origins of her kids names (could you imagine if Obama had named one of his children Willow?) to observations from Alaska.  My thoughts, however come back to that 3am wake-up call that Hillary asked us to imagine.  Is Palin ready for something like that?  Sullivan ponders:

It occurs to me that some on the right actually think that Obama is as inexperienced and as trivial a figure as Palin. So ask yourself: could Sarah Palin have run a national election campaign against, say, a machine as powerful as the Bush family, and won? Does she have the skill set to construct a campaign that would actually have brought her to the nomination herself? I find the comparison with Obama ludicrous. But it will be made. Palin looks to me like a lovely person and a good local politician, with some inevitable rough spots. I’d be delighted if she took a leadership role in the GOP in the future. But in the same league as Obama? Do Republicans really think that little of him?

I guess they do. We are looking at a different person.”

Had Hillary won the Dem nomination, would McCain have gone with Jindal to try and capture the “I wanted to vote for the brown-skinned guy” vote?

The clincher, and the one which should give McCain’s people the most pause, was the email I received from Pete in Parkrose.

Well, it’s official. My in-laws never liked McCain, and Palin is the proverbial straw. It helps that they already liked Obama to begin with, and now they will be voting democrat for the first time in their LIVES.

I can feel better about my conscience knowing that they turned the corner with me. I think he’ll get my vote.