The Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

posted by Scats : 9/13/2008 06:59:00 PM

...that is why the Bush machine put Sarah Palin next to John McCain. By arousing the hard core of vocal Christianists, they prepared the ground for the eventual redeployment of the same canard with which they justified their last unlikely "win": that millions of believers did the trick.

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In fact, that claim will be the secondary "explanation" for McCain and Palin's "win." The first, of course, will be Obama's race, and the sad "fact" that America's just not ready to vote for a black man." We will hear endlessly (as we have already) about "the Bradley effect," and how it struck again, with millions of white folks who had openly approved Obama suddenly deciding, in the sanctum of the voting booth, to vote like Klansmen, thereby electing John McCain.

And, if Obama "loses," we will also hear a lot of other "explanations," each of which will suit the interests--the politics and/or pet theory--of the person(s) offering it.

We'll hear from Clinton people that he lost because he didn't put her on the ticket. We'll hear from Michael Moore, Ralph Nader and The Nation that he lost because he ran too corporate-friendly a campaign. We'll also hear from Mark Penn and the Wall Street Journal that he lost because his campaign was too "populist."

George Lakoff will tell us that Obama lost because he failed to frame the issues properly, Thomas Frank will note that all those Kansas-types are still too dim to know what's good for them, and Thomas Friedman (among others) will point out that Obama lost because he never made that crucial "gut" connection with "Joe Six-Pack" (whom Friedman and those others know so well). Meanwhile, many others will ascribe Obama's loss to all the lies and slanders heaped upon him by McCain's campaign and its confederates, who, we'll hear repeatedly, "Swift-boated" him to death, just as they did to Kerry (as if Kerry really lost the last election).

Some of those assertions will be partly true--and all of them are sure to be irrelevant. For if McCain and Palin "win," that victory will either be a miracle (which is, of course, how some of their supporters will explain it) or just another massive rip-off, perpetrated right before our eyes. And no such miracle is likely; for there is still no reason to believe that that old man and his demented running mate have any broad appeal. The polls now putting them ahead are highly dubious, based on a ten-point over-sampling of Republicans, and crafted without any calls to cell phone users (who comprise a large part of Obama's base).

Otherwise there is no evidence of any large-scale movement toward McCain and Palin--who have to trek to theocratic enclaves, like Colorado Springs, in order to draw cheering multitudes, while Obama/Biden draw them everywhere they go. With Democrats all in a panic, let's recall how few Americans turned out to vote in the Republican primaries, and how few new voters the Republicans have registered to date. Compare that feeble record with the vastly larger numbers who came out for Obama (and for Clinton), and all those whom the Democrats have registered to vote. Since then, the prospects for McCain have not improved, regardless of the spin on Sarah Palin--for this economy is in the crapper, and he has said repeatedly that he just doesn't know about such things. That issue, and his wild commitment to a war that most Americans oppose, make his victory in November quite improbable, to say the least.

And there you have the reason why the GOP must, once again, deploy its giant criminal machine: to cut the Democrats' vast popular advantage. And it is happening right now, as you sit reading this, as each day brings in new reports of voters purged, machines "malfunctioning," ballots slyly misdesigned, and other measures meant to benefit McBush's party. (The fraud is not occurring "on both sides.") Such evidence is far more solid than the nervous speculation that Americans might vote on racial grounds--or the fantasy that Sarah Palin's co-religionists could really win it for McCain.

The theft of this next race is only possible because the Democratic Party and the media, and principled Republicans, have shut their eyes to this regime's crusade against American democracy. And now the only way to stop it--or, if it does happen yet again, resist it-- is to face it at long last, and talk about it openly. It's therefore not enough to raise more money for the Democrats, and not enough to get more voters registered, and get them to the polls; and not enough to spread the word about McCain and Palin, or to try to get the media to do a decent job; and not enough to fight the smears and lies about Obama, and to demand that he and/or the Democrats get tougher.

While all of those activities are crucial, they'll amount to nothing if the race is finally rigged, and most Americans don't know a thing about it. And so, whatever else we're doing, we must also speak out loud and clear about that possibility. Otherwise, if that disaster should befall us, we will be as much to blame for it as those Republicans who pulled it off, and all those Democrats who let them get away with it.

posted by Scats : 9/12/2008 10:30:00 PM

Dirty Tricks Starting Already in Ohio

The Cincinnati Enquirer has a story about dirty tricks in Ohio intended to influence the election there. The McCain campaign printed a form on which a voter can request an absentee ballot and sent out about 1 million of them. The form included an unnecessary box asking if the voter was eligible to vote. If the voter didn't notice the box and didn't check it, he or she is in fact admitting that he or she is not eligible and the application has to be rejected by law. Secretary of state Jennifer Brunner is hopping mad about this stunt but she is required by law to reject invalid applications.

posted by Blicero : 9/12/2008 08:08:00 PM

Ms. Walters also noted that Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin have said that her job will be to reform Washington. But, she pointed out, Mr. McCain has been in Congress for 22 years, the Republicans have been in the White House for eight years, so who, exactly, is Ms. Palin going to reform?

“The Democrats have been in charge of both houses for the last two years,” Mr. McCain replied.

Pressed, he added: “The Republicans, the Democrat party, even the independents. She’ll reform all of Washington.”

How?

“By doing what she did in Alaska.”

What, exactly?

“First of all, earmark spending, which she vetoed a half a billion dollars worth in the state of Alaska.”

But she also put earmarks in, Ms. Walters noted.

“Not as governor she didn’t,” Mr. McCain said.

But as governor, she did. As the Anchorage Daily News, among others, has reported, in Ms. Palin’s first year as governor, she requested 52 earmarks valued at $256 million, and this year, her office asked the Alaska delegation in Washington to help land 31 earmarks valued at $197 million. Also, Citizens Against Government Waste ranks Alaska as having received the “most pork per capita” of all states this year.

Mr. McCain said that Ms. Palin “freed Alaska for the first time,” saying she “took government out of the hands of the special interests and the oil companies and the old-boy network and gave it back to the people of Alaska” and “that’s what we have to do in Washington.”

But what exactly will she do?

“The same thing,” Mr. McCain replied. “Break the old-boy network, the special interests that control our agenda in Washington.”

Ms. Behar brought up two of his recent ads against Mr. Obama, one suggesting that when Mr. Obama had used a colloquial expression about putting “lipstick on a pig,” he was referring to Ms. Palin and the other suggesting that Mr. Obama wanted sex education for children. “We know those two ads are untrue, they’re lies,” she said, and yet at the end of each, Mr. McCain’s voice says he approves of those messages.

“They are not lies,” Mr. McCain said.

posted by Blicero : 9/12/2008 07:36:00 PM

"Listen, mayors have the toughest job, I think, in America. It's easy for me to go to Washington and, frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have."

posted by Dawkins : 9/12/2008 01:56:00 PM

A new intelligence forecast predicts US global dominance will decline in the coming decades. The “Global Trends 2025” report says US military power will take on less importance, because no one will attack the US “with massive conventional force.” The report also foresees US leadership declining “at an accelerating pace" in "political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas.” The reports sees global climate change as a major force that will drastically alter geopolitics.

posted by Scats : 9/12/2008 01:37:00 PM

In fact, although it is the centerpiece of Ms. Palin’s relatively brief record as governor, the pipeline might never be built, and under a worst-case scenario, the state could lose up to $500 million it committed to defray regulatory and other costs.

posted by Dawkins : 9/11/2008 11:03:00 AM

Dude! This election is like totally weird!

Last winter, Barack Obama succeeded by running a weird campaign.

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But over the course of the spring, Obama’s campaign got less weird.


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But by campaigning in this traditional way, Obama ceded the weirdness edge to McCain.

The old warrior jumped right in. Think about how weird last week was.

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If I were advising the candidates, I’d tell them to double down on weirdness.

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remember: Weirdness wins.

posted by Scats : 9/09/2008 05:07:00 PM

The McCain campaign wanted to frame this election on experience, but had to abandon that when the polls didn't move. The surge issue has likewise attracted no great interest. Although McCain continues to discuss it, as a theme, he has ditched it in favor of this murky "change/reform" theme. (By selecting Sarah Palin, the campaign has officially ceded the point.) This all works to Obama's advantage because if the discussion becomes one of change, it must necessarily shift to policy--the last place McCain wants to go. But he's backed himself into a corner.

Obama has run his general campaign with exactly the kind of pacing he ran the primary. It's not always clear why he's doing certain things because they don't correspond to the daily news cycle. That's because he has planned the entire campaign in advance. You can see how he's hit his marks as he's gone along: after he won the primary, he immediately tacked right and demonstrated his "working across the aisles" theme. The trip abroad was designed to elevate him to a presidential figure and deflate the claims of his inexperience. The convention was a way to simultaneously build momentum among the base and lay a foundation for elevating the discussion above Rovian BS and placing it directly on issues via the change argument.

We exit the convention right on schedule. Obama has set the table, and the Republicans have come to dine. I have little doubt but that the Obama camp feels it's right where it wants to be.

posted by Scats : 9/08/2008 02:53:00 PM

Palin's Politics and Family Blur

VP nominee's most compelling public persona is that of a coiffed and charismatic working mother.

posted by Blicero : 9/07/2008 02:05:00 PM