Obama's Ridiculously Strong Cabinet

It's safe to say that Obama is pulling out all the stops when it comes to assembling his Cabinet. On Monday Obama announced his national security team, which includes, among others, Bush's Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, and John McCain's former foreign policy advisor, James Jones, as Obama's National Security Advisor. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, and, of course, New York Sen. and former Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. He will also nominate New Mexico Gov. and former Presidential candidate Bill Richardson as Commmerce Secretary. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle will be Secretary of Health and Human Services. He recruited Rahm Emanuel, a rising Dem star in the House and who was well-known to have aspirations to be Speaker of the House, to serve as his Chief of Staff.

Choosing people from Bush's Cabinet and the McCain campaign demonstrates Obama's supreme confidence in his management abilities. He said when introducing Gates that "I will make policy" and "the buck stops with me," even though he has selected a man who very publicly disagreed with him on Iraq, the central issue which will be run by Gates' department in Obama's administration. Cabinet Secretaries, particularly those Obama has selected, are not politically powerless, and they tend to be protective of their power and influence. But Obama, choosing Gates, believes that he can keep Gates in line on this very important issue.

There are two reasons why I'm potentially thrilled about the selection of Gates, assuming Obama indeed will be able to set Pentagon policy, which I trust he will be. One is that Gates has already been running the Defense Department for years, so he figuratively (and, sadly, literally) knows where the bodies are buried. It's also fabulous that Gates, and Jones as well, will provide opposing viewpoints. One of the biggest factors that lead to the problems during the run-up to Iraq was that pretty much everyone around the President was a neocon who thought the war was a good idea. Wall Street is in such deep doggy-do because just about every financial CEO had an Ivy League MBA and thought CDO's were the bee's knees. When it comes to foreign policy, Obama will have within his own Cabinet viewpoints from men who disagree.

Having two former Democratic primary opponents in his Cabinet, as well as another as his VP, raises the risk of Secretaries looking after their own political interests before the Administration's. I don't think you'll find many people who would argue with Clinton and Richardson being the best-qualified Democrats to hold a Cabinet-level position, so there is also a significant benefit to these selections. It will be up to Obama's management skill, as well as his political muscle, to keep these two in line and put their massive qualifications to good use. Same goes for Emanuel, though it's pretty hard to score political points for yourself when you're Chief of Staff. Actually, I'm convinced Obama picked Emanuel only because in Hebrew "Rahm" and "Barack" translate to "thunder" and "lightning".

Selecting Napolitano also is not without negatives because, according to Arizona law, she will be replaced by the current Arizona Secretary of State, who is a Republican. It also robs the Democrats of a very strong chance to defeat John McCain in 2010 when he runs for another Senate term; Napolitano is the strongest Democrat in the slightly red state and the only Dem with a good chance of taking McCain's seat, so it's no coincidence that McCain spoke publicly and strongly in support of Napolitano's nomination. Just because they didn't get to 60 Senate seats this time doesn't mean they wouldn't have a chance next time around. Choosing Napolitano makes it significantly less likely. Clearly, Obama is aware of this implication of her nomination, so he must really think she's gonna be a great Homeland Security Secretary.

By assembling such a strong Cabinet, in name, stature, and diversity of opinion, Obama is raising expectations for his Administration. With such power in the Executive branch, as well as near-dominance of the Legislative, Obama is setting the table for a strong government. It'll be pretty much make-or-break time for the Democratic Party. They've got their all-star team in the Executive branch, so they have no excuses if they fail.

Thanks, Bravo...

I was pleased to discover this morning that Bravo was having a mini West Wing marathon this morning; few things get the Democrat heart pumping three days before an election like some good liberal Presidential porn. They even included an episode featuring a wonderful soliloquy by Toby about not jinxing fate by celebrating before an expected outcome is final. But it ended on an awful note. The last scene in the marathon was of the President being shot by racially-motivated attackers.

I am absolutely terrified that Obama is going to be killed at some point during his (still-potential) Presidency. He is the first leader with both the ability and the (still-potential) political mandate to do all the things progressives want government to do. And it seems, I know this is crazy, like he actually believes in the issues he advocates. Like, Mrs. Doctor and I were discussing our federal student loans vis-a-vis the credit crisis the other day, and we wondered if it were possible that student loan programs might be cut. But then we realized that if Obama were elected, aid for higher education would be just about the last thing to be cut. How great is that? We're looking at the possibility of a talented leader fighting for a liberal agenda he truly believes in!

Which, if history is any guide, means that he's going to be assassinated. If there's any doubt that some Americans want to see it happen, check out a McCain/Palin rally.

Are They Trying to Make Us Complacent?

News items from the day:

-The RNC, who because of McCain's accepting public financing is doing most of the spending for the GOP, is spending money in West Virginia (Bush+13) and Montana (Bush+20). There is no chance, none, that this can be explained as anything other than an attempt to avoid a BLOWOUT. Like, before Obama wins West Virginia or Montana, he's going to win Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Missouri and Indiana. Their apparent goal in spending in these states is to lose 375-163 instead of 383-155. Clearly, their goal is to make everyone think they're giving up, only to hope that it rains or something in all those above states and we, out of complacency, decide to not bother voting. I mean, they're desperate to avoid 60 Democratic Senators, and it sure seems like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) or Roger Wicker (R-MS) would be a better use of that money than making a huge blowout into a not-quite-so-huge blowout.

-The McCain campaign continues to implode. A McCain advisor called Palin a "whack job". Senior McCain aide Douglas Holtz-Eakin asked, re: McCain's health plan, "Why would they [younger workers] leave [their employers' health plan]? What they are getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit." I'm almost thinking they want us to quit advocating for Obama, since they're doing such a good job of doing it themselves.

I, I just can't believe it's even possible that Obama isn't going to win by a lot. But we must turn to the Simpsons for a lesson about complacency. Remember when Bart ran for class president against Martin? He had the support of a vast majority of the class, but everyone was having too much fun at Bart's victory party to actually vote, so Martin's own vote (along with that kid who throws up all the time whose name I can't remember. I am shamed) carried the underdog to victory. So, especially since most of my readers live in OH, PA and WV, please get out there and vote! Maybe even knock on some doors. At least make sure your family members and friends go to the polls. It's important!

We're All Distributionists

Over on Drudge, Rush, Hannity etc., a lot is bring made of this interview from 2001 with State Sen. Barack Obama on a Chicago radio station. In it, Obama says that one of the failures of the civil rights movement is that it failed to bring about "distributive change" and "redistribution of wealth". The reason it failed, he said, was that the movement focused on litigation, not legislation; courts are limited in how dramatically they can shift away from society at large.

Based on the interview, as well as statements from such luminaries as Sarah Palin and John McCain, it's clear that the "redistribution of wealth" Obama is referring to means a fairly standard slate of liberal ideas, such as a progressive tax structure (i.e., one where the rich pay a higher rate than the poor).

All but the most economically-conservative support the idea of a progressive structure. Obama happens to be in favor of one that is more progressive than the one McCain, President Bush and the Republicans favor. How this makes him a socialist or crypto-Marxist is beyond me.

McCain accused his opponent of supporting a "giveaway" for some while raising taxes on others because the tax cuts that Obama advocates for the working poor are refundable, meaning that, if the cuts result in your total taxes due being less than $0 (or they are less than $0 already), the gub'mint will cut you a check. This idea of refundable tax cuts/credits was first instituted as the "Earned Income Tax Credit" (EITC), which aimed to help out poor folk with jobs. It was signed into law by Republican Gerald Ford.

And who was the crypto-Marxist who, while signing into law a bill which expanded the EITC (i.e., increased the size of checks given to the working poor, like Obama wants to do), called the EITC "the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress"? That's right! Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Devastating Piece on Taxes

Here's a piece from CNN.com that destroys the myth of Obama destroying America's small businesses through being a dirty tax-and-spender. The whole thing's worth a read, but let me summarize. Turns out that, even with McCain's ridiculous definition of what constitutes a small business (he and Obama both qualify because of thier book income), it's only the top tiny portion of "small" business owners who would be affected. With any reasonable definition, it's tinier still. So, in a nutshell, it's exactly like every other Republican tax plan ever: cuts for the rich wrapped in populist rhetoric.

Turn Out the Lights

If you've never seen a presidential poll prior to last night's debate, you'd still be able to tell that Obama was significantly ahead. He was in his prevent defense, willingly giving up some ground to avoid risking a huge loss.

He seemed to be ok with fighting on McCain's ground, especially on taxes early in the debate. McCain pretty resoundingly trounced Obama early on in the debate. Obama was unwilling to give a full-throated defense of taxing the rich, which makes sense if you're just looking to not piss anyone off. Oddly, however, he didn't do much to tie McCain to Bush on taxes, which is about the easiest issue to do so.

Segregation sucked and everything, but McCain, while discussing John Lewis's George Wallace comments, calling it "the worst chapter in American history" was a bit over the top. Were I an African-American, I'd much rather be in the South in 1956 than 1856. But maybe that's just me

I loved McCain's use of the hatchet/scalpel metaphor to explain his budget freeze: "We need both a hatchet and a scalpel." Watching the debate from the hospital, I was picturing the surgeons on the 5th floor getting started in the OR by jamming a hatchet into someone's gut, then using the scalpel to actually get the appendix.

Obama, later in the debate, came back to McCain's "hatchet" spending freeze when discussing aid for special needs children and their families being an example of an area that needs more funding. Great move to try to break through McCain's ridiculous and hollow budget-buster persona.

Twice during this debate season, once tonight and once at the first debate, McCain derided Obama's insistence that new nuclear power plants be safe, labelling him an "environmental extremist". Really? From last night, "Senator Obama will tell you, as the extreme environmentalists do, that it has to be safe." Who knew Obama was such a pussy

If you wanted to identify the exact moment where McCain ruined any last chance he might have had of winning the election, here it is:


Just a stunning slap at the clear majority of Americans who are pro-choice. It's even a slap at those pro-life people who, ya know, don't hate women.

Obama succeeded on the abortion question by, as he had during much of the debate on cultural issues like vouchers and charter schools, reaching for the center. Instead of staking out a bold and somewhat extreme position as McCain did, he basically said "I'm pro-choice, but I'm not 100% sure I'm right".

So, in the end, while McCain was rhetorically the more successful candidate last night, and "won" the debate, it's an empty victory because Obama prevented a knockout. It would take a huge change, and the only one that seems at all realistic is another terrorist attack on US soil, for McCain to have an chance.

Reconsidering McCain's Strategy

After attacking McCain's campaign strategy in a recent post, I have reconsidered. It turns out that Palin was not, in fact, going to campaign in West Virginia, which would have been a ridiculous decision, because if he might lose West Virginia, he's certainly lost the election. She was just landing in WV and then campaigning in Ohio, which makes much more sense.

But it also does make sense for McCain to campaign in states like Iowa. As it stands now, McCain is going to get crushed. Just utterly obliterated. He'll make Bob Dole look like Samuel Tilden. There is not nearly enough time before Election Day for McCain to fight back to a tie state-by-state. It's going to take a huge event, like Obama calling McCain a cracker tomorrow night or an al Qaeda attack, for McCain to get close to reversing the 8 point deficit he faces right now; campaigning in Iowa instead of North Carolina or vice versa isn't going to win him the election. But if every states moves 6 or 7 points to the GOP, then it's states like PA, VA, and IA which are going to decide the election. There is absolutely no scenario in which North Carolina is going to be where the election is won or lost, because if North Carolina is close, McCain's lost Ohio, Virginia, and a bunch of other battleground states that are more blue than North Carolina.

McCain Campaign in its Death Throes

I thought the McCain campaign was in deep trouble when I made my last post on Thursday. As I watched the news updates yesterday and today, I continued to be amazed at how bad the news was for McCain and how dreadful the campaign's reactions to recent events have been. Let's do a quick rundown, in increasing order of ineptitude:

McCain is spending today in Iowa, and Palin is preparing for a bus tour through West Virginia

Just ridiculously bad strategy by the campaign. Not once, out of any of the 27 polls released in '08 from Iowa, has McCain led Obama (there was one tie). fivethirtyeight.com gives Obama a 97% chance of winning the state. And yet, McCain chose to spend one of his precious last days in a state he has virtually no chance of winning instead of in Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, or any of the other states that are far more likely to influence the outcome of the election.

And, let me tell you, sending Palin to West Virginia can be nothing more than an effort to keep from getting absolutely CRUSHED in the Electoral College. There is no chance that West Virginia will change the outcome. If West Virginia is close enough that Palin needs to visit, that means that he certainly has also lost Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, whose rural regions are demographically similar to WV but also have larger urban and/or black populations. So a close win in West Virginia thanks to a Palin visit would turn a 210 Electoral vote defeat into a 200 vote defeat. That's the best use of Palin's time?

The Branchflower Report on "Troopergate"

Alaska's Legislative Council, which has more Republicans than Democrats, voted 12-0 to release a report which said that Palin abused her power and broke a state ethics law. The McCain/Palin campaign, incredibly, argued that the report was a partisan vendetta, despite the fact that, as previously discussed, it was Republican-dominated.

While this report is bad for Palin, I don't think it actually will move any votes. People who already love Palin will continue to do so, people horrified by her will be even more so, and I really don't think there are that many people who hadn't already formed an opinion of her one way or the other. It does strengthen what I think is an already-strong, objective case that she would be a terrible VP.

McCain's campaign manager admitted McCain "blew up" the original bailout deal.

Ben Smith has the story.

[I]n the middle of the greatest disaster in our financial system that we’d had in our lifetime, that the Democrats in the United States Senate would actually link payments to ACORN in the bailout package that they promoted -- prior to Sen. McCain coming to town and actually blowing that package up. So we can actually say that in addition to saving taxpayers millions of dollars, and we’re very happy that no more taxpayer dollars were added to the pile of money going to ACORN.

This statement, not by some flunky or a left-winger but by McCain's own campaign manager, Rick Davis, directly and completely contradicts McCain's own statements about his role in the bailout, which, to remind everyone, is the government's most significant action in response to the economic crisis, clearly the biggest issue of the campaign. Senator McCain, during an event (in Iowa, for some reason) the day after the House voted down the original bailout package, said:

"Our leaders are expected to leave partisanship at the door and come to the table to solve our problems. Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process."

So McCain publicly blamed Obama for blowing up the bailout bill when in fact, as his campaign manager admitted yesterday, McCain was the one who did the blowing.

This is a big, big deal. McCain should thank his lucky stars that the Palin probe report came out yesterday and drowned out news of this shocking bit of truth from the dying McCain campaign.

Old Man's Gone Tone Deaf!

I know I'm not the most objective analyst of the McCain campaign, but are they insane?

The plunge by McCain's poll numbers corresponds strongly to the trials and tribulations of the stock market, which demonstrates that the economy is the issue on which most voters are basing their decisinos. The Dow was down another 678 points today, bringing its total losses to over 40% from its peak a year ago (I mis-subtracted in an earlier post when I said it was 14,164 two years ago). And he responds by releasing his first ad which mentions Bill Ayers. Caring about politicians' personal lives was all well and good back in the 90's when we had surpluses and low unemployment as far as the eye can see. But if McCain thinks voters are going to move to him in any significant numbers on the basis of such guilt-by-association tactics, he is sadly mistaken.

To McCain's credit, his campaign has not been entirely focused on personal attacks, but even his policy efforts have demonstrated poor understanding of what is important to voters. During the most recent debate, he unveiled a plan to have the Treasury buy bad mortgages and renegotiate the terms with homeowners, giving banks more money to stay in business and letting people stay in their homes. Sounds good, actually, if you ignore the enormous cost and the fact that, thanks to CDOs, it's pretty much impossible to buy a specific mortgage. Today, McCain clarified that he intends to buy the mortgages at their full price, for some reason. Let's say you loan me $250,000 so I can, using my $50,000 downpayment, buy a $300,000 house. In the years that people had money and the economy didn't suck, I repaid you $50,000, plus interest. So I still owe you $200,000. But now housing prices suck, and I can't refinance my house, so I can't pay you anymore. Bad for you, bad for me, and bad for the economy. So McCain wants the government to step in and buy the mortgage. Instead of reducing the amount he would give you for your loan made to a deadbeat (me) to reflect the general crappiness of your investment, McCain wants to give you the full $200,000. So, instead of banks losing money for making bad investments, he wants to entirely, completely replace the banks' losses using taxpayers' money. This plan goes even further than the already-passed bailout bill in giving tax dollars to Wall Street. That McCain thinks this is a winning strategy demonstrates how clueless his campaign has become.

Town-Hall Debate Reaction

Down about six points, which is a heck of a lot in Presidential politics, McCain needed to have, if not a devastating victory, at least a strong performance. I think I can safely say that McCain did not have one moment that will move the polls in his direction one iota. What was new were an expensive new idea (buying and renegotiating mortgages) and a lame attack (projector earmark). That's not going to move him up at all.

The highlight of the night for me was Obama's answer on health care. Through a personal story about his dying mother, he demonstrated the monstrous nature of our health care system. Insurance companies have a profit motivation to deny care to people. By making it harder for insurers to deny coverage, Obama's plan will be a huge help to costs.

Obama once again succeeded in looking more presidential. McCain's repeated lame jokes, refusal to answer the question on his priorities as President, and (while it shouldn't matter but it does) shuffling gait on stage weren't exactly distinguished. And I think he also did a better job of reaching toward the center on taxes, health care and energy.

McCain needs a Torn ACL Moment from Obama to have any chance. McCain, while attacking Obama's credibility in potentially effective but predictable and worn-out ways, refused to attack him on Ayers, or anything else that might somehow save him. If he's not going to attack Obama, and if Obama has nothing Thomas Eagleton-level in his past, this thing is over.

ADDENDUM: Watching a discussion on MSNBC with a focus group of undecided voters. Why do we give one shit what these imbeciles think about this election?

ADDENDUM II: OK, that was a little harsh. It's possible that people are undecided because they have been busy with other things and haven't been paying attention yet but are capable of having intelligent reactions to tonight's debate. These are not who they got for this particular focus group, however.

ADDENDUM III: Per fivethirtyeight.com, apparently "cool hand at the tiller", a phrase McCain used twice, when typed into Google results in exactly 2 responses. So not only did he use a ridiculous, non-appealing (cuz only rich old people who own boats know what a tiller is) line, he completely made it up out of the Ether.

ADDENDUM IV: All of these addenda are after I've started reading other people's debate responses.

ADDENDUM V: Brokaw definitely took more control of the evening than he should have. Clearly he read my preview post and decided to abandon the pretense of a town hall.

ADDENDUM VI: A bit more about the "Bomb, Bomb Iran" song. Obama talks about how he is qualified to deal with foreign crises or whatever, and McCain jumps in with some lame line or another. The conflict and overtalking gets the viewer's attention. So, then, Obama hammers him, saying "You're the one who sang "Bomb, Bomb Iran". Just excellent timing, and his strongest attack of the night.

VII: Apparently in his stump speech recently, McCain sets up a parallel between himself and Obama, referring to himself as "this Senator" and Obama as "that". It came off as very awkward and condescending when Obama referred to Obama as "that one" without setting up the parallel. This is not the first time that McCain made this mistake in a debate. In the first debate, when discussing earmarks, he said at the end of his response "I will make them famous". Anyone who's heard McCain talk about earmarks prior to that debate knew what he meant, that he would find congressmen who push for ridiculous earmarks, tell us their names and make them famous. But without the set-up, it comes off as non-sensical. Tonight, he did the same.

VIII: Excellent point by Rachel Maddow: It makes McCain look weak to have his entire campaign focused on attacking Obama on Ayers for the past several days and forseeable future and then not have the guts to do it to his face.

Presidential Liveblog 2: The Revenge

9:00 We are live from the Doctor's Office in The 'Burgh. Will McCain land an uppercut, or will he be penalized for a low blow. My money's on B. Let's watch!

9:02 If you're Tom Brokaw, don't you kind of feel like you wouldn't be here right now if Russert hadn't died?

9:03 With tens of thousands of questions culled into the questions for tonight's debate, Brokaw, the culler, has just as much influence over this debate as if he'd been answering the question himself. If he wants to ask a question on Social Security, he's got hundreds to choose from and can pick one closest to what he would ask. With so many options, it'll be pretty darn close. Why bother with the charade of "voters" asking him questions?

9:05 I actually like Brokaw, despite the blog being entirely focused on him. Obama's being boring.

9:06 btw, if no one's following along live, I'm just gonna post all my comments at the end (after these, of course). If you are reading live, make a comment, or e-mail me.

9:07 It's a fine, if somewhat expensive, idea to buy up bad mortgages and renegotiate them. But where was that idea before? He didn't have time to push this idea before the bailout passed even with all the time he saved by "suspending" his campaign.

9:08 First lame joke of the night. "Not you, Tom" by McCain in response to his question about McCain's future Treasury Secretary.

9:09 McCain wants to put the founder of EBay in charge of the Treasury?!? I mean, EBay's a great company and everything, but that's not what Treasury is about. You need a banker/investor.

9:11 An undecided voter who's black?!? He must be RIDICULOUSLY conservative!

9:12 Croneys of Obama from Fannie Mae? You mean the black guy who dared talk to the campaign once, and the guy who ran Obama's VP committee for about 2 seconds? Nice.

9:13 That number that shows Obama getting more from Fannie and Freddie than all congressmen but one is ridiculously misleading. When you consider it as a proportion of the huge amount of money he's brought in compared to any other congressman, the result is that Obama has not received a disproportionate sum from these companies, but just so much money from everyone. He got, proportionally compared to McCain, about as much money from Fannie and Freddie as he got from the U.S. Armed Forces serving abroad.

9:14 Obama's counterpunching already, talking about McCain's dereregulator past. Good tactic to use a fairly impersonal, issues-based counterattack to McCain's silly allegations.

9:15 Ow, and he takes it too far by talking about Rick Davis' lobbying firm working for Freddie. Risky move.

9:17 Apparently buying up home loans is McCain's big idea to win the debate. He wants to spend hundreds of billions more than we already did on the bailout.

9:18 Oh, so now we're fighting over who signed what letter to the financial powers-that-be? That's constructive!

9:19 It really is an indictment of Republican conservatism when you look at what happened to the deficit under Reagan and W. Just awful, and we're not really discussing it.

9:20 Savings from Iraq give Obama a fabulous defense against the "big spender" label because he can give the response that, in total, he's cutting spending.

9:22 McCain's telling us to take the word of conservative groups like the American Taxpayers Union. Nice objective source...

9:23 McCain's getting aggressive here, talking about Obama's votes on spending. I just wonder how well those punches are going to land, though.

9:24 Anyone else notice how slow McCain walked across the stage there?

9:24 Hey! "My friends!" Take a drink!

9:25 Can we please stop calling "clean coal" an alternative fuel, Senator McCain?

9:28 Obama's being boring and McCain's being blandly aggressive.

9:29 I guess the planetarium's projector Obama had the government put up the cash for is McCain's other big idea. God forbid the federal government spend money on educating its citizens.

9:31 Wow, who had Obama in the "first to bring up 9/11" office pool?

9:32 Incentivizing conservation really is a winning strategy, I think, and I'm glad Obama's going for it, talking about subsidies for home insulation, energy efficient vehicles, and such. Liberals like that you're spending money and helping the environment, conservatives like that the market is still involved. Tax cuts and incentives for energy companies are great and everything, but

9:35 The hatchet/scalpel analogy for their approaches to the economy is a powerful one, emphasizing that Obama can still "help people who need it."

9:35 Didn't Clinton raise taxes in an economic downtime? Does McCain really want to compare Obama to Clinton on economics?

9:36 Really fake and rehearsed "I've got news for you, Senator Obama. It's bad" is, itself, bad. It's buried in the middle of a tonally much different response.

9:38 Barack, don't emphasize the "Straight Talk Express" thing. Memories of 2000 McCain is the only thing 2008 McCain has left.

9:39 Obama pretty effectively shoehorned his tax answer into a question on health care. Sarah Palin should take a lesson on how it's done.

9:41 Does McCain think he's going to appeal to undecideds with his constant deification of Reagan? Turning out the base is all well and good when your base is bigger than the other guy's, but that's clearly not the case this election.

9:42 Such a lame format, with no follow-ups or questions between the candidates. No wonder it's boring.

9:43 They officially have every undecided black voter asking a question at this debate.

9:44 McCain says that commie Obama thinks nuclear power plants have to be safe!?! What a radical!

9:47 Obama is really going over on time. Heaven forbid that a candidate speak longer than a couple minutes.

9:50 That questions about health care being a commodity is right in Obama's wheelhouse. Let's hope he hits it.

9:51 Hooray, Obama's talking in favor of computerizing health records. Let me tell you, as a professional in the field, that computerized health records would result in HUGE savings in health costs. If McCain said he'd pay to computerize the whole damn system, I'd vote for him.

9:52 Sorry, I might've gotten a little carried away at the end there.

9:53 "Medical errors, as they call them," McCain says. Is that a term he just came up with?

9:54 Another lame attempt at humor, re: hair transplants. A veiled reference to Biden?

9:56 Excellent, EXCELLENT answer by Obama about his mother arguing with insurance companies from a hospital while dying of cancer.

9:58 And he follows it up with factual answers about not mandating care for anyone but kids and that McCain voted against expanding health coverage for kids. And companies being able to shop across state-lines for healthy people to cover.

9:58 Maybe it's because I'm biased, but I think Obama absolutely eviscerated McCain with this health care answer, and McCain could only respond with a lame, lunging attack about a "fine" Obama supposedly wants to impose on companies that don't cover their workers.

10:06 Actually, Senator McCain, if we did what Senator Obama wanted in Iraq, we never would have been there.

10:07 Does McCain really think he's going to convince people by talking about Lebanon in the 1980's?

10:10 Obama is, outside of his health care answer, being really boring. Which is good, actually, when you're trying to avoid a knockout.

10:11 You know why Obama can talk so loudly? Brotha carries a big stick

10:12 The Taliban did not come back in to Afghanistan after we left. The Taliban is who we were supporting while we were there. Ridiculous attempt at a parallel by McCain!

10:14 There's an Obama channel on Dish Network. It need to play "Bomb, Bomb Iran" on a loop for the next 4 weeks.

10:15 "I hate to even go into this." Then don't!

10:16 McCain's repeated statements that he "knows how to get bin Laden" are AWFUL! If he knows, why hasn't he told the Bush Administration?

10:17 I don't think Obama really wants to put more troops into Afghanistan, but it might help, and it keeps him from looking like a wimp.

10:19 McCain's talking about Putin and the KGB. Outside of Rounders, would any voter under 35 have any response to the KGB? And would anyone older still be afraid of them?

10:21 Let me paraphrase for McCain: "We're going to, along with our European allies, put political and economic pressure on Russia to bring them in line, but it's not going to be a new Cold War."

10:22 Gold star for the strategist who had Obama put out a statement in April on Georgia/Russia being unstable.

10:23 Wanna bet they're gonna go longer than yes or no?

10:24 Why would McCain say "maybe"? That has to be the worst possible answer! A regular wordy response like Obama gave is fine, as is saying yes or no. But not maybe! Another lame attempt at humor

10:26 Why oh why are people still attacking Obama on meeting "without preconditions" with world leaders? What undecided voter hadn't heard about this before?

10:29 Meeting with foreign leaders is a topic where Obama can strongly tie McCain to Bush (and every other President, but that's beside the point)

10:30 Obama busts out his one attempt at humor. It was better than any of McCain's, and better timed.

10:30 Obama's ending with biography and humor. The only bar he has to cross at this point to be President is "Is he a radical Muslim domestic terrorist?", and this is an easy way to do it.

10:33 Wow, wars in places most people couldn't find on a map? What a change!

10:34 Saying "I've been serving this country for many, many years" is

10:34 Do most people know what a tiller is? McCain's mentioned it twice!

10:34 What a great ending with McCain standing in front of Brokaw's teleprompter! Is that going to be the one memorable moment from this debate?

10:35 Summary reaction soon. Stay tuned

Debate II Preview

What exactly is the Republicans' strategy at this point? They've been relentlessly attacking Obama not so much for his policy, but for a board he sat on which happened to include "an unrepentant domestic terrorist," Bill Ayers. Who exactly do they think they're going to convince with this? Obama is already at 50% or above in many recent polls, and it is highly unlikely that anyone who's already an Obama supporter is going to be turned by vague, guilt-by-association attacks. The Dow is down well over 30% in the past 2 years, from its peak of 14,164 on October 9, 2006, and these jokers want us to vote based on a board Obama sat on 10 years ago?

I wonder if McCain will attempt to lash out at Obama on Ayers at tonight's debate. It's clear, based on the first debate, that a boring debate more or less on the issues will do nothing to help McCain, and will probably even hurt him. So McCain has to spice it up a bit, and if he is unable to find a legitimate line of attack, I expect that he will try to pin Ayers on him, and in so doing, if he comes off as "mean", end his campaign.

Play This on a Loop!

Pretty devastating to McCain's apparent strategy to go hard negative, huh?

The Debate, Two Days Out

With a couple days to reflect back on the debate, as well as the live-blog, some thoughts:

First off, in re-reading the debate post, some of my responses needed to include more about what I was responding to. If I may get a little racial, some of my comments were like an audience at, say, Barbershop: "There you go!", "mhmm", "that's right!". I don't know, is that what our African American brethren say in movie theaters? It's what I imagine they do.

In 1980, before his debates with Jimmy Carter, lots of voters thought Reagan was a right-wing nutjob. Which, of course, he was. But at the debates he managed to convince people that he had sufficient temperament and knowledge for the job. At Friday's debate, Obama met this same threshold. While he probably did, on balance, lose the 2nd half of the debate after the focus switched to foreign policy, he managed to make himself at least on the same level as John McCain. After the debates in 1980, a close race became a bowout after the "new" candidate established himself as qualified and mainstream. I'm cautiously optimistic that we might be heading for a similar scenario now. Obama had a 3 point jump today in the Gallup tracking poll, which is a three-day rolling average of telephone polls. So a 3 point, one-day jump means that Obama's one-day lead over McCain in phone surveys done yesterday (after the debate) was 9 points (!!!) higher than his lead over McCain on Wednesday, the day which fell out of the 3-day average.

I think I might've explained the Gallup thing rather poorly... Take home message, Obama's ahead by much more today than he was before the debate and McCain's pseudo-suspension.

A preview of the VP debate preview: expectations for Sarah Palin are just about as low as they could possibly be, so it wouldn't take much for her to declare "victory".

Obama Won When It Counted

Both men had their moments. Obama's tone and posture was much better. A lot of it might have to do with McCain's POW injuries, but the visual was very striking, I think, and that matters a lot to the dreaded "low-information voter".

I was really struck by how often McCain called Obama naive, or unprepared, or that he just doesn't get it. It's all well and good (though not particularly illuminating) for McCain to say that. It would have been better to demonstrate it, which I don't think he did.

All in all, I think that because of the difference in body language and tone, as well as managing to reassure voters that he can hold his own against McCain on foreign policy, will give Obama an edge coming out of this. While Obama was never particularly strong at any point, he was solid all the way through and didn't give McCain or SNL anything to parody. I think Darrell Hammond got some material for his McCain impersonation, though.

Live Debate Post

8:57 To review from the pre-debate post, I'm watching MSNBC (in case I comment on a particular shot angle or something, or a commercial), and also following online at the C-SPAN Debate Hub, and I'll be continuously posting within this post, so keep refreshing!

9:01 Showtime at the anti-Apollo. Doesn't get more anti than a university in Mississippi

9:03 Why the acrobatics to try to shoehorn economics into the foreign policy debate? Just say "ok, economics, go!" It's like "How It's Made" on the Discovery Channel, where they have a little intro into why water heaters are important or whatever instead of just getting on to how it's made. Just go!

9:05 Lucky for Obama to get to go first. He gets to be the first to say all the obvious stuff like opposing CEO pay

9:06 Obama needs to say "fundamentals of the economy" as often as possible

9:06 Why the mention of Kennedy? He's out of the hospital already! It was a minor seizure!

9:07 "Probably, certainly" followed up immediately by a reference to the fact that he's an old man. nice!

9:09 Obama's desperate to not answer if he's in favor of the bill. Of course, I'm sure McCain will do the same.

9:10 Taking McCain's line about a 21st century regulation plan.

9:11 What a long way to go to not say much with the Eisenhower story, John!

9:12 Attaboy! "fundamentals of the economy fundamentals of the economy fundamentals of the economy fundamentals of the economy"

9:13 Lehrer's trying to pick a fight between the candidates

9:14 Barack needs to ask McCain what exactly he wants to cut. Earmarks are in the grand scheme of things a tiny portion of the budget. You could completely get rid of earmarks without making much of an impact on the deficit. What else are you going to cut?

9:15 He's still mentioning the $3 million for bear DNA despite picking a VP who did almost exactly the same thing.

9:16 YES! Obama is in fact talking about the insignificance of earmarks. This stuff ain't so hard. Archinal in 2024! You heard it here first

9:18 People weren't corrupt before the last 5 years?

9:19 This is a fun format for a debate, ain't it? They're going to be cutting each other off before this is over. Hopefully McCain will bang on his lecturn with his shoe.

9:21 But under McCain's plan, 100 million families won't see a dime in income tax cuts

9:23 The vast majority of Americans are hearing about "taxing health care benefits" for the first time right now

9:24 McCain has tried and, by his own admission, failed to control spending.

9:25 The "voting for tax increases for people making $42,000 a year" is based on votes on broad, non-binding budget guidance resolutions. No one's taxes would have been raised by Obama's votes.

9:27 Apparently Obama thinks it's more fun to talk about what we can spend money on instead of what we can't, which is what the question was.

9:30 That was actually a pretty good answer from McCain about cost-plus contracts

9:31 Obama did a good job of stepping on McCain's "hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left" line, knocking McCain off rhythm.

9:33 Classic illustration of differences between them. McCain wants a "spending freeze", capping all spending with one fell swoop, whereas Obama wants to have a more nuanced approach

9:34 Is it just on my computer that the C-SPAN instant response graph thing isn't working?

9:36 Classic Republican "Harry and Louise" scare tactics on Obama's health care plan

9:37 Obama needs to mention Bush more

9:40 Why exactly does he think Iran doesn't have increased influence even if we "win"?

9:41 "Senator McCain and President Bush..." Keep saying that, Barack!

9:42 Here's a timeline of McCain's statements on tactics and strategy in Iraq to debunk his claim just made that he has opposed Bush's war execution since 2003

9:43 True, the next President won't have to decide if we have to go in Iraq, but he will have to decide if we go to war in Iran, Syria, Russia, Lebanon, etc. So who thought what about the previous decision is kind of relevant, despite McCain's hopes.

9:44 Good job with remembering McCain's quotes re: WMDs and being greeted as liberators

9:47 Nice answer about voting against funds for troops, making it instead about timelines

9:50 Gotta admit McCain's doing better on foreign policy questions than he did earlier

9:53 McCain didn't push the parallel between Afghanistan in the 1980's and Iraq today as hard as I thought he was going to. I expected a more explicit statement that leaving Iraq will risk a Taliban-like government in Iraq eventually...

9:56 Wow, Obama went to the "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran" thing! The claws are out more than I expected

9:58 Where's McCain going with this history lesson?

9:59 So he's saying "I know how serious war is, but I'll make jokes and sing stupid songs about it anyway"

10:00 It's time for an old-fashioned bracelet-off!

10:02 McCain got more than a little snotty there with the "when I chair a sub-committee..." thing

10:03 Then stop wasting time, Jim!

10:04 "And I don't care how many brown people I have to kill to avoid that Second Holocaust!"

10:07 "But Russia and China are bad! We can't talk with them!"

10:08 Is Obama going to mention the "never negotiate from fear, but never fear to negotiate" line? Let's find out!

10:09 Attacking Obama on meeting with Ahmadinejad et al didn't work for Hillary. Why does McCain think it will work for him?

10:12 McCain is really trying to hammer on the "Obama doesn't understand" line

10:17 Look how many nationalities Obama can name! See, he's qualified!

10:20 I'm sorry, I'm bored by this Russia stuff. There, I said it

10:24 Apparently Obama's bored, too, as he's doing some contortioning to get back to energy

10:25 Obama's looking over at McCain a lot, while McCain's looking at Lehrer or the floor. If you're into reading body language, that's a plus for Obama

10:26 McCain said "How could anyone be against alternative energies?" Come back to this blog this weekend (probably on Sunday, as I'm on call all day tomorrow) for a list of times McCain voted against it.

10:27 McCain's said several times tonight that he thinks we tortured people since 9/11. Does that mean a McCain Department of Justice will pursue criminal charges against members of the Bush Administration?

10:31 Ending our occupation of Iraq is not just Obama's plan. It's the plan of the Iraqi government!

10:33 Heh, Obama was apparently saving the "We're spending $10 billion a month in Iraq when we could use that money to fund X, Y and Z here" argument for near the end, when it's more likely to be remembered. Well done

10:34 Oh, well if McCain thinks Obama is unprepared, I'm convinced. Thanks for clearing that up, John!

10:35 McCain says, basically, "Ready on Day One!". Great! Again, that worked so well for Hillary

10:37 And we're done. Another new post for post-debate thoughts

McCain-Obama 1st Debate! Live Updates!

7:21 We are coming to you live from The Doctor's Office in fabulous Pittsburgh, PA! I honestly have no idea if this is gonna be worth a darn, but join us, won't you?

I think my plan is going to be to continuously update this same post throughout the debate. If it gets too long, I'll start a 2nd post, and so on. Also, I'm going to time stamp each entry manually, unless that gets to be too irritating.

7:23 Actually, I just decided that I'll be starting a new post when the debate actually starts. But, so as to protect the integrity of the live blog/running diary concept, so you don't think I'm modifying previous sub-posts, I'm not going to change the title of this post.

7:24 Some pre-game prep: Politico has a "tale of the tape" comparing the two candidates.

7:30 C-SPAN has what appears to be a useful debate page. It's complete with one of those graphs with lines for each candidate (and the moderator, for some reason) which goes up and down based on how a focus group watching it reacts, by turning knobs or whatever. Might be fun.

7:44 Gonna be watching on MSNBC, hoping for a random Rachel Maddow sighting.

8:15 Even though I'm a liberal, I gotta admit the Oliver Stone W. movie looks ridiculous.

8:18 Tonight's debate will consist of nine (or ten, depending on the source) segments of ten (or nine) minutes each, with moderator Jim Lehrer posing a question to one or the other, who would be given two minutes to respond, and then it's pretty much a free-for-all for the remainder of the segment. Sounds like fun, huh?

8:24 Oops, turns out each candidate gets 2 minutes at the start of each segment, then the last 5 are free-for-all. My bad.

8:44 What the hell is this Bill Murray movie? Apparently this is supposed to be a teaser, but they're running it with every commercial break, so it's just irritating.

8:45 I realize trailer analysis might be treading on Revere High alum Scott Mendelson's turf. Sorry, Scott!

8:52 Interesting thought from fivethirtyeight.com: "There's a meta communication that Obama gives off of being calm and nuanced, that he can explain something in depth. It's reassuring The simpleton 'What do we do with evil, negotiate with it or defeat it? Defeat it!' Q-and-A that McCain is better at than Obama won't fly during this crisis."

8:56 OK, time to switch over to the main debate post, so this one's all done. Catch you on the flip side

McCain Needs a Knockout

And I'm not talking about Palin.

As glad as I am that McCain has announced that he will in fact attend the debate tonight (which you can follow right here at The Political Doctor), it really does seem to be a complete and utter capitulation from McCain.

From his statement on Wednesday, when he announced he was "suspending" his campaign:

We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved. I am directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the commission on presidential debates to delay Friday night’s debate until we have taken action to address this crisis.

Of course, no agreement has been reached (i.e., this crisis is not resolved and the government has taken no action to address this crisis), but McCain announced today that he will, in fact, attend the debate. From his campaign press release today:

He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon. Following the debate, he will return to Washington to ensure that all voices and interests are represented in the final agreement, especially those of taxpayers and homeowners."

I'm trying really, really hard to not get my hopes up too much, but it really seems like McCain's in trouble. He sure could use a good performance tonight to get himself back on track and stop his slide in the polls.

Tune in to The Political Doctor tonight to find out if he does.

McCain Should Read The Political Doctor!

McCain sat down for an interview on Tuesday with Cleveland's Own WKYC Channel 3 News. Here's a clip. Pay particular attention the the question about whether he would support the Paulson bailout plan, about halfway through the clip:



Isn't that amazing? On Tuesday, the senior Senator from Arizona had not yet read the Paulson bailout plan. In case you're not a regular reader of this humble blog, on Sunday, fully 2 days before McCain said he hadn't yet read the plan, I posted a link to the plan, READ IT, and then posted my reaction to the proposal.

So I would like to invite Senator McCain, who was at least two days behind The Doctor on this campaign-suspending-worthy issue, to click the "Subscribe" button on the bottom of this blog, so that I can help him stay up on the news.

Shouldn't the Campaign, Ya Know, Suspend?

As we discussed yesterday, McCain announced that he would be suspending his campaign starting this morning after a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative so that he could go to Washington and help broker an agreement on the bank bailout. But you'd be hard-pressed to find signs of the campaign actually being suspended.

The Huffington Post called 15 McCain-Palin headquarters in battleground states, and none of them were dialing down their activities at all. McCain surrogates have been appearing on CNN/Fox/MSNBC to continue advocating for their candidate. McCain himself appeared this evening on all three network evening news broadcasts. And, oh yeah, he decided to go give a speech to the Clinton Global Initiative before suspending his speech, for some reason. I thought the economy was collapsing as we speak and could only be saved by making it non-political, which could be done by bringing in the presidential nominees?!

McCain arrived in Washington this afternoon, then proceeded to sit in his Senate office for a few hours before going to the White House, where he, along with Obama, met with the President and Congressional leaders. Obama is contributing at least as much as McCain to the process (without politicizing it so darn much, as we discussed yesterday), and yet he will manage to find a few hours tomorrow to go to Mississippi to have a debate before the American people. How is it that McCain can find time to give a speech in New York, then fly to Washington to sit in his office for a few hours, then go on all three evening news broadcasts, but he can't find time to go to Mississippi for what is, for many voters, the most important opportunity of the whole campaign to evaluate the future leaders of our country?