by publius
9:33 – Schweitzer is great, but no one is covering him except CSPAN.
9:37 – I’m digging the intro video.
9:57 – Powerful line — “Were you in it just for me? . . . Or were you in it for [important issue]?” That’s rhetorically well done. A good pitch to the die-hards, I would think.
10:07 – Home Run.
10:30 – All in all, I thought it was a very good speech and hit all the right notes. But the one line that really stuck with me was one I quoted above @9:57. It was by far her most intellectually interesting point. She was essentially calling on her supporters’ better angels — she was being their conscience and their voice of reason.
The truth is that even the die-hards — at least in the beginning — didn’t get involved in the election just because of Hillary. Everyone has their own fundamental issues — their first principles — that drive them to enter politics. It’s easy for all of us to lose sight of these issues in the passions and excitement of the horse race. But at the end of the day, the individual candidate is secondary to the issues we care about.
And so Hillary, with that line, grabbed the die-hards by their shoulders and shook them out of their spell. It was jolting in that sense — but effective.
You know, these political speeches have a lot of BS — and it’s hard for a cynical audience to be moved by them either intellectually or emotionally. But I keep finding that line staying with me, lingering in my head. It was a powerful point — and I hope it gets coverage. If Obama consolidates Democrats, he wins. And that line does more for that goal than the rest of Hillary’s speech combined.
Fnck Rush Limbaugh and his dog jokes, Chelsea is hot!
Uh. More on topic, though, did any other network carry Schweitzer? That dude can sure work the room.
Also, I like Hillary’s ideas, but she kinda bores me. I got the same vibe in-person when I made it to one of her rallies. She has good lines, but her delivery just doesn’t really do it for me.
/ramble
PBS had Schweitzer.
I’ve not been a fan of Hillary. But that was Terrific. Triple cap the T.
“Also, I like Hillary’s ideas, but she kinda bores me. I got the same vibe in-person when I made it to one of her rallies. She has good lines, but her delivery just doesn’t really do it for me.”
Some people are Obamas, some people are Bill Clintons, some people are Margaret Thatchers. And some people are Paul Krugmans.
Maybe her calling is to have a NY Times op/ed page column.
Schweitzer was great. Hillary delivered what the Obama people hoped she would. All in all, a good antidote to the non-attacking theme of Monday.
I like Schweitzer, but I’m not sure he’s ready yet. he relied on the good will of the audience to get people going. Contrast to Dennis.
On Hillary: gawd, she’s synthetic, the constant turning to the side to get that sliming effect, the pointed (but not pointed) finger–the list goes on…
substantively, she failed to do what she needed to do, which was make clear to her McCain leaning feminists that the Democratics have carried the water for women.
but stylistically, I hope Obama invents a way out of these Peggy Noonan anecdotes. Everytime I hear them, I think Reagan.
CNN also covered Schweitzer, but not from the very beginning. It looks like they got most of his speech, though. I thought it was fantastic; he was definitely the highlight of today’s convention for me.
Even though it’s only been over for ten minutes or so, I’ve already seen a ton-load of online comment on Hillary’s Speech – amazing that so many folks out there (and presumably Democrats, too) can’t seem to give Sen. Clinton a break – mostly petty bitching about one point or another – me, I think it was great – self-centered, as usual (Jeez, she IS a Clinton, after all!) – but always bringing the subject back to one of two major themes:
1) Bush sucks (and McCain will suck worse)
2) Electing Barack Obama is THE only way to do something about it.
End.
I like Schweitzer, but I’m not sure he’s ready yet. he relied on the good will of the audience to get people going. Contrast to Dennis.
On Hillary: gawd, she’s synthetic, the constant turning to the side to get that sliming effect, the pointed (but not pointed) finger–the list goes on…
substantively, she failed to do what she needed to do, which was make clear to her McCain leaning feminists that the Democratics have carried the water for women.
but stylistically, I hope Obama invents a way out of these Peggy Noonan anecdotes. Everytime I hear them, I think Reagan.
Was your “home run” the line “It’s appropriate that George Bush and John McCain will be together in the Twin Cities next week, because it’s getting awfully hard to tell the apart”?
That was definitely my best line.
Brian is always great fun, and I’m glad some of y’all got the chance to see him in action. Hillary was absolutely terrific.
yea, that twin cities thing may have been the best line, though as a figure dwarfed by the “keep going” underground railroad trope.
still I agree with those who say we need to emphasize that a McCain presidency would be worse than Bush, not McSame.
I thought the speech was pitch perfect with one small exception: it would have been nice if Hillary had acknowledged that it was a contentious primary but that in the course of it her respect for Obama grew and on all the important issues of the day she and Barack see eye to eye. This would have neutralized some of the ads McCain is running showing Hillary praising McCain’s experience and mocking Obama’s. But maybe that’s just me wanting her to address my hurt feelings from the primary.
Was your “home run” the line “It’s appropriate that George Bush and John McCain will be together in the Twin Cities next week, because it’s getting awfully hard to tell the apart”?
I thought that was an absolute ball-buster. I do hope the Dems turn that into a meme during the GOP convention. What’s Team McCain going to do – change the location? EPIC FAIL.
make clear to her McCain leaning feminists that the Democratics have carried the water for women.
If George Carlin were still with us, he’d have to add “McCain leaning feminists” to “jumbo shrimp” and “military intelligence.”
The number of McCain-leaning feminists has always been negligible, except insofar as one wants to call Phyllis Schlafly a “feminist.”
I thought Clinton was stunning: generous, eloquent, just great. I particularly liked the ‘were you just in it for me?’ line, which was exactly the right thing to say to her supporters. Also, Harriet Tubman.
I hope I don’t regret saying this, but, here goes.
All is forgiven.
What a speech.
Moved to tears.
I take back what I said before except that the speech was pitch perfect. I need to put the primary behind me.
Loved Schweitzer’s line about how drilling here isn’t the answer—“even if we drilled in the backyards of all John McCain’s houses, even the ones he doesn’t know about, we wouldn’t have enough oil.”
But Hillary’s twin cities line was still the line of the night.
Clinton did exactly what she had to do tonight, and she did it more effectively than I could have imagined.
I second hilzoy on the Tubman bit. When I first heard her go into, I let out a groan, but she made it work to my (pleasant) surprise.
Dems should definitely drill the Twin Cities idea, that was a beaut.
Finally, the more I think of the line publius is talking about, the more I like the speech. It was exactly what needed to be said and she said it in perhaps the best way possible. Gotta’ admit, though, I’m less and less convinced that there are that many real PUMAs. Hilzoy’s earlier post about talking to various delegates just adds more evidence. I’ve got my fingers crossed that McCain is going to lose big betting on them.
But the one line that really stuck with me was one I quoted above @9:57. It was by far her most intellectually interesting point. She was essentially calling on her supporters’ better angels — she was being their conscience and their voice of reason.
The truth is that even the die-hards — at least in the beginning — didn’t get involved in the election just because of Hillary. Everyone has their own fundamental issues — their first principles — that drive them to enter politics. It’s easy for all of us to lose sight of these issues in the passions and excitement of the horse race. But at the end of the day, the individual candidate is secondary to the issues we care about.
This is what I liked best about what I thought was a very, very good speech. Hillary asked us to pull the camera back and look at the broader landscape, to focus less on the who and more on the what and the how.
It was a very skillfull speech to give for a candidate who lost a close nomination contest, because it credited and flattered her supporters while giving them a reason to “keep going, keep going” on behalf of the Democratic nominee.
It was well written and well delivered. We are not going to have a repeat of the scene in with 1976 Jimmy Carter chasing Ted Kennedy across the stage looking for a handshake (which may make the difference in a close election*), and I do wonder whether Teddy may have privately said something to one or both of the Clintons about looking back over the span of his political career and thinking that it would be nice if he could take back that moment, and asking them to consider this present moment in similar terms.
Hillary was classy tonight. She still has a career ahead of her. Bill doesn’t, and I pray that he doesn’t make a jackass out of himself tomorrow night. The media wolves are still baying for blood, and will seize on the slightest miscue to get back to their breathless Obama-Clinton conflict narrative, which Hillary’s speech tonight has at least temporarily put on ice.
*note: if Obama wins a close election, one price which his administration will pay for this speech tonight is that health-care policy will be constructed on Hillary’s terms, not his. That was one very subtle undertone which I heard loud and clear. She mentioned “universal healthcare” multiple times in the speech with a very slight emphasis on the universal part. There was a little bit of hardball politics still going on beneath the unity. I don’t mind this a bit so long as it doesn’t sink the campaign – we are talking about valid policy differences here rather than personalities.
I’m (only slightly) ahead of myself here, but when is the last time you saw a convention with four great highlight speeches?
With that lead-in from Hillary, I doubt Bill will flub his. I know Barack won’t.
TLT, it’s been fated since
IowaSupre Tuesday that Sen. Clinton is going to write the health care legislation that gets presented for signature, not some appointees to HHS. I can’t image that Sen. Obama has cared in the least from then to now, or will from now to then. The question is what can she get through the Senate, assuming, as we must, fewer than 60 votes. The answer is nothing we’ve seen yet.Nobody’s mentioned my favorite line, the one that got my tears a-welling, to the effect that “my mother was born without the right to vote, and my daughter was able to vote for her mother as President of the U.S.”
I hope Nixon’s former Assistant Minister of Truth and current Rachel Maddow punching bag, Pat Buchanan, was watching that speech! May the last living PUMA in captivity give that smarmy little man cooties.
Funny thing: my kid sister is my personal political bellwether. She is about Michelle Obama’s age, has two young kids, is married to a university professor, went through Andover, Wellesley, and Hopkins on scholarships as the daughter of immigrant parents who never finished high school, and (aside from being white and never having been to Chicago) could hardly be more similar to Michelle, biographically. She got turned on to Obama months earlier than I did, because of Michelle. There was a period, while I was still vacillating, that my sister was savagely denouncing Hillary to me.
Imagine my shock, therefore: my sister hated Michelle’s speech last night, and was ecstatically praising Hillary’s tonight! Go figure.
— TP
ThatLeft, it was always clear that whatever got through Congress would likely be more different from either Democratic presidential candidate’s plan than the plans were from each other. I think Obama made a mistake in highlighting the differences and then got stuck with that, but has backed off since clinching the nomination.
Fnck Rush Limbaugh and his dog jokes, Chelsea is hot!
Seconded!
Schweitzer was great. He really knows how to work a crowd and the line about even drilling for oil in all the yards of all of McCain’s houses wouldn’t be enough was great.
Mark Warner had a pretty good speech, but he strikes me as a little bit too DNC for my tastes. Ted Strickland’s speech was competent, but unexceptional. Patrick Deval was a little boring and being sandwiched between all the other speakers didn’t help.
Hillary Clinton…blargh. PUMAs, James’ Carville’s ‘kicks’, Debra Bartoshevich, the ‘petition’ being circulated at the convention. As someone who ardently supported Howard Dean in ’04 I can empathize with how frustrating it can be when your candidate doesn’t get the nod. But Christ! It’s time to fall in line, unless you want another Brownie at FEMA, war in Iraq until we find a new country of Muslims or Russkies to pick a fight with, and a Supreme Court to the right of Barry Goldwater. And at least it’s not like voting for Obama could conceivably be any more repulsive than voting for Kerry.
My frustrations with Hillary Clinton’s dead-end supporters continual prodding of her candidacy into an undying, lurching, shambling corpse of a Fox News talking point not withstanding, I will say that I think her speech tonight made all the right points. I can only hope that her supporters will have the sense to vote with whoever shares their values rather than getting caught up in a high-school level clique of following personalities over policies.
You know Howard Dean is head of the DNC, right? Do you maybe mean “DLC”?
And your “blargh” about Hillary Clinton seems to be mostly about stuff she has no control over now (though she definitely created a monster with her endgame), some of which is Republican false flaggery, and all of which has been wildly hyped by the media, especially over the past two days.
I see nobody’s bothered to correct my goof upthread. It was 1980 when Jimmy had to chase Teddy around the stage.
I hope Gary is OK, he usually catches these mistakes and corrects them pronto.
Well, sorta, yeah. No one is born with the right to vote. Hillary Rodham’s mother, though, had the right to vote when she reached voting age, just as I did.
Technically true. There wasn’t national suffrage until Dorothy Howell Rodham was one year and a few months old. This is what I consider a major stretch in political speech. She would have done better to reference for example, her maternal grandmother. Who had to wait, it appears, less than a year after her eighteenth birthday to have the right to vote.
She accomplished her two – tough – goals: make people see that the only sensible choice is to get behind Obama, but also to leave them wondering a little wistfully at what might have been.
Her best speech I’ve ever seen, and one that won’t be easy to top this week.
Her husband, however, is worrying me…
Schweitzer is great
Agreed, but what a missed opportunity not to give him a couple of stage six-shooters to fire off.
i think people are misreading the dynamics a bit.
let me first say the speech was fantastic, and shows what she can do when she’s cut loose from that alternatingly grating and cloying persona that she had been forced to effect for the primary.
that being said, i think the dynamics are being read all wrong here. the hillary voters we see on TV are the ones that are the “die hards,” and i think that the speech will resonate and move many of them. many ardent hillary supporters are more reasonable than we give them credit for. they’re just not on television because they’re not insane.
the problem is that i’m not sure how many “clinton voters” in these polls are ardent hillary supporters. the “clinton voters” that aren’t on television are the ones that may have voted for clinton because they didn’t want to vote for obama. if you think that these are the lion share of the clinton voters that are somehow “sticking” in the polls right now, then there’s not a damn thing hillary can do about them. we just don’t know how many of them there are because they’re not out there waving hillary signs and wearing PUMA t shirts.
You know Howard Dean is head of the DNC, right? Do you maybe mean “DLC”?
Thanks for the catch, KCinDC. DLC is what I meant. I don’t know anything about Mark Warner, but that was the impression I came away with after listening to his speech.
I think you have to hold Hillary Clinton’s campaign at least somewhat accountable for a lot of the people that are still flogging her candidacy. Though she’s fully supporting Obama now, the way she ran her campaign from March through May/June used tactics that any semi-aware political operative should know would result in the kind of disunity storylines we are seeing now (even if those storylines are primarily driven by media rather than voters, though I think there is at least some fire to the smoke of this storyline).
So even though Hillary is now supporting Obama, the way she campaigned after Super Tuesday has made the consolidation of the party a more difficult task. I think you have to hold her to account for that. Similarly, Ted Kennedy’s refusal to publicly support Carter at one crucial moment didn’t help the Democrats in the 1980 election. I just hope this year works out better than that. (It will!)
Good point, Slart — except for the bit about the 18th birthday. Unless I’m missing something, the relevant birthday would be the 21st, since the 26th Amendment wasn’t until 1971.
“I hope Gary is OK, he usually catches these mistakes and corrects them pronto.”
Gary still has a huge toothache, and only one hydrocodone left. I did blink at “1976,” but figured I’d try playing some Company of Heroes and commenting further later. My whole head is throbbing. I hope to be awake enough tomorrow to see if I can figure out how I can get connected to a local clinic, but we’ll see.
gary, as someone who just had an emergency root canal, get in there as soon as you can, even if it stops hurting, becaues that will just mean the nerve is dead and then you run the risk of getting an infection without immediately feeling the effects.
feel better.
“No one is born with the right to vote.”
Most people (in this country, since the 26th Amendment, if that’s important, which it isn’t) are born with the right to vote as of when they achieve the age of 18.
“This is what I consider a major stretch in political speech.”
This is what I consider extremely trivial nitpicking for its own sake. It’s a trivial stretch, at worst, not a “major” stretch.
The powerful truth is that women only got the right to vote in this country within the lifetime of many still living, and many more who lived during the lifetime of many of the rest of us.
That’s appalling.
Picking nits over how this is phrased doesn’t make any larger relevant point; it merely serves to distract and detract from the important point.
That women only recently, in living memory, achieved the right to vote should be shocking. It’s worth paying attention to, and calling attention to.
The details of someone’s birthday: not so much.
“Agreed, but what a missed opportunity not to give him a couple of stage six-shooters to fire off.”
Well, if you want to make most everyone in the Mountain Time zone convinced that the Democratic Party is led by idiots who see them as cartoons, sure.
Gary, I commend your taste in video games.
My favorite line was “No way, no how, no McCain.” “Four more months!” is my second-favorite.
Senator Clinton’s speech.
Text.
Pretty classy.
It’s kind of weird for me. At the start of this campaign I said there was no way I could ever vote for her.
But in defeat she’s shown me a side of her I didn’t know was there. I think it took her too long to come to grips with that defeat, but I can attribute that to her dogged determination. In defeat, she’s shown me that I was wrong about her in many ways. If McCain does win this, I kind of hope she runs again in 2012.
Slartibartfast, one of my key references for political change in the UK is that my great-aunt (who turned 21 early in 1929, and died late in 2001) was one of the first women in the UK who had the vote on the same terms as men: the original 1918 act gave only women over 35 the right to vote.
My great-aunt was a lifelong traditional Tory (which is to say, by the 1990s she wouldn’t have voted for the modern Conservative Party for anything) and both myself and my sister were outspoken radical socialists: my great-aunt knew when we turned 18 (1980s) that we wouldn’t be voting remotely the same way as her, for any candidate that she’d want to support.
But it mattered to her so much that we voted that until she was sure we were going to remember, we both used to get phone calls from her on election day reminding us to vote. Not who to vote for – just to remember to walk down to the polling station and vote. And it wasn’t until I put dates together and realised when my great-aunt got the right to vote that I realised why that would have mattered to her.
Yeah, it would probably be more appropriate, if I were to make a speech about the right to vote, if I talked about my paternal grandmother, who unlike my great-aunt had the experience of watching her husband go to the polls and vote when she was legally barred: but why should I have to invent something to sound more appropriate than my family reality? Why should Hillary Clinton invent something about her maternal grandmother, if the truth of her feeling has always been concerned with her mother being born before women had the right to vote?
Of course, if you’re accustomed after 16 years to pick apart everything Hillary Clinton says and look for the holes, because that’s what the anti-Hillary campaigners have said you should do and that’s sunk in, no doubt you would accuse her of lying if she did talk about her maternal grandmother and it turned out that was a new story that she’d never referred to before. *shrug*
i think that the speech will resonate and move many of them. many ardent hillary supporters are more reasonable than we give them credit for.
this is easy to check.
comments from the latest thread at TalkLeft:
The only remaining, acceptable “fix” was for Obama to offer the VP position to Hillary. Having failed to do that, he forfeited any right to my Democratic (and democratic) vote.
un-reached. that’s from Jeralyn, the “Creator and Principal Author” of TalkLeft.
I’m on my fifth viewing…of the intro and Hillary’s speech.* I can’t believe this opportunity was squandered. A lot of “leaders” in the Democratic Party should be ashamed of themselves.
hmm
I don’t believe that Obama is a Democrat. He starts from a position of compromise cloaked in a disguise of “bipartisanship.” He betrayed fundamental Constitutional principles with his craven cave-in to the atrocious FISA bill. I appreciate and whole-heartedly agree with what Hillary said about supporting Democratic principles, but I can’t connect Barack Obama the candidate to those principles.
dee-duh-dee
et cetera, et cetera, e pluribus venom
“Of course, if you’re accustomed after 16 years to pick apart everything Hillary Clinton says and look for the holes, because that’s what the anti-Hillary campaigners have said you should do and that’s sunk in”
Insisting that people can’t think for themselves, and that the only reason they’d do something is because someone else told them to, isn’t apt to be a very persuasive argument, and moreover requires a terrific arrogance from one’s self, in that it awards one’s self exceptionalism in being able to think for one’s self in a way one won’t grant others can do.
When one thinks so wonderfully of one’s self, and so poorly of others around them, it might possibly be time to stop and reconsider.
Or not.
“that’s from Jeralyn”
No, it isn’t. It’s “by FemB4dem on Wed Aug 27, 2008 at 01:54:35 AM EST”
Jeralyn’s comment:
Next comment by Jeralyn Merrit in that thread:
You’re completely misrepresenting Jeralyn Merrit, cleek.
No, it isn’t.
you’re right. wow, i have no idea how i got it that wrong.
too early in the AM, i guess.
You’re completely misrepresenting Jeralyn Merrit, cleek.
no, i’m not. settle down. i simply got the flippin attribution wrong.
“no, i’m not.”
You did, but now you’ve corrected it. Good for you.
“settle down.”
I’m entirely settled.
cleek,
when i say that a lot of hillary clinton voters are more reasonable than we give them credit for, i mean in a statistical sense. in other words, you don’t test that hypothesis by cherry picking comment threads on blogs.
i mean in a statistical sense.
there are statistics ?
Jeeze. That’s really going to help with the arrogance issue. (via memeorandum)
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.
The stage, similar to structures used for rock concerts, has been set up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium where the Denver Broncos’ National Football League team plays.
Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington’s Capitol building or even the White House, to accept the party’s nomination for president.
He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.
Why not go all the way and break out that “seal” again for the podium? Is the campaign staff totally blind to how some of this stuff comes across?
Is the campaign staff totally blind to how some of this stuff comes across?
i doubt it. so, until i actually see it for myself, i’m gonna assume the stage won’t be quite as blatantly grandiose as the report describes.
cleek,
if i say that “a lot” of hillary supporters are reasonable, you don’t come back wth “see, i have comments on blogs of a lot that seem unreasonable.”
first, as a logical matter, “a lot of reasonable hillary supporters” and “a lot of unreasonble hillary supporters” are not mutually exclusive phenomena.
second, i certainly didn’t say there weren’t a lot of unreasonable hillary supporters.
third, i was making the point that the most visible hillary supporters tend, for obvious reasons, to be the most caricatured. you then sought to disprove that argument by going out and looking for hte most caricatured hillary support you could find on the internets.
nice job.
Thank you, and point taken.
Thanks for your opinion, Gary. I didn’t say it was an important stretch, just a reach. Whether one is born with rights or not is fairly immaterial, unless one has reaches a point in one’s life where one is effectively deprived of equal rights. Her mother probably wouldn’t even have a much of a memory of anyone else being deprived of voting rights. The notion that it may have affected her life in any nontrivial way is absurd.
I don’t claim otherwise. I’m just pointing out that claiming that much of a nearness to appallingness is…well, exaggeration. It’s typical Hillary-esque look-how-close-to-the-action-I-was grandstanding.
But I agree, it’s not of any real importance, in the grand scheme of things.
In this, Gary, we are in complete agreement. Or possibly Jesurgislac is correct, and I’ve just managed to keep my reflexive, unthinking Hillary-bashing banded up tight until just now. Jesurgislac makes some good points in her comment, but this one that you take issue with is not one of them.
“But in defeat she’s shown me a side of her I didn’t know was there. I think it took her too long to come to grips with that defeat, but I can attribute that to her dogged determination. In defeat, she’s shown me that I was wrong about her in many ways. If McCain does win this, I kind of hope she runs again in 2012.”
I think that side you’re seeing is called “enlightened self interest”–she’s not someone whose ambition is so uncontrollable she was going to have a bitterness-induced meltdown on national television. (We’ll see about Bill tonight.) This is the same person who praised McCain’s foreign policy experience and questioned Obama’s a few months ago, when she thought that it would help her win the nomination and considerations of how this might hurt Obama in the fall should he be the nominee didn’t seem to factor into it. Circumstances have changed, and now the only way to keep her Presidential ambitions alive is to play the loyal Democrat working for party unity.
Not that she’s worse than other politicians. Barack has been known to throw a principle or two overboard as needed.
As for diehard supporters, Obama would have had to have given the same speech (issues matter more than personalities) if he’d lost.
My diehard supporter remark wasn’t part of my response to your remark, OC. That was me going off on a tangent. I’m just commenting on the more general perception (in the press anyway) about diehard Clinton supporters. It seems likely to me that if Clinton had won we might well have a problem with diehard Obama supporters. Not that I know how many people fall into either camp.
Whether one is born with rights or not is fairly immaterial, unless one has reaches a point in one’s life where one is effectively deprived of equal rights.
Is that the sound of conservatives everywhere choking on their morning coffee?
i was making the point that the most visible hillary supporters tend, for obvious reasons, to be the most caricatured.
you made a lot of points above, most of which i agree with. but i went after the one that i quoted: many ardent hillary supporters are more reasonable than we give them credit for.
you then sought to disprove that argument by going out and looking for hte most caricatured hillary support you could find on the internets.
actually, i wasn’t trying to disprove anything. and if we’re going to get pedantic here, how exactly could i disprove a “many/more/unspecified-‘we'” argument? i’d have to come up with statistics to counter the statistics you don’t have, and then we’d have to agree on what “many”, “more reasonable” mean, etc.. so, no. not gonna happen.
instead, i took your assertion (which, while vague, was perfectly understandable, and frankly, probably correct (but again, we can’t prove it without data and definitions, etc.)) and used it as a hook on which to hang some quotes from some nutjobs on a site(*) that’s popular with Clinton dead-enders. so, no. this is not the argument you think it is.
—
* TalkLeft is hardly the most-caricatured. that title would have to go to either HillaryIs44 or NoQuarter.
Re: the right to vote.
In fact nobody has a federal right to vote for president (or rather presidential electors) in this country, as the Supreme Court explicitly noted in their justifiably infamous Bush v. Gore decision:
The various constitutional amendments concerning the right to vote–15th, 19th, and 26th–merely spell out grounds on which its unconstitutional to deny particular groups the right to vote (i.e. race, color, and previous condition of servitude; sex; age once 18 has been reached).
If a state wanted to forgo participation in the general presidential election and select its presidential electors by a series of coin flips, that would be entirely constitutional.
It’s kind of weird for me. At the start of this campaign I said there was no way I could ever vote for her. . . .If McCain does win this, I kind of hope she runs again in 2012.
And so, in addition to helping Obama, Clinton’s speech also had its intended effect.
i doubt it. so, until i actually see it for myself, i’m gonna assume the stage won’t be quite as blatantly grandiose as the report describes.
Picture
Weekly Standard: “The Temple of Obama”
McCain Aide: “Is this from The Onion?”
And that’s just getting started…
Picture
that sucks.
now i’m going to have to assume it’s a decoy, and the real stage is being constructed off-site somewhere… 🙁
Heard elsewhere on the web:
“It’s a Geek temple in the style known as Dork.”
Slarti: Jesurgislac makes some good points in her comment
Thank you.
Republicans ALWAYS attack the production design of the Democratic convention. Old-timers will remember NJ Gov. Tom Kean’s Republican convention keynote from 1984, in which he called the Democrats “pastel patriots,” a quip that played off the muted color palette of that year’s Democratic convention, while not-so-subtly pink baiting them.
It’s all part of the most durable post-war conservative meme of them all: Democrats are out of touch elitists who are not like you. Whatever humor value there was in hearing Tom Kean, whose bizarre mid-atlantic accent seemed about as “like you” as Cary Grant’s, was reduced by the fact that the appeal apparently worked.
Like attacks on Democrats’ “toughness” against crime and/or foreign enemies, these attacks on their “elitism” can only be met by somehow changing the subject (i.e. to the economy…or to John McCain’s homes).
Trying to preemptively prevent these attacks by, say, nominating a war hero or designing a convention whose appearance cannot be criticized will never work.
It’s all part of the most durable post-war conservative meme of them all: Democrats are out of touch elitists who are not like you.
It’s durable because it works. So try to avoid playing into it.
Current count 3,700,000.
Try that search again in a week…
Now before I’m accused of concern trolling again I’ll drop this and move on.
It’s all part of the most durable post-war conservative meme of them all: Democrats are out of touch elitists who are not like you.
It’s durable because it works. So try to avoid playing into it.
Current google count for:
obama arrogant OR ego
3,700,000
Try that search again in a week…
Now before I’m accused of concern trolling again I’ll drop this and move on.
I don’t know, it looks fine to me (at least from what I can see in that pic). Columns do not equal “temple”, that’s just a further attempt to push the “Obama thinks he’s god” bullshit. It’s a neoclassical stage design, nothing more.
Now if they slap a pediment on top of those columns, I might be inclined to agree that it’s grandiose. But what’s in the linked picture is fairly standard stuff.
I don’t know, it looks fine to me (at least from what I can see in that pic). Columns do not equal “temple”, that’s just a further attempt to push the “Obama thinks he’s god” bullshit. It’s a neoclassical stage design, nothing more.
Now if they slap a pediment on top of those columns, I might be inclined to agree that it’s grandiose. But what’s in the linked picture is fairly standard stuff.
Maybe the columns will come down from above and end up being little miniature columns, like in Spinal Tap.
Glenn Beck is actually evil.
It’s durable because it works. So try to avoid playing into it.
I agree, it works.
But there’s simply no way to avoid playing into it. Literally anything the Democrats do can be spun as elitist.
And all the handwringing about avoiding playing into charges of elitism and other GOP memes (like being weak on defense), at best creates unnecessary circular firing squads and at worst leads the Democrats to substantively mimic the GOP (better support bloated defense budgets!).
The Democrats have not–and will not–win campaigns that are focused on such things as law and order, foreign policy toughness, and cultural “elitism.”
That was why Clinton’s famous byword “it’s the economy, stupid” was so on the mark.
Stop worrying about winning elections that are framed by the Republicans. Worry instead about framing an election you can win.
OCSteve: It’s durable because it works. So try to avoid playing into it.
Yeah, right. “I mean, McCain’s been there, but he’s basically a skirt-chaser, folks. He’s a gigolo…. McCain is cheap. Most gigolos are. I think it goes with the, with the definition… What do you consider a fair wage? John McCain considers a fair wage a wife with 500 million. So, he had to find a company that had one. Well, there aren’t too many of these companies that have little heiresses running around that are single, have 500 million that some guy can marry into… Because see, George W. Bush’s daddy was the President and George W. Bush’s daddy worked his way up from wealth and power to wealth and power. I mean, he got more of it than anybody ever dreamed of for having as little to go on. I mean, he’s one of those old boys. You know how that worked back then. Then John McCain’s daddy is his wives. I mean, he’s a gigolo. Everybody knows this. There’s nobody in our party really has much respect for this guy and you can see it last night, but I can’t say that. I mean, you got sugar daddy wife back then. You got sugar daddy wife now. He worked his way up from a blue blood to a platinum American Express card, and it doesn’t have his name on it.”
It works so well when the Republicans do it. You’d think they’d try to avoid playing into it.
No?
And typing “McCain arrogant OR ego” into Google nets 1,700,000 hits.
One response to these numbers (OCSteve’s and this one) would be to say that Obama’s total is more than twice as high as McCain’s. Oh, woe!
Another (mine) would be to say that since “Obama as arrogant” is such a common meme, it’s kind of surprising that McCain’s is even within an order of magnitude of Obama’s. And I’m sure we could find phrases that would be equally insulting to either candidate but would reverse the hit numbers.
A corollary to all of it would be: who cares? The level of blather is so high that trying to act so as not to give blathering idiots excuses for blathering would be tantamount to disappearing oneself from the world. But even that wouldn’t work to stop the blather… Imagine the accusations then: Cowardice! Pusillanimity! Oh, horrors!
Ben Alpers wrote: Stop worrying about winning elections that are framed by the Republicans. Worry instead about framing an election you can win.
Great formulation.
“Why not go all the way and break out that “seal” again for the podium? Is the campaign staff totally blind to how some of this stuff comes across?”
Right, because conservatives were so upset at Ronald Reagan for that kind of thing.
Are you totally blind to how this sort of double standard comes across?
Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington’s Capitol building or even the White House, to accept the party’s nomination for president.
He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.
Yes, but will he be riding in a chariot while wearing a loincloth?
There’s an opportunity here that someone is missing.
Seriously, all of those conservatives with a “300” fetish? They’d all be voting Obama come November.
Weekly Standard: “The Temple of Obama”
McCain Aide: “Is this from The Onion?”
And that’s just getting started…
Hey, know what? Screw them.
Although the “Temple of Dork” line is pretty damned funny.
Ben Alpers wrote: Stop worrying about winning elections that are framed by the Republicans. Worry instead about framing an election you can win.
Great formulation.
Seconded with bells on.
Re: Hillary —
It was a great speech. Solid, old school liberal red meat. Made my poor wizened political heart beat faster.
She did a great job of taking it to McCain without making it overly nasty or personal.
Clearly, she wants her props, but why the hell not? She’s paid her dues.
She lined up solidly behind Obama without kowtowing or fawning. That will make the medicine go down better for her hard core fans.
The woman is a stone cold pro, and I mean that as a complete compliment.
Well done.
Thanks –
OCSteve, I know you have to hold on to a bit of your old political identity for comfort, but perhaps experiment with the idea that Republican attacks don’t necessarily depend on the Democratic candidate doing anything in particular. You don’t have to wholeheartedly embrace every silly example they throw at you.
As Jes says, the Democrats are no more “elitist” or “arrogant” than the Republicans. It’s just that in our media environment, the Republicans can get the pundits talking about actions by a Democrat as if they were something outrageous, but it doesn’t work the other way around. And trying to avoid doing anything the Republicans can misrepresent is a waste of time.
Are conservatives actually flipping out because Obama is going to accept the nomination in front of a structure that looks like the Department of Agriculture building in DC? Really?
Look, I know that many people can’t afford to visit DC, but, um, every building in the whole city looks like that. I think that a lot more Americans have experience seeing the Dept of Ag building or the Dept of Transportation building in DC or the bank in their local town than have experience seeing the Parthenon in Athens. Which makes me think that the first association normal people will make is with boring DC buildings or possibly boring local banks.
I agree, Turb. I do live in DC, but even before I moved here columns weren’t exactly an alien concept to me. If Republicans believe ordinary Americans are awed by columns, that seems condescendingly elitist to me.
Someone needs to put together a video of McCain like the scene in Being John Malkovich where he goes into his own head and inside everyone is John Malkovich and all they say is “Malkovich! Malkovich! Malkovich!”, only in McCain’s case it would be a bunch of John McCain’s saying “POW! POW! POW!”
It’s gold Jerry! Gold!
Which makes me think that the first association normal people will make is with boring DC buildings or possibly boring local banks.
the first association is going to be the White House. i’ve never been to DC, so i don’t know what those boring old buildings look like, and Obama isn’t trying to win a seat in any of those buildings. he’s trying to get the White House. that’s what people will think of.
and, i’m obviously not a Republican, but i do think the set is presumptuous.
I see it as more like generating widespread chuckles, but…well, I haven’t bothered to ask Rush what he thinks of this. Mostly because I don’t care.
I thought St. Peter’s Square, but…ya know, none of this stuff is worth the minute dissection. I see it as mildly funny, and some other people don’t. I’m certainly not shocked, outraged, or even mildly concerned by the set.
I think OCSteve is right–in my case, I clicked on the link and started laughing. But that’s just me. And possibly several million other people.
Of course it’s a double standard and there is something ludicrous about Republicans (not OCSteve or Slarti) complaining about cults of personality. But I don’t think that means one should hand them a silly issue ready made for ridicule.
I thought of that set for the Star Trek episode where they ran into Apollo moping in exile on some distant planet. But that’s probably going to be a reaction confined to the more geekish portion of the electorate.
Picture
Weekly Standard: “The Temple of Obama”
McCain Aide: “Is this from The Onion?”
And that’s just getting started…
OCSteve,
I’m really, really curious about something. In your opinion, at what point does this stuff become so trivial and nit-picky that it becomes acceptable (from your point of view) to say to the people who think this is in any way a valid reason to vote for or against a candidate: “Shut up you ignorant morons, you don’t deserve to be an American citizen and have the right to vote, if that is how you make serious decisions that will affect the lives of millions of peoples. Shame on you, you disgust me with your childish stupidity”. How much more trivial does it need to get before we’ve reached that point. How much lower can we go, before you say “enough, this is ridiculous!”
Because if the situation were turned around, I would metaphorically die of embarrassment and shame if I was caught making a serious anti-McCain argument based on something a trivial and meaningless as the stage set design at the RNC, as opposed to what the candidate has to say while standing on that stage. But I don’t know if it is fair to turn that around or not.
I understand that there are plenty of voters who haven’t made up their minds between the two candidates.
Some of them simply haven’t been paying much attention yet. I’m cool with that, if they don’t have much of a stake in one of the parties then not paying attention to the primary campaigns is understandable – I don’t expect everyone to care as much about politics as I do.
Some of them are genuinely conflicted as they want things from a candidate, either from a policy standpoint or in terms of character and personality, which cause them to see pros- and cons- on both sides which are roughly balanced and so they need to carefully weigh their decision and make the best of a difficult choice.
Others may be waiting on events, or have not yet heard either campaign address serious concerns of theirs.
But I find it hard to imagine any of these three groups making a decision based on a stage set design. Group #1 needs more information, group #2 needs to carefully weigh conflicting priorities, and group #3 should be listening to what each candidate has to say looking for something specific which matters to them.
But what group exists, that the information which they need to make a decision (one which they haven’t made yet) is a comparative stage set design contest? Is there some group out there (apart from people who have less common sense than a sack of turnips), for whom this is what they’ve been waiting for, what they needed, in order to make a decision?
Because if that really is the crucial swing group in this election – people who are so deeply unserious about our elections (and the consequences which results from them) that I think we really need to have a discussion about whether the term “civic responsibility” has any meaning left, and IMHO our democracy is in dire, dire straits, and we have become like toddlers playing with matches.
Assuming, of course, that OCSteve was actually making a serious anti-Obama argument, I’d be interested in his response.
Unserious, even joking anti-Obama arguments are another matter entirely.
Because if that really is the crucial swing group in this election – people who are so deeply unserious about our elections (and the consequences which results from them) that I think we really need to have a discussion about whether the term “civic responsibility” has any meaning left, and IMHO our democracy is in dire, dire straits, and we have become like toddlers playing with matches.
And deserve McCain as President.
it’s not that an individual voter will look at the set and flip one way or the other. it’s the fact that the press will (probably) use this set as a plot point in their “Obama is arrogant” narrative – McCain certainly will. and since the press still has eight weeks to obsess over it, this narrative will end up influencing many more voters than the set itself did. IMO.
OCSteve was actually making a serious anti-Obama argument, I’d be interested in his response.
That wasn’t how I read OCSteve’s comment. I did not take it as “here’s why I can’t vote for Obama”. I took it as “here’s another unforced error from Obama, which will cost him more votes which he otherwise might have gotten”.
My followup question is “who? who is it, that this will tip their vote one way or the other”, and “why should we have any respect for them?”.
I mean presumabley there are some people out there who will vote for a candidate because they share the same name, or have the same birthday, or because of what the candidate’s favorite color is. That is how children make these sort of decisions, at least until they learn better.
Given that we have the third largest population of any nation on Earth, there are bound to be such people, and they probably number in the thousands if not more.
But why are they not being subject to ridicule, mockery and public shaming – until they get a clue and start using their right to vote as if it was a right which comes with a degree of responsibility?
Republicans used to love to talk all about how rights come with responsibilites, you can’t have one without the other. How come the right to vote doesn’t qualify?
and another thing. The Republicans are always going on and on and on ad nauseam about patriotism.
Now there are a lot of ways to express one’s love of country. But in a democracy, regarding elections as a serious matter strikes me as one of the most important, especially given that it does not require much in the way of sacrifice – just a little bit of time and attention and effort is all, which is much less than say the risk of getting shot at.
To me, people who are swayed by trivia like this because they can’t be bothered to pay attention to anything more substantive are deeply and profoundly unpatriotic. They are failing miserably at one of their most important civic responsibilities and by doing so demonstrating that they hold their country in contempt.
And I have nothing but contempt to send back to them in return. That is very uncharitable of me and I wish I could be a more forgiving person, but it is what it is.
I think OCSteve is right
I actually think OC is right, too. A lot of folks, from both sides of the aisle, will look at the stage set and wonder what these folks are smoking.
IMO it’s just pretentious enough to make the jump from weird to goofy.
And it has nothing to do with what any of the candidates thinks, believes, or with anything any of them will do in office if elected. It’s just political theater, and it’s there because that’s the way we elect people to high federal office these days.
If you look at the colors in the picture in the “The Floor” thread, you’ll notice that the blues are actually a kind of garish cyan, and the reds are an equally garish magenta. That’s because those colors read blue and red on TV. White just reads as white. So, in real life, we never have political sets that are red white and blue. They’re always magenta, white, and cyan, so that they’ll *read* as red white and blue on the TV.
Therein lies a metaphor for US political culture.
Yes, the set is comically pretentious. Yes, conservative pundits will get a few day’s programming out of making fun of it.
Who cares?
Obama could step onto a bare stage in a pair of bluejeans and a T-shirt and it would be spun as elitist. He could address the nation from a rocking chair on his front porch, ditto. He could sit in the damned bleacher seats at Invesco and accept the nomination over his cell phone.
Doesn’t matter. It would be elitist. The narrative is that “Obama is an arrogant, elitist snob”, and every fact available will be, somehow, shoehorned into that narrative.
The people who are open to that line of argument are not interested in Obama’s policies, his public statements, his written work, his career accomplishments, or anything other than having their petty resentments stoked. It fills their otherwise empty days with something to do, I guess.
I’m tired of having the political discourse of the country dominated by the stupid, petty resentments of stupid, petty people.
I’ve had enough, haven’t you?
So I say screw them. Not in a mean or nasty way, mind you, just plain old screw them. They can talk to the hand. Because the sooner we all ignore them, the sooner they will cease to have any influence on how things are run.
That, my friends, will be an unalloyed good.
Thanks –
More good sense from russell.
*applause*
“Because if that really is the crucial swing group in this election – people who are so deeply unserious about our elections (and the consequences which results from them) that I think we really need to have a discussion about whether the term “civic responsibility” has any meaning left, and IMHO our democracy is in dire, dire straits, and we have become like toddlers playing with matches.”
But isn’t that how elections normally work? Seriously. I just read “Nixonland” and it didn’t exactly boost my confidence in the American political process, then or now. Before that I read the third volume of Caro’s LBJ biography, covering the 50’s. When was it ever better than it is now? I feel your frustration, but I think it’s always been like this.
And not to raise myself up–I think I know something about a few issues, but I’m pretty ignorant on most, and just have ideological predispositions rather than carefully thought out policy views.
And the people who use all of the points that Russell makes are just using them as an excuse to validate their preconceived notions to vote the way they were going to vote anyway.
It’s an excuse to not look at the issues. They’ve always been around but we don’t have to pay attention to them.
But I don’t think that means one should hand them a silly issue ready made for ridicule.
Again, anything the Democrats do will make them open to ridicule or worse. “Don’t do that or you’ll be ridiculed by the right,” is simply not a coherent piece of advice to deliver to the Democratic Party.
For those who insist that this stage set is a terrible mistake, here’s a challenge: describe a setting for the Obama speech that would not be open to ridicule by Republicans and their fanboys in the puditocracy.
But isn’t that how elections normally work?
Yes, you are right. Past elections were a nasty piece of work, and stupidity probably isn’t any more of a factor now than it was then.
But some of us know better. And I think it is time to stop giving tacit social approval to “more of the same”, because (and this is just IMHO so take it with a grain of salt) the time when “God takes care of fools, drunks and the United States of America” is swiftly passing. It is a luxury we can no longer afford if we don’t want to get bit in the ass by realities that are bigger than we are. It is intensely frustrating. I’m beginning to relate at a very personal level to the metaphor of “the sleepers in the iron box” which Lu Xun once used to describe what was wrong with politics in China, about a century ago.
Speaking of superficiality, I’m listening to Kojo Nnamdi interviewing a left-right radio duo from Colorado and wondering if there’s some law that the conservative always has to have a lower voice than the liberal.
Russell is right. I’d add one small point: Republican pundits would do or say virtually anything — nothing is too trivial — to get attention this week. Of course it’s pathetic.
Pay no attention, and see how shrill they get.
“here’s a challenge: describe a setting for the Obama speech that would not be open to ridicule by Republicans and their fanboys in the puditocracy.”
Just put up a normal stage with red white and blue (or magenta, white, and cyan) in the background. The Republicans would find other ways to attack Obama, but it wouldn’t involve the stage set.
If McCain had a column set, I think we’d all be laughing at it. The difference would probably be less media coverage of the laughter.
To thatleftturn–
I agree with you, really. I just don’t have much hope that things will ever change.
For those who insist that this stage set is a terrible mistake, here’s a challenge: describe a setting for the Obama speech that would not be open to ridicule by Republicans and their fanboys in the puditocracy.
at the convention hall, on the same stage people have been using all week.
Actually, “how the stage looks” will depend entirely on camera position, the camera angles used, and a bunch of other technicaly things.
I don’t judge sets until I see the players tread the boards, so to speak.
Unless you’re very experienced in set design, it’s really hard to jump from “What it looks like right in front of me” to “How it will look when being used”.
I should have put “liberal” in quotation marks, since he’s now talking about how Ayers is a legitimate issue. But the bar is pretty low for “liberal” radio hosts.
I don’t know, it looks fine to me (at least from what I can see in that pic). Columns do not equal “temple”, that’s just a further attempt to push the “Obama thinks he’s god” bullshit. It’s a neoclassical stage design, nothing more.
Now if they slap a pediment on top of those columns, I might be inclined to agree that it’s grandiose. But what’s in the linked picture is fairly standard stuff.
A lot of folks are not understanding OCSteve‘s comment (way) upthread. I cite the comment above as only one example.
A good political attack is one that turns a candidate’s perceived strength into a weakness. But the candidate has to buy into into the premise of the attack to really take it on the chin. Think: Kerry and the Swiftboats. The attack would have been mildly-damaging-then-forgotten, but Kerry made his service a centerpiece of the convention and campaign, with his half-assed salute on the way out and unbelievably silly “reporting for duty.”
A lot of the commentators on this site do not seem to recognize that the same thing is happening to Obama. Ask yourself: What is Obama’s greatest personal strength. It’s his ability to energize a crowd with who he is and what he says. The primary Republican attack on Obama is designed to turn this strength into a weakness. Thus, we get: Obama the celebrity lightweight. Is it ridiculous? Somewhat. But is it working? Yes, because Obama keeps putting his chin out there. See, Berlin. See, Mile High Stadium. See, crowds, crowds, everywhere.
The ability to draw an adoring crowd is not an asset for Obama at this time. Some D’s get this: I forget who, but someone (Mayor of Philly?) suggested that Obama needs to spend less time amidst adoring fans in sports arenas and more time in VFW halls. Obama needs to start facing more unfriendly crowds. (Say what you will about McCain, but, until recently, he regularly faced crowds that didn’t fully agree with him in his town hall meetings.)
So, the podium. Is it within the mainstream? It’s a little unusual, but it’s not completely bizarre. But that’s not the point. The point is not whether a different candidate could pull it off; the question is whether Obama can. The columns suggest either a Greek temple or the capitol building (itself loosely based on Greek temples). Either reemphazises Obama’s celebrity, majesty, primacy. Worse, however, is the setting. Taking his speech to a huge stadium reemphasizes the Obama-du-jour meme. He’s a rockstar. We get it. But rockstars don’t normally get to be president.
Obama should have spoken from the convention hall rather than done another transcendent event …. transcendent events are backfiring.
Von, your advice is that if your opponent hits you on your strength you should immediately surrender on that front?
TPM also makes the good point that the set looks a little like the Lincoln Memorial. and since Obama will speak on the anniversary of MLK’s speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, etc..
also presumptuous.
Just put up a normal stage with red white and blue (or magenta, white, and cyan) in the background.
This answer largely begs the question: what is a “normal stage”? But in suggesting magenta, white, and cyan it’s actually providing the wingnuts with material. Remember Reagan’s quip at the 1984 Republican convention (echoing a line that keynoter Tom Kean had already used) about the color scheme of the 1984 Democratic Convention (in San Francisco):
(Of course the GOP has since used magenta, cyan, and white at its own convention, but that doesn’t matter. This isn’t designed to be a fair game and it won’t be in the future.)
at the convention hall, on the same stage people have been using all week.
Strike Two. Apparently it looks like Tron or a cheap Fox reality show.
Once again: any design can be taken to be evidence of why the Democrats are dangerous and/or un-American. This is a suckers’ game. Trying to design a criticism-free podium is like trying to develop a winning three-card-monty strategy.
The only way to win is not to play.
Columns in a football stadium?!!##? ZOMG, where does he think he is, Chicago?
Morat20 wrote: Actually, “how the stage looks” will depend entirely on camera position, the camera angles used, and a bunch of other technicaly things.
Josh Marshall said last night that it’s Fox News that’s giving the live video feed to all the major channels and cable networks. He suggested the DNC signed a contract with Fox on this. Does anyone know if this is true? I’ve been watching PBS and C-Span so I don’t have a sense of this.
As to von’s remarks: Yes, transcendent events are backfiring on Obama right now, but I think it’s not merely because of the RNC’s success in branding him a glitzy, empty suit. The press repeatedly says he’s short on specifics. On Charlie Rose last night, the historian Ron Walters asked why the press always says Obama offers no details on, for instance, the economy when accoding to Walter’s count he’s offered 135 concrete proposals in 100 speeches on the economy. What was curious is that no one understood Walters’ question. The answer he got was that people don’t really vote on specifics, they just say they do. I think this is true. But why don’t people feel reassured that Obama’s economic proposals are cogent and detailed? Because the talking heads keep telling them he’s all lofty rhetoric. I do wonder how the Obama campaign can change this meme. One thing that occurs to me is that he needs forceful advocates on the news programs…you know, the always interviewed Democratic strategists. Paul Begala and James Carville are doing him no service.
TLTIABQ:But what group exists, that the information which they need to make a decision (one which they haven’t made yet) is a comparative stage set design contest?
Idol worshipers. Totem-pole voters. People for whom the president is merely a symbol, not a hired hand. Americans who can say the phrase “looks Presidential” with a straight face.
I suppose the stage set is designed, in the first place, to appeal to such voters on television. I suspect it is meant to invoke the Lincoln Memorial (another national totem) in the main camera shots. That the Lincoln Memorial was explicitly designed to invoke “a Greek Temple in the Dork Style” should tell us something about enduring symbols.
–TP
at the convention hall, on the same stage people have been using all week.
Seconded.
Look, my comments above are not intended to defend the stage set. IMO it’s pretentious and unnecessary.
It’s not even something that’s confined to the right, although they’ve made it their specialty for the last 40 years.
The thing I’m sick and tired of is the poor-us regular folks schtick, which the portrayal of Obama as an elitist, above-it-all celebrity snob is intended to exploit.
I think my point has been better made by TLTIABQ: there is too much at stake right now to make decisions like this based on whether a candidate is someone whose taste in salad greens resembles your own.
Obama is an accomplished guy, his general lifestyle is not going to be the same as mine, or that of most people. So what? He’s not coming over for dinner. He’s running for President.
If he comes off like he’s smarter than other folks, it’s probably because he’s smarter than most folks.
If you find that so offensive that you just can’t imagine voting for the guy, you need to get over yourself. It’s not about you. Please, for the love of god, grow the F up. Or at least, please go sulk in a corner somewhere for a few years and let the adults in the room get something done.
There’s a lot at stake.
I agree with von’s point about how these things end up sticking, and my hope is that Obama and the Dems will reply to the criticisms with a hearty “whatever” and we’ll all get to move on.
Thanks –
Strike Two. Apparently it looks like Tron or a cheap Fox reality show.
which is a far cry from the White House or the Lincoln Memorial.
Once again: any design can be taken to be evidence of why the Democrats are dangerous and/or un-American.
Once again: I am not a Republican, and I find it presumptuous, all on my own, without needing anyone to tell me to do so.
i’m an Obama supporter. i have multiple Obama t-shirts. i’ve given hundreds of dollars to the Obama campaign. and it still rubs me the wrong way. my impressions aren’t about GOP spin (though they will, of course, make as much noise as they can about it – and the press will be eager to assist them).
Or lose less awfully than the other guy; that has win all over it.
The only way to win is not to play.
Unfortunately that isn’t really an option. The real purpose of these attacks is to harass, distract and defocus the Democrats, to create time and attention sinks which at best will help the GOP and at bare minimum will throw the Dems off stride. It is like the tactics which Bobby Fischer used to use during chess matches which involved being personally obnoxious in ways which had nothing to do with the game but were effective at knocking the opponent off balance.
The Democrats don’t have the option of simply ignoring these attacks, because the Republicans dominate the news media, either directly via surrogates like Fox, and now more recently ABC and NPR, or indirectly via the tactics of intimidation which they have successfully used against the other networks.
I really don’t see that there is any solution to this other than to get p’ssed off and tell the MSM to go to perdition, or any sign that the GOP recognizes any limits to what they can or should do – for example I would not be the least bit surprised to see orchestrated call in bomb threats against Invesco field tomorrow night, or a phony “terror alert” used to disrupt the show. God help up in late October – we are dealing with people who are more than capable of starting a war for no better reason than to try to swing the election.
Discussions about sets are a godsend for any candidate. If that is the worst they are responding to any given day, it overrides any substantive criticism that might actually matter.
Sometimes I think candidates offer up stuff like this on purpose to drown out actually damaging stuff. I would like to think that was the case with McCain and his houses.
Obama has had a very disciplined and strategic campaign. I think he will continue to push this envelope so it is the only negative discussion that makes the airwaves…so long as he is attacked on something, the news can claim to be balanced without talking about anything important. And 68 days out, this is nothing.
I should be e-mailing you, jrudkis. We corresponded more when you were in Iraq. Will you be voting for Obama?
I think my point has been better made by TLTIABQ
russell, that’s rather amusing, because I was going to say that your 12:40pm comment (Tell it to the hand, etc.) put it far better than I could.
I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the road.
“Nobody’s mentioned my favorite line, the one that got my tears a-welling, to the effect that ‘my mother was born without the right to vote, and my daughter was able to vote for her mother as President of the U.S.'”
Great line with emotion and context. I had almost forgotten it — there was so many other great lines Hillary Clinton packed into such a short time frame.
The Clintons do have a way of responding under pressure, and Hillary gave the best speech of her career last night.
Go back to the start of the primary season, and you’ll see that she was weak on the stump — often called shrill. She has definitely honed her voice.
This lady is smart; I think more so than her husband. She seems able to let go of things — and not hold a grudge (or at least not as long) — unlike Mr. Clinton.
Not many politicians make fun of themselves better than she, either — Amy Pohler being in the tribute video, the “Sisters of the Traveling Pants Suit” line in the video. She has seen and heard it all by now, keeps smiling, keeps fighting.
I think she would be much better than Obama has been at fighting smears from the McCain camp. So it’s nice she set the table for him last night.
Hillary lost because, for whatever reason, she didn’t have enough supporters in my demographic — white, middle-aged, working class and, I almost forgot: male.
Some say that’s because she reminds them of their wives. Others say it she reminds them of their mothers. Doesn’t say much for what we men think of our wives and mothers, but working around men for hours on end, the bias is there.
I didn’t need Hillary Clinton to tell me who to support but, if I did, I’d know without a doubt what my marching orders were today.
I don’t think I will vote for Obama, but McCain was the only Republican in the field that would make me vote Republican this time around.
But this is the first election that I can remember where I am not voting against someone. I think both major candidates will be good presidents, and if Obama wins, it will be good for America (just not as good, in my opinion).
How many results do you get in a Google search for “Obama” and “uppity”?
This lady is smart; I think more so than her husband. She seems able to let go of things — and not hold a grudge (or at least not as long) — unlike Mr. Clinton.
I’ve been thinking about this. Bill’s become the convention’s boogey man. What he does remains to be seen, but I’m thinking he has to have adjusted his calculus the same way someone upthread said Hillary’s adjusted hers. Considering his ego, at this point, I think coming in a blowing everyone away with a great Democrat-uniting speech (along with a good ripping of the GOP) would do far more for Bill’s standing and place in party history than would a begrudging and petulant performance. I’m expecting him to turn his attitude around in a dramatic way. He needs the love.
That should be “…coming in and blowing everyone away….” I don’t talk like a pirate.
jrudkis, you must have in mind some ways in which a McCain presidency would be better than an Obama presidency. Care to name one or two?
–TP
Tony P: “I hope Nixon’s former Assistant Minister of Truth and current Rachel Maddow punching bag, Pat Buchanan, was watching that speech! May the last living PUMA in captivity give that smarmy little man cooties.”
Maddow and Buchanan’s verbal sparring, to my mind, has become some of the best TV during the election season, and not just because she almost always win. They are an odd paring but have a certain chemistry — and it’s clear Buchanan respects her.
(Gary, Get that tooth fixed! I am in Day 3 of being sidelined with what I can only term the flu and see the light out of the tunnel, although I feel like a shit becuause I have passed it on to my son, who got sent home from the third day of school for throwing up on the bus. I’ve never heard of the August flu but it sucks.)
Agree with Tony P, jrudkis, I think your comment omitted the “why.”
I wonder if Obama’s speech on Thursday could change your mind.
The Democrats don’t have the option of simply ignoring these attacks.
When I say “don’t play” I don’t mean “ignore the attacks.”
I mean go on the offensive.
Don’t talk about the DNC stage set (or guide its design by concerns about what the GOP might say about it).
Talk about McCain’s seven houses, his treatment of his first wife, and his confessed lack of knowledge of economics.
Sure, I think military experience and government experience make a better president. I am probably pre-disposed to a military background. I think McCain is a known entity and Obama is not.
On the other hand, I think Obama is smarter than McCain, and more disciplined as a politician.
But I put more weight on experience.
I think McCain is a known entity
given that many of his 2008 positions are the complete opposite of his earlier positions, how can you claim to know him ? what do you suppose his positions will be in 2010 ?
Cleek,
There is a reason that the top three candidates for the democratic nomination were all one term senators: your question.
I don’t think that I want a politician devoid of experience so I have fewer bullets thrown at him. In fact, much of what McCain has accomplished I am against (tobacco and finance reform to name two).
I do, however, believe that the experience in government that he has is better than Obama’s, and his military experience will make him a better commander in chief.
There is a reason that the top three candidates for the democratic nomination were all one term senators: your question.
i get the point about Senators, sure. sometimes you vote for good parts of bad bills and sometimes bad things get stuck on good bills.
but look at that link. so many of those are things where he’s made comments supporting a position on which he later takes the complete opposite view – these aren’t legislative issues.
i honestly do not know where McCain stands on many issues. he just won’t pick a side.
jrudkis: and his military experience will make him a better commander in chief.
Because McCain was a PoW, you know. Not that he talks about it much. Oh yes.
Well, if we go by military experience, clearly Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were each better commanders-in-chief than John McCain, as would John Kerry have been, and McCain would be a better commander-in-chief than George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan must both have been terrible commanders-in-chief, since neither of them did any time in the military at all.
Or you could just figure that while military service can show character (compare a pilot who was in multiple crashes with a lazy pilot who deserted after the airforce instituted mandatory drug tests with a competent naval lieutenant in submarines with a competent naval aviator with a competent Swift boat commander) there are other ways to show character: you can sit out a war playing soldiers in Hollywood, and in later years claim you supported the war you never fought in, or you can avoid military service for a war you never supported by getting a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford.
Or you could just figure that being commander-in-chief of the US Military is a position so far different from being a junior officer that there’s not much point comparing it.
I agree. In some he was shaping the argument by making a statement, and sometimes he was successful in adjusting the degree of bad. He is still a politician, and makes tradeoffs, and sometimes complete capitulations (like immigration). I don’t like that about him.
I am sure he would be “cleaner” on his record if he did not use the tools he had available, though he would probably be less effective.
And he has been wrong on things like MLK birthday and Violence against Women’s Act that would have been a relatively painless thing to simply support.
He has a lot of history to talk about.
Military experience does not mean competence; McCain seems to want to get us in a shooting war with Russia, so I can’t agree that his experience is leading him to make better decisions. And it’s not just us left-of-center types who think McCain is temperamentally unfit for the Commander-in-Chief role:
“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
— Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
Von, your advice is that if your opponent hits you on your strength you should immediately surrender on that front?
No, not at all. But recognize that if you continually play to your strength you may create the impression that you have no other strengths.
Obama is suffering from (1): We hear so much about how he can draw a crowd, how electrifying he is, how he’s a great orator, etc., no one pays attention to his substance. And, though I may not vote for the guy, I will happily concede that Obama has some substance. But that part of the story won’t get out so long as Obama keeps on playing Jesus Christ, Superstar. And, until Obama manages to get the substance out, the knock against him — he’s a rockstar, not a president — will continue to gain traction. (The latest poll I’ve seen shows McCain polling ahead of Obama in the wake of the Biden pick. Do you realize how ridiculous that is under the present circumstances? Mayhaps it’s because Team Obama is fumbling … although they’d never hear it through all the cheerleading.)
BTW, this isn’t some novel insight of mine. It’s called being “typecast.”
I do, however, believe that the experience in government that he has is better than Obama’s, and his military experience will make him a better commander in chief.
Squadron commander, maybe. Commander-in-Chief is a dicier proposition.
Commander in chief of the armies and navies of the United States is a civilian post, as I hope we agree. It is only one part of the President’s job description. Maybe, if the US exists to serve its military, it’s the most important part; if the other way around, maybe it’s not.
I’m not trying to bludgeon you, jrudkis. I’m trying to persuade you. I’m trying to suggest that an economically, scientifically, and diplomatically stronger nation is better for the military than a gung-ho CINC is.
–TP
Tony.
I agree with you, in that I would not generally support a General as POTUS (see Clark).
McCain, however, has decades of experience in government on top of his personal level war experience.
McCain, it seems to me, personally has the experience, has children currently experiencing it, and has decades of experience at the national strategic level planning and executing it.
Von: “Obama should have spoken from the convention hall rather than done another transcendent event …. transcendent events are backfiring.”
It does seem a bit much to change the venue of the entire convention for The Speech — making the stakes just that: the Best Speech of All-Time will be required to meet expectations. This plays right into the GOP’s arrogance meme but it’s too late now; I think Obama needs to show a lot of humility in the speech.
I am a sucker for this stuff, but when I see Obama in Regular Folks’ living rooms — hell, they look just like mine — watching his wife’s speech or Hillary’s, I start to envision the guy as “one of us.”
Taking the speech to the stadium isn’t likely to impress undecided voters like jrudkis.
Those Undecideds probably echo jrudkis: “I think McCain is a known entity and Obama is not.”
Hard to say what could change their mind — if the Biden selection didn’t — other than a strong, strong showing in the debates.
jrudkis — not wanting to pile on, I hope…
I’ll stipulate that McCain has the experience. What I haven’t seen him demonstrate is that he has gained wisdom from this experience; his public statements on any number of issues during this campaign season have been characterized by factual error, confusion, and as the gentleman from Mississippi pointed out, hotheadedness.
What exactly about his “personal level war experience” inclines you to trust his leadership?
You’re under no obligation, but I’m wondering if you could elaborate on how you see McCain’s experience (in all areas) currently manifesting in a way that makes you confident in his ability to make important decisions for the whole country.
Bedtime,
I like Biden as a choice. I like Obama as a choice. I like McCain better.
I am more aligned with Obama on social issues like gay marriage-since I don’t believe him on his disagreement (but not health care), but more aligned with McCain on foreign affairs. Biden to me was a great choice. I would have chosen him above the rest of the dems at the beginning. If McCain chooses a bible thumper, I may switch choices (so I am possibly one of the few who can be swayed by VP choice.)
So I think I am someone who can change, but McCain’s military background makes him someone I can identify with, and I have supported him since 1996 (despite multiple disagreements on policy).
I’m not at all sure that transcendent events are backfiring among anyone who’s vote is actually in play. I don’t know the answer. But an argument or mode of presentation isn’t deficient just because it doesn’t win Bill Kristol’s vote.
Discussions about sets are a godsend for any candidate. If that is the worst they are responding to any given day, it overrides any substantive criticism that might actually matter.
I’d argue the opposite is true: The more one argues about inconsequentials, the less of the candidate’s message gets outs and the less seriously the candidate gets treated.
Keep in mind that I like that I have no problem with any “elitism” angle on Obama. I mean, Michelle Obama was an associate at Sidley (a large law firm). They live in Hyde Park. They’re well-off liberals. I spend 99% of my time with well-off liberals. Well-off liberals are my tribe.
Obama is making the same stupid mistakes that the Democrats made in ’04 and, to a lesser extent ’00. You don’t only have to respond to criticism; you have to adjust to it. Obama’s a rock star who pack stadiums with adoring college-aged and sometimes foreign (Berlin) fans? Get him into a smaller venue. Get him in a VFW hall. Get Avoid college towns. Start taking questions from the crowd. Adopt a conservative position on something that’ll piss off part of the base. Zig instead of always zagging.
Say what you will about the Clintons, but they new that a good defense didn’t stop at firing back. You have to coopt your opponents’ palatable views.
von
*IME, white liberals always use black fatherhood as their token transgressive, non-PC view …. why is it always black fathers?
cleek: I am not a Republican, and I find it presumptuous, all on my own, without needing anyone to tell me to do so.
You’re also one of the quickest ObWi commenters to cry, “we’re doomed. DOOMED!” at every turn. So I’m discounting appropriately.
“We hear so much about how he can draw a crowd, how electrifying he is, how he’s a great orator, etc., no one pays attention to his substance.”
Von hit on what has been the problem for the Obama campaign since the overseas tour.
McCain has won the battle over the narrative — he’s a celebrity, he’s an empty suit — while Obama’s message has stalled.
Thursday will be huge. But I think it might help if Obama and Biden do some campaigning together the way Clinton and Gore did after their convention. Go straight to Scranton, then Sandusky, then Saginaw. Make it about the economy and the middle class.
McCain’s bump in the polls started right after “drill, drill, drill” was coming out of his mouth whenever he wasn’t talking about being a POW.
However long-view mistaken he might be, McCain, sounding caring and angry, tapped into something and kept at it. Obama has to find such a bond with voters, too.
I mostly agree with CharleyCarp, except that I would avoid the unmodified use of “anyone.” But mostly it just gives people intensely opposed to Obama another reason to be intensely opposed to him. It may even make them more intensely opposed to him. But they aren’t voting for him in any case.
Obama is making the same stupid mistakes that the Democrats made in ’04 and, to a lesser extent ’00.
But the Democrats won in ’04 and in ’00, so they couldn’t have been that stupid. It remains to be seen if Obama will make the same mistake (the serious mistake, the one that got the US and the rest of the world George W. Bush twice) that Al Gore (forgivably) made and John Kerry (less forgivably) made: if the voting machines declare McCain the winner and the 2008 election looks as dodgy as 2004, will Obama challenge the US’s corrupt electoral system, or succumb to it?
Farmgirl,
I like very little of Obama’s agenda. What I like about Obama is what he represents, his intellect, and what his presidency might mean for America in the future, regardless of accomplishments.
I expect a President to lead, and Obama will do that.
But I have not seen Obama make change: I have only seen him promote Obama.
Do you have evidence of Obama doing what you ask of McCain?
You’re also one of the quickest ObWi commenters to cry, “we’re doomed. DOOMED!” at every turn. So I’m discounting appropriately.
there’s a succinct little bit of Latin which describes this kind of argument.
and the fact that i find the stage presumptuous doesn’t mean i think Obama’s doomed. there’s probably another little bit of Latin for that, as well.
jrudkis: While not agreeing with you one whit, I think this is a good answer – a surprisingly thoughtful one, for someone who thinks it would be a good idea to get into a shooting war with Russia at the same time as occupying Iraq and starting a war with Iran (McCain on foreign affairs, which you say you’re “aligned with”).
I guess it’s possible to be appallingly stupid on “foreign affairs” (the mess that McCain wants to instigate sounds a perfect way to start World War III and get the US to fall like the Third Reich in World War II) and still thoughtful in principle on how you choose your President.
Can you explain, then, why you think it would be a good thing to fight a land war on two fronts simultaneously (when one of those fronts has practically wrecked the US army already, and the other front is one which destroyed both Napoleon and Hitler?)
“Keep in mind that I like that I have no problem with any ‘elitism” angle on Obama. I mean, Michelle Obama was an associate at Sidley (a large law firm). They live in Hyde Park. They’re well-off liberals. I spend 99% of my time with well-off liberals. Well-off liberals are my tribe.”
I think that’s one reason the Obama camp takes such umbrage with the elitism tag: It hits so close to home.
I was an infant when JFK was president. But I’d view him as an elitist. Teddy, too — that video tribute had tons of sailing footage that didn’t make me envious as much as marvel at how “family” seems to be at the center of everything the Kennedys do.
Obama is such a smart guy I would be disappointed if he doesn’t, to borrow Von’s word, transcend the “eltism” tag the way the Kenndys have.
jrukis: “If McCain chooses a bible thumper, I may switch choices (so I am possibly one of the few who can be swayed by VP choice.)”
While Obama’s VP choice was important because I think voters were looking for reassurance — which jrudkis finds in Biden — McCain’s selection does have the ability to turn off voters.
That’s why I don’t think he has ever considered the former governor of Arkansas who lost all the weight (whose name escapes me this very second).
Romney seems like the safest bet for folks like jrudkis but I’d like to hear his opinion. I understand Pawlenty isn’t even popular in his own state.
We are a few days shy of September and much is unsettled. Gallup Tracking actually has McCain up by two points. I never thought this election would be this close, and while I understand Obama’s 50 state strategy to a point, the Battleground States will play as big a role as usual.
elitism is a bogus issue.
It is identification. Edwards was dangerous candidate because he was easy to identify. Clinton won for the same reasons. Obama has the same advantageous, but his success makes him suspect. Obama is clearly less “elite” than McCain. McCain can reasonably wear his blue class roots from his captivity, but that was at best accidental.
I like Obama for the same reason I like Bill Clinton: he did it on his own.
“Gary, Get that tooth fixed!”
Best I could find is a place that will give me an emergency appointment next week, assuming I can get a letter from local Social Services proving I’m unemployed (which will take half a day by bus at best), and then charge me half-price of $135 just for the limited exam, let alone for any treatment. 🙁
“Hillary lost because, for whatever reason, she didn’t have enough supporters in my demographic — white, middle-aged, working class and, I almost forgot: male.”
That’s not what any polling I read said, best as I recall. I gotta go do some food shopping through the pain now, though, so you can google for some supporting data yourself, if you feel like it, or not.
“I like Obama for the same reason I like Bill Clinton: he did it on his own.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were voting Obama.
Sounds like you are more open-minded than you give yourself credit for.
“I think McCain is a known entity and Obama is not.”
What on earth does that mean? Have you read his books? He’s been in public office since 1997. There are eight hundred billion amazingly long profiles and interviews with him. What, exactly, don’t you know?
“*IME, white liberals always use black fatherhood as their token transgressive, non-PC view …. why is it always black fathers?”
Is it just me who has no idea what this means?
How is “black fatherhood” a “view”?g
Bedtime,
I like Romney as the choice because he rounds out McCain. I don’t like Romney because he is even more tractable on issues than McCain. But he is my best guess as a choice.
Together, they are reasonable re: social issues and would likely not prevent (though also not instigate) social change.
Romney is knowledgable re: the economy, and in the executive. But he has many of the same negatives that Obama has (ie, too smart, driven, self centric).
Other GOP possibilities I have no real opinion on, which is probably why I am drawn to Obama this year to begin with.
Obama is making the same stupid mistakes that the Democrats made in ’04 and, to a lesser extent ’00. You don’t only have to respond to criticism; you have to adjust to it. Obama’s a rock star who pack stadiums with adoring college-aged and sometimes foreign (Berlin) fans? Get him into a smaller venue. Get him in a VFW hall. Get Avoid college towns. Start taking questions from the crowd. Adopt a conservative position on something that’ll piss off part of the base. Zig instead of always zagging.
McCain’s bump in the polls started right after “drill, drill, drill” was coming out of his mouth whenever he wasn’t talking about being a POW. However long-view mistaken he might be, McCain, sounding caring and angry, tapped into something and kept at it. Obama has to find such a bond with voters, too.
You know, when I read stuff like this, it makes me feel like I’m watching two healers from ancient Greece arguing over the prognosis of a patient suffering from encephalitis. One healer says the patient will likely die but the only hope is to bleed the patient to purge the vile humors while the other one says the patient will likely survive but only if he amputates the left leg because the disease obviously comes from offending Hephaestus.
Now, I’m not a doctor. I don’t actually know whether the patient will live or die. But I do know enough to recognize that these are complex questions and that these guys don’t really have any understanding of the underlying dynamics of disease. Instead, they’ve got a bunch of vague rules of thumb (patients who are very very hot tend to die), some utter nonsense (bleeding solves everything!), some harmless but wrong beliefs (sacrificing two chickens to Asclepios is good, but three will anger him and cause the patient to die), and a whole bunch of random guesses based on mistaking correlation for causation. In other words, the correctness of their models are completely unrelated to their confidence in said models. They don’t know anything about inflammation and brain damage and fever and viral infection, but they act with as much confidence as if they do.
I don’t mean to offend von or btfb; they’re both bright guys and they’re both dramatically smarter than 99% of the people who talk on TV. But they both seem to be assuming models for how elections play out and they both seem to have a great deal more confidence in their models than I think can be justified. But maybe I’m just a little dim or excessively pessimistic.
Gary,
No, like most voters, I have not read his books, nor are they remotely near my top 100.
Gary,
It’s a shame “an emergency appointment” and “next week” can be put together in the same phrase. John McCain wants you to know he gets the best health care in the land.
I’m heading for a nap, so I am ready for work tomorrow and don’t somehow how miss Biden or Bill the way I did Michelle on Monday.
Before doing so, I googled “why hillary lost” and an astounding 1.4 million entries came up. Browsed one quickly that recalls her campaign’s bright move of overlooking the caucuses. Seems like ancient history.
And, until Obama manages to get the substance out, the knock against him — he’s a rockstar, not a president — will continue to gain traction.
Maybe it’s just me, but my impression is that Obama has put a variety of specific, concrete policy positions out there, both in print and in his speeches.
In comparison with McCain, he’s a total policy tool, a veritable tower of wonkitude.
The “no substance” thing strikes me as crap. Somebody somewhere made it up, out of whole cloth, and here it is again.
There’s only so much anyone can do about the things that people say about them. After a while it’s just a waste of time.
At some point you have to just ignore the noise and play the game on your own terms. Democrats haven’t done that for quite a while, hopefully the lesson is starting to sink in.
Thanks –
Turbulence,
Before I head for that nap, I do think McCain touched a nerve with his drilling argument — the fact that he made it when gas prices reached their peak was perfect timing — and, in a race as tight as this one, it might not take much more than that.
But your point about playing Monday morning quarterback is well-taken — although what fun would these blogs be without it?
Russell,
I agree that he has a lot of policy writ before him.
I don’t agree that he has a lot of experience getting it done. I have read Hilzoy’s lists of things he wanted to get done, but he simply has not had enough evidence of governmental experience.
It can be overcome, and he has done more than any politician in my memory to make it so, but it is a deficit.
Apparently, columns: IOKIYAR.
“there’s probably another little bit of Latin for that, as well.”
E pluribus unum.
columns: IOKIYAR.
heh. that’s awesome.
hopefully that takes the issue off the table for the TV pundits. hopefully.
“No, like most voters, I have not read his books, nor are they remotely near my top 100.”
Millions of people have, actually. You might look into this one.
Willful ignorance, on the other hand, I don’t know what to do about.
Gary,
I am pretty sure I said “most.” Are you claiming that I am worng?
“I think that’s one reason the Obama camp takes such umbrage with the elitism tag: It hits so close to home.”
I don’t fathom this: how is it “elite” to grow up black in America? To grow up fatherless? To grow up on food stamps? To have to scrape and work and get financial aid to go to college? To work as a community organizer? To never have much money until four years ago?
This is real Ministry of Truth stuff.
WTF kind of “elite”-ness is that?
On the other hand, growing up wealthy, the grandson of an admiral, the son of an admiral, wealthy all your life, fabulously wealthy by marriage, moving from cushioned life at the Naval Academy as the scion of Admirals who protect you, to a cushy job as a Congressional liaison, to being a carpet-bagging politician, never working in private industry, or having to work to support yourself or a family a day of your life: that’s not elite?
I do think McCain touched a nerve with his drilling argument — the fact that he made it when gas prices reached their peak was perfect timing — and, in a race as tight as this one, it might not take much more than that.
Sure he touched a nerve. But how much of a nerve? I mean, was that a more significant effect than the crazy right wing emails that say Obama is a baby eater? Did it touch a bigger nerve than the 12 houses meme? Will it make a bigger difference than Obama’s stronger ground game or Republican voter suppression efforts? Will its effect actually matter in November?
It is not enough to point at something and say “I think that was important”; you also have to be able to say how important it was compared to a million other things and how much impact it will have on the final vote. I don’t see much reason to assume that national polls in August are particularly good proxies for swing state electoral outcomes in November…I mean, maybe there are, but I’d have to see some sort of evidence for that.
But your point about playing Monday morning quarterback is well-taken — although what fun would these blogs be without it?
True enough. I’m probably pissing in the wind on this issue. But I still can’t help reading an implicit “And that’s why we have to amputate Obama’s legs and bleed his gal bladder” after some comments.
“Together, they are reasonable re: social issues”
What do you mean/have in mind by that?
Gary,
You are normally a reasonable fellow:
moving from cushioned life at the Naval Academy
Which few regardless of background would consider “cushioned,”
and omitting 5 years that are less than cushioned,
seems unreasonable.
Gary,
I will assume you were referring to me, despite your everpresent calls for reference:
I mean that neither care much about those issues, and will succumb to pressure from congress.
btfb, if you want to know why Senator Clinton lost, this and the accompanying memos are absolute must reading.
Or, possibly: I’ll laugh only at your stupid stuff, and leave the laughing at my stupid stuff to you.
YMMV, though.
jrudkis, have you read this brief piece by an officer who attended the Academy with McCain and was later a POW for many years himself? It includes the following:
John was a wild man. He was funny, with a quick wit and he was intelligent. But he was intent on breaking every USNA regulation in our 4 inch thick USNA Regulations book. And I believe he must have come as close to his goal as any midshipman who ever attended the Academy. John had me “coming around” to his room frequently during my plebe year. And on one occasion he took me with him to escape “over the wall” in the dead of night. He had a taxi cab waiting for us that took us to a bar some 7 miles away. John had a few beers, but forbid me to drink (watching out for me I guess) and made me drink cokes. I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year and he unbelievably managed to graduate though he spent the majority of his first class year on restriction for the stuff he did get caught doing. In fact he barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates.
You’ll forgive me if I don’t find this description of McCain’s time at the NA too painful to contemplate. Somehow, what with the regular departures off campus by taxi to go drinking, he managed to survive. I’m sure that security at the Naval Academy is so lax that there was no way to stop midshipman from walking out at night on a regular basis; obviously, McCain’s high ranking family connections had nothing to do with it.
What I really want to know is: would America have been better off if someone more deserving got McCain’s slot at the Naval Academy? You know, someone who was able to get in based on their own merits and not relying on their Daddy’s assistance.
“Which few regardless of background would consider ‘cushioned,'”
Really? There are a lot of Naval Academy graduates who don’t think that having your Admiral father and CinC grandfather protecting you from your mistakes didn’t cushion you? That wasn’t commonly thought of McCain?
His actual classmates are on the record saying so. Is Phillip Butler’s word no good?
“and omitting 5 years that are less than cushioned,”
Wait, John McCain was a P.O.W.?
I hadn’t heard.
Good thing you mentioned that, since everyone is so unaware.
“I mean that neither care much about those issues,”
I asked what issues?. I’m sure you know what you mean by “those issues” and “social issues,” but I have no idea, myself. What issues, specifically, do you think they are “reasonable” about? And why? Cites?
Turbulence,
As someone who attended an academy decades after him, I don’t think his ability to escape is an indication of family influence. I don’t think his failure to “buy in” to academy behavior in his teens and early twenties is important. Anyone who spent time at an academy risked violations of the rules.
I know I did. And I know those among my friends with ties outside the academy merited more, not less, scrutiny.
Gary,
Yes, I think that even if you assume he had some protection from his family at USNA, it was much more difficult than the experience he would have had at any other college.
Gary,
And specifically I think he is less interested in gay marriage and abortion, though he is on record against both. His base is not from those issues, and owes less to it.
I think he will be against a national policy, but also against preventing state policy.
“Yes, I think that even if you assume he had some protection from his family at USNA, it was much more difficult than the experience he would have had at any other college.”
That’s nice, but I don’t see how it’s relevant to the question of whether he has an elite background or not. Is it your contention that most NA attendees have fathers and grandfathers who are senior admirals?
It is my contention that my friends who were children of senior Generals received little if any benefit, and often received more unwanted attention than others.
As someone who attended an academy decades after him, I don’t think his ability to escape is an indication of family influence.
What about his ability to escape repeatedly without punishment or consequence? I mean, are you saying that all students at the Academy can trivially escape anytime they want? Or are you saying that McCain was some sort of Houdini-like escape artist? Or are you saying that students generally could not escape without consequences, but McCain’s connections allowed him to ignore those consequences?
I don’t think his failure to “buy in” to academy behavior in his teens and early twenties is important. Anyone who spent time at an academy risked violations of the rules.
I’m sure everyone broke some rules at some point. But for most people, breaking the rules had actual risk. For McCain, it didn’t: he could always depend on his family connections to bail him out. McCain was not going to get kicked out no matter what he did. His fellow students did not have that assurance.
I know I did. And I know those among my friends with ties outside the academy merited more, not less, scrutiny.
I’m not sure what you mean here.
Yes, I think that even if you assume he had some protection from his family at USNA, it was much more difficult than the experience he would have had at any other college.
Why?
GOP totem George W. Bush got elected by the skin of his teeth, at best, in 2000 and 2004. Suckers all over America “identified with” the son of a president and the grandson of a senator — and he still only just squeaked by. This indentifying-with thing goes only so far. In a year when pollsters tell us 4 out of 5 Americans think the country is on the wrong track, it won’t go far enough for the son and grandson of admirals.
The standard GOP tool in recent decades has been the crafty exploitation of class resentment best described by Thomas Frank in What’s The Matter With Kansas:
Kansas, please note, has elected a Democratic governor.
–TP
Aren’t colleges where the experience is harder than at others the ones we generally refer to as elite?
Turbulence,
You seem to be under some misconception re: academy life. First of all, Annapolis is an actual city, very near to DC. USNA students have an actual place to escape to (as opposed to USMA).
It is not a prison, so yes, anyone can leave at any time.
Leaving without getting caught requires some planning, but is not hard.
Why is USNA harder?
I have taught at two universities, and gone to three: there is nothing involved in student life that I saw that was remotely like the USMA system I went through. And even great schools like Yale did not require a broad curriculum like USMA for all graduates, regardless of major, so even academically, the academies seemed to force you out of your comfort zone.
KCinDC,
I prefer to think of the academies that way.
Why is USNA harder? I have taught at two universities, and gone to three: there is nothing involved in student life that I saw that was remotely like the USMA system I went through. And even great schools like Yale did not require a broad curriculum like USMA for all graduates, regardless of major, so even academically, the academies seemed to force you out of your comfort zone.
I’m not sure what we can infer about Sidney’s experiences at the USNA in 1954 based on your much later experiences at the USMA. Note that the USNA curricula was radically overhauled after McCain left; the shift made the education much more challenging or much more broadly based.
As for great schools, I can think of several that require a broad curriculum regardless of major, and no, they are generally not Ivies.
Turbulence,
Sure, there are other great acedemic schools, but few that require military and athletic accomplishment at the same time. It is the whole system that makes it more difficult (such as going to summer school for swimming or gymnastics, as well as math).
It does not mean that it is the best system, just one on which few can skate.
jrudkis,
Sure, but if McCain can skate by on losing three aircraft for no reason before he ever got near combat, I don’t see why he can’t skate on the other requirements. I mean, losing an airplane costs real money whereas passing someone who failed to finish their run in time really doesn’t.
Then again, perhaps it is common for pilots who lose three aircraft outside of combat without good cause to continue flying. I have a hard time seeing a civilian airline hire a pilot with that sort of history, but perhaps the military is far more lenient about combat pilots than mere airlines.
Turbulence,
Those are good attacks. I think they will help Obama.
The image at the Politico link in Ugh’s comment made me curious about the use of the presidential seal by Bush in 2004 as a convention decoration prop.
The seal on the podium is unexceptional. A serving president is probably entitled to the use of the seal on the podium at any public appearance, even a wholly partisan appearance. (I’m assuming Clinton, G.H.W. Bush, Reagan, and Nixon did the same thing at their re-election nominating conventions.)
But using the seal of the office as a decorative motif on the floor surrounding the podium stirs some unpleasant associations. Ah, well; he’s on the way out.
And Jimmy Carter (realizing my list of sitting presidents being renominated by their parties was incomplete).
Slarti: Or, possibly: I’ll laugh only at your stupid stuff, and leave the laughing at my stupid stuff to you.
YMMV, though.
It’s one thing when I laugh at your stupid stuff X and leave you to laugh at my stupid stuff Y. It’s quite another to laugh at your stupid stuff X, when I have the exact same stupid stuff. Or at least maybe the media can be convinced to ignore X on both sides.
But, as I’ve said before, there is no hypocrisy in politics.
This is the closest thing to an full out open thread, so I thought I’d pass this on, recalling the Turb argued that one could do the polling for the race in a handful of key states and I suggested that the press-n-pundits would immediately misrepresent it. Turns out we were both right…
First, Ambinder reported on this exchange on national polling:
Plouffe also emphasized that the internal polling the campaign does is focused on those same 18 states, and that their real concern is not the horse race results but the “data underneath.” Later, he added, “the top-line [polling data] doesn’t tell you anything.” Rather, they focus on who the “true undecideds” are, “how they are going to break,” and what messages will best persuade them.
The Gallup Daily tracking poll is apparently a particular sore point. When asked whether they were unhappy that the Biden announcement had not produced a bounce in national polls, Plouffe shot back: “How would we know . . . from the Gallup Daily?” The Gallup Daily is “something we don’t pay attention to,” he said again.
Communications director Dan Pfieffer later put it more bluntly, expressing unhappiness with the “inordinate focus on bad polling” by the media and also in the routine misinterpretation of sampling noise in the Gallup Daily poll. “The Gallup Daily is the worst thing that’s happened in journalism in 20 years,” he said.
The comments are very interesting as well, especially concerning which 18 states Plouffe mentioned and the AA vote in Florida.
Don’t want to hijack the other threads, so thoughts on Bill’s speech? (Just finished watching it, my sister and I abused DVR ^.^;)
He did a good job of putting to rest the “Obama isn’t ready” meme. Also enjoyed his unity comments, I really think the Clintons are giving their all for Obama, the party, and the country.
And 5 minutes of standing ovation before he could even speak? Priceless! I wonder how much applause Bush will get when he speaks next week.
“It does not mean that it is the best system, just one on which few can skate.”
So, in other words, the military academies are elite. Glad we agree.
Gary, that’s certainly the impression I got from jrudkis’s 06:38: “I prefer to think of the academies that way.” We’re all agreed that McCain went to an elite school.
jrudkis, I have no problem with your reasons for supporting McCain. They are, at a minimum, and whether I agree with them or not, sane, and rooted in reality.
Next topic.
I find the whole “who is an elitist” meme to be laughable. If you are in the Senate of the United States of America, you are, out of the 6.6 billion people on the planet and the 300 million in this country, one of 100.
One hundred. There are more billionaires in the US than there are US Senators.
One of every three million people who live in this country are US Senators. There are 20 states in the US with less than three million people.
If you are a Senator, you are a member of an extraordinarily exclusive club. You are an elite.
Get it? Next topic.
If we want to talk about unseemly public displays, I offer George W Bush in a flight suit on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. The purpose of the flight suit, apparently, was to allow us all to admire W’s dick and balls.
Quite a number of the folks who now want to opine on whether a stage with columns on a football field is “seemly” could, at the time, hardly contain themselves at the spectacle of the President’s gonads.
Play that clip again, please. I just can’t get enough of the sight of the President’s manhood. Can we get a close-up?
‘Nuff said, I hope.
If we want to talk about “how things come across” I offer this.
If we all want to get into it, I’ll share my opinion that, in the brief clip I’ve linked to, McCain “comes across” as a weaselly, spineless, fawning, unscrupulous, unprincipled, sycophantic, lying sack of sh*t. Comically so.
And I say that with all due respect for his service to our nation.
So, if we want to traffic in appearances, all I have to say is bring it.
Personally, I can’t wait. My gloves are off. I’ve had enough of this crap.
We’ve had eight years of unrelenting, unmitigated, non-stop, 100% pure horseshit. Pressed down, shaken together, and flowing over. A heaping helping.
If you want to get into “how things come across”, trust me when I say I am more than ready to get down. And I do mean, trust me.
Bring it. I can’t wait.
Thanks –
Bravo, Russell!
Enough of politeness, enough of ‘respect’ for stupidity. Enough of pretending that the truth lies halfway between objective reality and pious propaganda.
McCain is a crotchety old man, desperate to be honored, grasping for the Presidency as a prize, not a job. He is the one cultivating a cult of personality.
It’s time to start a new 527, explicitly defiant of Obama’s call for civility. I want billboards all over the place:
PHOTO: Bush
CAPTION: Fool me once … uh, shame on, uh
PHOTO: McCain
CAPTION: Don’t get fooled again
–TP
Látom a kommentek számából, ez kiverte a biztosítékot:)
jrudkis — sorry for being late back to the game, but I saw your note upthread requesting I provide examples of Obama bringing about change. I don’t have time to google links at the moment, as I have a meeting in 5 minutes, but will do later if you like.
— getting a law passed in IL requiring videotaping of all interrogations. This required hard work bringing around several groups who were hostile to the idea, including police unions. It passed unanimously in the State Senate, as I reacall.
— setting the direction for US foreign policy recently. He’s been blasted for taking these positions, but then they come to pass. 2 more battalions to Afghanistan? Check. Timeline for withdrawal of troops from Iraq? The Iraqi government endorsed this, and the Bush Administration has come around to it after claiming “misspeaking” on the Iraqis behalf.
gotta go, more later if you like…
Yes, those are two different things. But it’s not nearly as funny, to me, when I’m doing it. And…bonus, you get to point and laugh. Plus, the hypocrisy thing; double bonus.
I too loved Schweitzer, and I saw him online on CNN — so PBS, CNN and C-SPAN covered him. Those who were sticking with the commercial networks missed a lot — they exchanged a lot of good speaking for irritating interruptions (inane comments as well as commercials).
Watching online has benefits.