McCain vows to fight, fight, fight for better America (McClatchy)
ST. PAUL, Minn. — John McCain cast himself Thursday night as a lifelong fighter for his country who's ready to lead new battles for dramatic change as he accepted the Republican Party's presidential nomination.
CBS/NYT Poll: McCain Pulls Even With Obama (Political Wire)
The presidential race between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain is now even with each getting 42% in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll conducted Monday-Wednesday of this week. Twelve percent are undecided according to the poll, and one percent said they wouldn't vote. A poll conducted just last weekend found Obama ahead by eight points, 48% to 40%. Key finding: McCain has also closed the enthusiasm gap some with Obama, but it still exists.
There’s Something Missing in St. Paul (by Lawrence Kudlow)
On CNBC last night Jack Welch, GE’s CEO from that firm’s salad days in the ’80s and ’90s, pointed out the dangers of a three-house Democratic sweep. He says it’s dangerous for both the stock market and the economy. And he wants to know why the St. Paul Republicans aren’t running against Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama. Welch made the point that the last time the Democrats had control of all three houses in Washington the Jimmy Carter administration was in charge. That was a time of economic and stock market malaise. However, when Washington was divided -- as was the case when Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were in the White House -- the economy and the stock market took off.
My, my, Jack Welch agrees with me on the split government possibility. That puts him in pretty rarified company. I wish I had his income!—Caro
Audacity Deficit (by Anglachel)
Aside from being an accomplished presenter, what [Palin] brings to the table is something we haven't had in our Republicans of late, the ability to channel powerful resentments with an admixture of charm. She is in the Reagan mode (though no where near as polished and deadly) not like Nixon, DeLay, Gingrich, Buchanan, and the other angry white men on the Right. She is going right after Obama and doesn't bother with Biden… Palin has not been off the front page of the New York Times for a week and always with more coverage than Obama. Biden barely registers as present.
As if on cue: Welcome Back, Dad (by Michael Reagan)
In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad’s indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media’s assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven’t heard since my Dad left the scene. This was Ronald Reagan at his best -- the same Ronald Reagan who made the address known now solely as “The Speech,” which during the Goldwater campaign set the tone and the agenda for the rebirth of the traditional conservative movement that later sent him to the White House for eight years and revived the moribund GOP.
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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
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Comments
Mary Cheney keeps going thru my mind too--
--how they got so furious when anyone dared mention publicly she was a lesbian.
--how they made her partner totally invisible, and never brought her on stage with the rest of the family.
--how the birth was oh-so-carefully announced and worded.
...
and comparing/contrasting to how Palin and the GOP are now dealing with the boyfriend and pregnancy thing, and the new baby too.
All tied up
So, how's that "irresponsible NOT to speculum" thing going for ya?
When a convention this exciting is still able to get a bounce, maybe a change in tactics is in order, yes? More examples (I know, I know) can be found by googling "boring Republican convention".
"She drugged her own baby!"
What could possibly go wrong?
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
that must be how Code Pink got in--
they opened it to outsiders to fill seats?
& the Tracy Flick thing too-they used it against Hillary also--
so pathetic.
ALL of the scary ...
... harpy wicked witch examples will be coming out. And it will all help the Republicans.
i wonder if all of them will--
i always got the feeling--especially at MSNBC, which is totally appalling on this stuff-- that Hillary being older and not "pretty"/eyecandy/etc had a lot to do with it.
like--that they hated her even more because she was on tv all the day and inescapable but she wasn't a sex object--or something like that. (sorta like how they treated Janet Reno, too)--that that made them even angrier about it and more nasty.
Fatal Attraction references, crossing their legs when they hear her, mother-in-law stuff, cackle like a witch, Hillary pimping out Chelsea (who is young and, i guess, f*ckable to them)--all very "older woman who is deranged and/or beyond her use" stuff.
That Just Means They'll Diminish Palin in a Different Way
and we've already seen that in all the slut, "mate", etc., jokes.
Palin is seen as trailer trash essentially. As Anglachel pointed out this has little to do with her actual economic class and is more about culture. We've seen how Olbermann treats these kinds of women (Britney, Lindsay) and it ain't nice. I would expect the same treatment of Palin. They hate her for some of the same reasons they hate Hillary - why doesn't she know her place - but the categorize her differently. She's not the castrating, "frigid" bitch harping on women's rights, she's the trailer park trash who is only suppose to want to fuck them. These guys have a very limited view of women's roles.
thankfully, it's only 2 months
til this is over...
ugh...
The policy-based characterization I heard was
Caribou Barbie
Stephanie Miller appears to love this post-partisan issue-driven line of argument.
On friday her sidekicks claimed that Miller had coined this term, she demurred, but they said it's all over teh Googlz..
and it is.. including mainstream press cites..
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22...
dupager
dupager
interesting take on McCain (& Palin) excitement-wise--
-- http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/trailhe...
"... What hope and change are to Obama, stand and fight are to McCain.
...
No doubt McCain’s camp is breathing a sigh of relief at Palin’s popularity. While concerns about her maverick credentials remain, few still describe her as a “gamble” anymore. What no one anticipated is that she might overshadow McCain himself."
I think it helps McCain to be overshadowed by a non-DC new person, no?
Somehow, I don't think McCain cares ...
... about being overshadowed. I can't say I know what makes the man tick, maybe the daddy competition thing as with the current prez, but I don't think he's in it for ego-stroking attention.
it's such a contrast--
Obama is much more insecure about all that stuff.
Versailles villagers don't like her
they have decided she is too hick for them, and Palin does not have the Clinton knack of turning this against the Village. The Clinton's were able to fight back by reminding voters what the Clinton's planned to do for the people, since Palin has no intention of making anything better for the people, she won't be able to do that.
I Wish I Were As Sure As You Are, DCB
Working people know when they're being condescended to and what Palin brings out, as Somerby noted the other day, is the media's and liberal's condescension for small towns and rural America. Palin went after the media a bit in her speech and she did it on this ground - they don't like her because she isn't one of them. I thought it was an effective part of her speech (maybe becasuse I thought it was the only true thing she said, they don't hate her because of her politics, they hate her for being a certain cultural class woman).
Certainly, it's true that as a policy matter the Rs aren't offering anything to working class folks, but that won't stop them from trying to gloss over that fact and look like they do. What's more this is a group of voters Obama doesn't connect with and hasn't convinced he's offering anything either. In that vaccuum, Palin's cultural touchstones may serve to reassure voters that she and McCain have their best interests at heart. Just as the creative class assumed Obama was liberal because he seemed like them, working class folks might assume Palin's on their side because she seeme like them.
The danger in running a personality campaign instead of a policy one is that the other side will find a more compelling personality. It's too early to say whether they did that with Palin, but the myth of her life story seems to at least compete with the myth of Obama's life story.
If Obama had selected Hillary for his VP none of this would matter. First, because McCain would've picked some boring guy like Pawlenty for his VP. Second, because she provides a connection with working class voters. I think Obama is hoping Biden will do that, but so far Biden seems to have disappeared. What's more, if what you're looking for is policy, Biden's support for the bankruptcy bill makes him a poor choice to be an ambassador to the poor and working class.
"one of us"
and it's so true--just as people saw what they wanted to see in Obama, they'll see what they want to see in Palin.
BDBlue
You said what I would have liked to say.
Most folks don't trust politicians all that much to being with, and once the poo's flying, trust them even less.
Older folks, and working class folks, are a lot more skeptical of what politicians are trying to feed them than say, 22-year olds.
The part of identity politics that escapes most of its deriders is that given that you can't trust anyone, why not go with the person who seems most like you, most likely to be concerned by the same things you're concerned with, and most likely to make the kind of choices you'd make? It's a pretty rational option to go with, over the person who is nothing like you but super eagerly telling you that they know exactly what you need, even when you disagree with them.
Democrats consistently make the same mistake; lecturing when they should be listening, and shouting to win the argument instead of to win the election.
but it's also that neither party is pushing any new ideas --
nor are any of them actually running on issues.
Both say tax cuts and cutting waste are the solution to economic woes.
Both talk of job creation but won't do anything.
Both say they'll fix DC.
Both say they're reformers.
Both say they're "uniters, not dividers"
Both will expand the military and keep us bogged down in one place or another.
Both will expand faith-based funding.
...
Both are running using old, already pushed ideas/policies and selling points --from both parties.
as the conventional wisdom turns?
Klein -- How McCain Makes Obama Conservative
-- http://www.time.com/time/politics/articl...
"... What we have is a choice between a conservative and a radical.
The conservative is Barack Obama. ..."
Barack Obama IS a conservative ...
Just look at his tippy-toe incrementalist record.
"Obama Surrogates Urged To Mention Eagleton"
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/arch...
not cool.
The Eagleton argument's a loser
imo. After the polling out today, Republicans aren't going to be the least bit nervous about Palin anymore. With her, they may well win; without her, they will definitely lose.
And Eagleton = McGovern, a name which scares both Republicans and Democrats to death, although for different reasons. Taunting the enemy with your own failure? Who's playbook is that coming out of? Certainly not Rove's. I guess those rumors about Donna Brazile's Rovian connection aren't true after all.
also, it's a meaningless codeword to most under 50--
Eagleton was so many years ago--only older voters and the media fools would even get it.