Archive for October 16, 2008

Joe the Plumber is Neither Joe… Nor a Plumber

McCain’s latest campaign gimmick, who curiously toes the party line, isn’t a registered plumber, nor was he “undecided,” and it’s pretty clear he’s in the tank for the Republicans. Oh, and he’s a tax cheat. Do the Republicans vet anyone these days? While we’re on the subject of Sarah Palin, Joe’s already had more press conferences than her: one.

McCain’s Flawed Defense of his Hyper-Negative Campaign

In last night’s debate, after a startlingly effective beginning, the tide began to turn against McCain when he struggled to backtrack from his hyper-negative presidential campaign by pushing mutually contradictory messages: (1) “I’m trying to run a positive campaign,” but (2) “Obama’s a risky terrorist-loving socialist.” It did not go over well. Even more pathetic was his attempt to justify his negative campaign, and apologize for his racist, willfully ignorant supporters. Before we go on, let’s remind ourselves what McCain/Palin rally-goers sound like:

To quote Théoden, what can men do against such reckless hate? For McCain, the answer was, ignore the problem, build a defensive bulwark of straw men, and go on the offensive. The very, very offensive (transcript):

Let me just say categorically I’m proud of the people that come to our rallies. Whenever you get a large rally of 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people, you’re going to have some fringe peoples. You know that. And I’ve — and we’ve always said that that’s not appropriate.

But to somehow say that group of young women who said “Military wives for McCain” are somehow saying anything derogatory about you, but anything — and those veterans that wear those hats that say “World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq,” I’m not going to stand for people saying that the people that come to my rallies are anything but the most dedicated, patriotic men and women that are in this nation and they’re great citizens.

And I’m not going to stand for somebody saying that because someone yelled something at a rally –

What a shameless attempt to schluff the POW card on behalf of his supporters. Neither Obama nor his surrogates have ever – in the entire campaign – ever attempted to downplay, mock, or ignore the service of our men and women under arms, or our veterans. Nor did Obama in the preceding remark attempt to impute the “fringe” remarks to McCain’s supporters at large. The simple message was that “we have to be careful about how we deal with our supporters,” and it remained unrebutted except for an argument-by-outrage directed against statements his opponent never made.

Perhaps more shameful, though, was McCain’s continued insistence that the negative tone of his campaign was somehow Barack Obama’s fault.

I know from my experience in many campaigns that, if Sen. Obama had asked — responded to my urgent request to sit down, and do town hall meetings, and come before the American people, we could have done at least 10 of them by now. . . . So I think the tone of this campaign could have been very different.

If John McCain and the Republican Party are America’s defenders of personal responsibility, that character trait was not on display last night. This tired old attempt to pass the buck was dishonest at the outset, and McCain’s continued insistence on it is – like his entire campaign – unbefitting of a man who used to be one of America’s greatest heroes.

Half-Texans for Science

Like almost anyone who’s spent a significant amount of time in that state, Texas holds a special place in my heart. While five years may not qualify me as a full-blown “Texan,” as a “half-Texan” and a concerned American citizen, the news from Texas, that intelligent design creationists will be at least partially responsible for defining the state’s science curriculum, gives me pause. To arms, citizens; form your battalions.

One Hit Wonder

Like Dexy’s Midnight Runners, John McCain started off tonight’s debate strong, and utterly failed to follow through. This was, without a doubt, his best debate performance, and Barack Obama’s worst: right off the bat, by CNN’s “instapoll” indicators and simple gut reaction, McCain pummeled Obama. In the face of an aggressive assault, the latter quickly lost steam, interspersing more “umms,” “ahhs,” and awkward pauses in his replies than normal, and generally projecting defeat. Topped with McCain’s zinger of the night – “I am not President Bush; if you want to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago” – and despite Obama’s skillful reply to the same, if the debate had ended there, it would have been a resounding victory for John McCain. Maybe not a game-changer, but a desperately needed injection of… *ahem*… hope into a flagging campaign.

Lucky for America, the candidates went on. McCain got his chance to stick the Ayers connection to Obama, Obama deftly parried, McCain lied to keep the issue alive, and then something amazing happened. Accused of running a negative campaign, John McCain, the persecutor, tried to play the persecuted. Visibly breaking character, he seethed about Congressman John Lewis’ justifiably race-tinged attack on the new, racist Republican base, and suggested – falsely – that Obama had not condemned the nastier portion of Lewis’ allegations. Obama’s final reply on the issue was weak: but the exchange had visibly thrown McCain off-message. The CNN dials went down. For the rest of the debate, he was visibly angry, an emotion that chose to manifest itself in eye rolls -

- catty insults reminiscent of his abysmal showing at the second debate, and backhanded slaps about how Obama’s “eloquence” minced words, and masked a “radical” agenda. Image matters, and because he allowed anger to get the better of his control of his perception, McCain’s performance slipped and never fully recovered. Obama’s, instead, remained consistently respectful. He refused to attack Sarah Palin, repeatedly motioned the moderator to give McCain time to finish his answers, and concluded with a very moderate and “presidential” statement of the abortion issue. This was well taken: as Jeff Toobin pointed out on CNN, most swing voters are moderately pro-choice.

(Nota bene: McCain’s response is first. Look for him to confuse Justice Alito with Justice Breyer. Obama never voted for Justice Breyer, who had been a Justice for eleven years before Illinois sent Obama to the Senate.)

All of this leads to one perhaps surprising conclusion: Obama won. Aside from the ridiculous concentration on “Joe the Plumber” – the apotheosis, perhaps, of Sarah Palin’s ridiculous focus on artificial demographics (“hockey mom,” “Joe six pack”) – this was the most lively, important, and internally eventful debate of the three. Against a strong start, Barack Obama held the line. That should be today’s news story.