Month: October 2008

Only thirteen days — less than two weeks — until the election? Holy moley …

You would think that Margie being out of town would make it a lot easier to get these things cranked out. *Sigh*

Okay … where to begin?

Well, first, perhaps, with a bit of humor. Back in the 60s, Batman was turned into a TV show, and one of the episodes was about an improbable Gotham City mayoral campaign between Batman and the Penguin. It so happens the two candidates had a debate, one that has eerie echoes from today’s campaign rhetoric. I won’t draw a further connection between a short, angry candidate who engages in smear campaigning squaring off against a tall, handsome force for justice and honesty …

Speaking of roles, the whole McCain/Obama “thing” on going after Osama bin Laden if we had him in our “sights” in Pakistan and the Islamabad government wouldn’t give permission to take him out is really kind of screwy on the face of it. I mean, if it were Obama saying that he wouldn’t act except with the permission of the Pakistanis, you just know that every right-wing pundit would be all over his “naivete” and “internationalist” and “surrender-monkeyness” in a heartbeat. Instead, it’s Obama who says he’d go in one way or the other, and McCain reiterating that he’d let Osama bin Laden go free.

Or, maybe not. After all, McCain’s criticized Obama for revealing his true intentions in the matter. We have every reason to believe that McCain is simply giving that answer in pursuit of not torquing off the Pakistanis, choosing instead to torque them off when he goes after OBL and is thus revealed as a liar.

Though if they took him at face value, that might explain why al-Qa’eda is endorsing McCain. (To be fair, I am no more concerned about who al-Qa’eda claims they favor in the presidential race any more than I am interested in the opinions of Fred Phelps or Kim Jong-Il.)

Making folks angry seems to be the forte of the McCain/Palin campaign, and the results have been stunningly clear — even if the inciting messages are occasionally off-kilter (if the only “real pro-Americans” are the ones out in the countryside and in small towns, does that mean the NYC and Pentagon victims of 9/11 aren’t real Americans? Oops!). No matter how you quasi-apologize for it, this sort of divisive rhetoric and flag-waving (or flag-dragging) has probably only frothed up the already-devoted followers, and turned off more and more of the undecided.

And yet, in the face of this, the other day we had something actually positive coming out of the McCain/Palin camp: a group of McCain supporters, both Christian and Muslim, facing down some hate-mongering agitators at a McCain rally. It was actually kind of inspiring — which means, of course, the campaign itself had to screw up the whole moment by, at the last moment, preventing that Muslim campaign organizer from appearing on CNN to talk about it.

Mercifully, all the terrorist fear-mongering seems to be working less and less well. Perhaps it’s because the Internet is changing the information equation, so that when McCain today calls ACORN a threat to democracy, we can see where a few years ago he was calling it “what makes America special” — not to mention learning what a huge passel of distortions the whole ACORN thing is.

Though if McCain wants to talk about voter registration fraud, he might be advised to speak very softly, lest he be hit by echoes bouncing back at him.

No wonder the Obama campaign is assembling the nation’s “largest law firm” to challenge voting irregularities come November.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the McCain ticket, Gov. Palin is still trying to figure out what a VP does (pssst! Sarah! Not even Cheney thought that he “ran” the Senate). She’s also trying to figure out whether the National Review is one of those unfair filtering nassssty media outlets that she keeps railing against.

But what she seems to be spending more time figuring out is … well, what to wear. After all, when the party forks over $150,000 in campaign contributions to buy some nice Saks and Needless-Markup outfits for you and your kinfolk — well, one hopes that’s bought a few years worth of wardrobes. (After all, Sarah, you’ll need something to wear to all those evangelical political action meetings you’ll be a regular at in the coming years.)

Obama, on the other hand continues to garner increasing support and endorsements. Some are sincere, some are opportunistic, but they all add to his momentum. The biggest most recently was Colin Powell, of course, which has led to outrage from the Right (and a few pointed questions from the Left).  The irony is, while right-wing pundits claim it’s all about “race” (as if suddenly noticing that Powell is black, and without explaining why he’s not ever lifted a finger to assist Jackson or Sharpton in their presidential bids), the reality may be that in addition to simply thinking that Obama’s a reasonably good candidate, the wingnuts and social conservatives on the Right who’ve long mistrusted him may have pushed him to it. Wouldn’t that be a neat irony?

Elsewhere, Obama also gathers support from more and more newspapers (including some former Bush-backers in Texas) and more formerly staunch conservatives, even as he draws in dedicated volunteers. Some of that, as in Powell’s case, may be disgust with how the GOP has been handling itself. Some may simply be because the man’s record is simply impressive. Some may be even more simply because he “won’t put on the hat” (gosh, wouldn’t it be nice to have a president who isn’t constantly doing or saying something cringeworthy — not because you necessarily disagree with it, but because it’s just so frelling embarrassing how it’s mangled or miscued). 

Obama, of course, suspended personal campaigning (um, for real, Sen. McCain) in order to go home to Hawaii to visit his failing grandmother, who broke her hip a few weeks back. That particular bit of “family values” and “compassion” didn’t seem to move the charming All-Americans at FOX News or the Free Republic. (“Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Given the nature of the denizens there and their affinity to the person those questions were originally posed to, probably not.)

Despite that, Obama maintains his significant lead in the polls, both popular and, more important, electoral, to a degree that increasingly people are seeing his election as inevitable (or as inevitable as anything else in politics). While an AP poll out today showed Obama and McCain as neck-and-neck, not only is it a huge outlier, but it’s seriously statistically suspect (unless you believe the number of evangelicals voting has doubled since 2004).

So assuming an Obama win — then what happens. Well, a lot of people end up reconsidering their assumptions, both Left and Right. The GOP goes through some hard times — a wilderness period, if you will, wherein (one might hope) the Rovean neo-con theo-con traits of the party will be seared away, to leave a Republican party more in the mold of Eisenhower and Ford than of Nixon and Bush. Hey, in a year when a black man seems likely to become president, perhaps other, stranger dreams can come true …

Whoever wins, they face the the challenge of proving to the world that the American ideals of protecting liberty and a free market have not been shattered by the diplomatic and economic disasters we currently face. I don’t envy either man running for the Oval Office in dealing with that — but I know which one I think stands a better chance of doing so.

And a few items that don’t quite fit into the narrative above, but which are worth publishing:

• Both candidates (McCain especially, but Obama as well) have pursued big money beyond campaign limit by hosting/encouraging joint donations to both their campaign and to national and state party organizations.
• All that innuendo about illegal foreign contributors to Obama, based on the odd values of many small contributions. Duh, that’s not conversion from foreign currency, that’s informational.
• The BBC offers a guide to all the ‘Joes’ in the campaign.
• An Aussie offers an interesting perspective on our voting process. Most of what’s questioned is actually a result of our (sometime good, sometimes bad) federalist system of states rights.
• Okay, it’s a cheap shot, but a damned funny one: They’re Pinky and the Brain…

And so it goes …

I touched on this topic a month back, but I’ve finished going through the ballot proper, and here are my thoughts.

First, a side note: Damn, I am tired of the advertising campaigns around these, pro and con. “Amendment 69: Do we really want to pass a law to kick grandmothers out into the street in the cold of winter?” They don’t say, “Amendment 69: It will do A, B, which will lead to C and even grandmothers being forced out of their homes.”

So, for example, the Unholy Triumvirate (one assumes) of 47, 49, and 54 are being advertised against as putting the entire economy at risk, without ever laying out how they get from Point A to Point D. Now, I’m not particularly fond of those amendments, but to call it manipulative and fear-mongering wouldn’t be an exagerration.

Both sides do this, for what it’s worth*. They jump straight to the worst/best-case-scenario as if that were the actual law being passed. Feh. Give me some facts and let me draw the conclusion.

*To be fair, the Yes on 47 flier I have before me is very straightforward about what the amendment is about, even though I disagree about its merits. 

I’ll note that, as a general note, I dislike on principle constitutional amendments regarding anything other than profound statements of personal rights or fundamentals of governance. Using it as a way to make ostensibly legislature-proof laws is sloppy and hazardous to our democracy.

Since the last review, the ballot has changed some. Four union-backed Amendments — 53, 55, 56, and 57 — were pulled in exchange for a big chunk o’ change to combat some anti-union measures (47, 49, and 54). Those others will remain on the ballot (too late to remove them), but votes on them will not count.

* AMENDMENT 46 – Colorado Civil Rights Initiative – Would prohibit the state from granting preferential treatment to anyone on the basis of race, sex or ethnicity in hiring, education and contracts. Poorly written and , to my mind, premature (albeit in a perfect world it would make great sense, and thus be unnecessary). No. 

A week later, here we are (+ means an increase, * means unchanged, – means a decrease):

As previously predicted, the gap growth has stalled, and even it’s even contracted a bit. Different sources are showing some gains for Obama, more have gains for McCain, and a number have shown growth in the “tie” states. Note, though, that everyone on the list is now giving the electoral majority (in most cases very comfortably) to Obama.

Over in the other races, here’s how things are looking.

I haven’t spelled out the tied and independent numbers; you can interpolate them.

The most interesting thing I’ve heard in the Senate race was a very sad scenario in which Joe Lieberman might still be able to wield influence, i.e., if the Dems get to 59 seats, and Joe ends up as the man who can give them a closure-ensuring 60. Now, that’s the kind of trouble one wants to be in, but I’d still almost be willing to sacrifice it in order to send him off to the wood shed (literally — have his office moved to a wood shed) where we don’t need to hear from him any more.

All right, you caught me out — I’ve been slacking off the last week-plus, consorting with furriners. What else can you expect from a terroristic socialism-supporter like moi? 

Meanwhile, back in reality … a lot of what I might have blogged about is old news, but there’s plenty of fresh acorns to dig up, and a few older ones that have taken root.

In the McCain camp, the worst news is Obama getting the thoughtful and studied endorsement of Colin Powell. Though reaction in the fringes has been predictably vitriolic (thus demonstrating, perhaps, why Powell never ran for the top job himself, and in the process shootingthemselves in the foot), it’s seen by most as a huge blow to McCain’s campaign. Many of the GOP centrists who admired McCain back in 2000 like Powell for similar reasons, no matter how sullied he was by the Iraq War run-up. Moderates on the fence, already questioning McCain’s qualifications and temperament, might very well see Powell’s vote for Obama as an inspiration as to where they should be placing their vote.

(If the serious GOP really doesn’t want Powell around any more, do we have a deal for you.)

As important, though as the endorsement was another very special part of Powell’s message, where he directly confronted the idea that it was somehow irreconsilable that someone could be a Muslim and a good American (or, as McCain put it elsewhere, an Arab and a good family man).  It’s speeches like that, even from a Republican, that give me (and, I should think, the world) hope in what America stands for.

Meanwhile, other endorsements roll in — some very surprising ones that don’t strike me just as rats deserting a sinking ship. From Christopher Buckley (William F’s boy, equally conservative, and now paying the price for his heresy) to the Chicago Tribune (which hasn’t endorsed a Democrat since the paper was founded by one of the GOP’s founders) to Christopher Hitchens (which might give me pause to reconsider my own vote), the number of people supporting Obama and explicitly rejecting the negative campaigning of the McCain camp continues to grow.

Another sign of Obama’s support: a record-breaking $150 million in contributions last month, the majority of which was small individual contributions (waves hand), and not primarily big $10K-a-plate celebrity dinner sorts of affairs. Though McCain tries to make this out as something horrible (waving around Watergate, of all things, as well as calling into question who all those “little people” are), it’s both a huge advantage for Obama right now (despite the large coffers of the GOP and their supporters) and, McCain’s rhetoric aside, an affirmation of how a large republic can work, and provides a better path than public financing (the risk is not with large total contributions, but with having large contributions from a few individuals).

Speaking of which, it seems the rich are divided on the race, with the “pretty darned rich” ($1-10 million) being for McCain (since he’ll cut their taxes), but the “super rich” (over $10 million / yr) being much more for Obama (probably because even an increase in their tax rate will still mean money coming in faster than they can spend it — which is one of the points of a progressive tax system).

In addition to the increasingly dismissed rhetoric about William Ayers (finally disarmed by Obama’s noting who else served on all those boards with the two of them), the McCain camp has decided that voter registration fraud is the key to throwing the election into doubt (and warranting draconian voter exclusion measures). Never mind that the fraud committed was by a few people and against ACORN itself, not the government, or that there’s a huge difference between registration fraud and voter fraud. McCain is busy painting ACORN as a bigger threat (kettle, black) to the republic than the Soviet Union ever was, a canard the GOP trots out every election like clockwork. 

The result, of course, is some truly disgusting and threatening vitriol unleashed against ACORN by folks who have drunk the McCain Kool-aid on this and think anything is justified to protect the republic from that socialistic Muslim black liberal Arabic uppity commie — like hanging in effigy, assaulting campaign workers, trashing cars, killing animals, or slashing tires.

But remember — this is all about Change and Honor and America. Right?

No wonder some folks keep their Obama stickers on the inside of the glass.

And the dirty tricks continue to pile up, both petty and gross. Scaring off student voters. Stealing campaign signs. Frightening children. Or even blaming stupid voters when voting machines mysteriously change votes to Republicans.

Of course, such actions are fully justified to protect us from a “Totalitarian, Pansexual Society” full of “Disease, Dysfunction and Abuse”, and to combat Anti-American Liberals who “Hate Real Americans That Work And Achieve And Believe In God”.

(Yup, sounds just like me, doesn’t it?)

Oh, and Obama’s a druggie, though we shouldn’t pay attention to that when it’s inconvenient to our own candidacy, but should when it seems all is lost. He’s also busy creating his own “United States of Obama” flag — oh, wait, that’s the Ohio state flag, gosh, don’t we feel silly?

Okay, having said all of that, and heaped justified calumny upon some McCain/Palin yahoo supporters, let me also give credit where credit is due, and note that sometimes some of them stand up for what’s right. Mad props.

McCain also has taken to calling Obama a socialist (y’know, those guys who want to do things like nationalize the banking system and like that). Of course, the real Socialists are kind of upset by the comparison.

This wild thrashing about hasn’t impressed or built any better ties with the grass-roots state organizations, which can’t figure out if they’re supposed to be more slanderous than thou, or whether it would be better to be saving up their money for 2010 …

McCain isn’t getting any love from astronomers and stargazers, either. Maybe he’s decided to rely on astrology instead. Though if there’s someone in the campaign who doesn’t need astrology, it’s Barack Obama, who fits all the categories of being Mr. Self-Actualized; I’m sure there are some folks who will think that’s a bad thing.

Meanwhile, in and/or from the Great White North, we have Gov. Palin, who’s only doing interviews with such difficult adversaries as Fox News and the 700 Club. Heck, even the press covering her are being kept under a watchful eye by the campaign. That’s because Sarah, poor Ms. Sarah, is being mocked, mocked! And so is God!

I trust God can take care of himself. Sarah could probably avoid the mockery if she could string two coherent sentences together. To which end, pity the poor girl growing up with the name “Sarah McCain Palin.” No, I do not joke.

But Gov. Palin may yet serve a useful purpose besides reviving Saturday Night Live‘s fortunes. She may yet establish the “Palin Effect,” to wit, the VP choice can actually make a difference in the electoin. Palin may have been McCain’s “Jump the Shark” moment — “It sounded so good sitting around the table …”

So did the DMCA, John …

All of which, despite a slowing (inevitable) of the gap in the polls and the McCain campaign trumpeting that momentum is changing their way, point to the possibility of a huge Democratic landslide, a watershed event. And if that means the GOP has it’s (metaphorical) Forty Years in the Wastes figuring out how to get back to its conservative, small-government, sane roots — all the better for everyone (including the Democrats). But that means that, regardless of the outcome, we be willing to stay engaged with even our opponents, and not simply give up and leave if things don’t go our way. It’s our country. All of it and everyone. 

And in a bit of non-Us-vs.-Them news:

• Pity the foreign journalist who needs to translate this year’s catch phrases.
• Ah, the joy of local politics.
• Atheists! Eek! Atheists!
• Things aren’t going well with opposition to California’s Prop 8. This is something I’ve contributed to, even if it’s not in my state; I have family and friends, some of them gay, in California, and equal protection under the law is an ambition of mine. Give, if you can.

We’ve never done this before for a candidate. But we’re pleased to do it now.

I don’t talk much politics around the office. I mean, that’s one of those sure-fire ways to cause enmity and friction, and it’s not really what office relationships are supposed to be about.

However, inevitably, during my trip to India, the subject of the US presidential campaign came up

Five American IT professionals from a multi-national engineering firm. Middle management. One from Texas. One from the “Squirrel Meat Belt.” One a VP. One an immigrant from India. One from a middle-class suburban Catholic background.

Every one of us was voting for Barack Obama.

The biggest (and most encouraging surprise) was from the gent from Tennessee, who has been a life-long Republican, from a family of life-long deep-blood-red Republicans. He’s decided to cross over for this election. His argument:

I’ve always just hated the way the Democratic Party panders to the electorate, promising them stuff they know they can’t deliver. But the Republicans have become even worse, pandering in a way the Democrats can never match, and doing fear-mongering, too. And the pick of Palin was just the final insult. 

For what it’s worth, he still thinks McCain is an honorable man, but says (a) his time has come and gone, and (b) it’s a deep shame how his campaign has “forced” him into running in such a negative way.

I didn’t argue the matter.

He also thinks Obama is genuinely inspiring, not just another Democratic pol, but someone who can lead the country.

I can’t argue against that.

I suspect that, had you polled this same group four or eight years ago, you would have had a very different mix.

For what it’s worth, the Indians who were in the room during any of these conversations were all pro-Obama, too. None of them seemed to feel McCain’s foreign policy chops were all that much to their benefit.