Cling, Baby, Cling

mccain's 2000 campaign advisor mike murphy on the $150,000

I saw the RNC statement on Gov. Palin’s $150,000 clothing bender on the RNC's tab. This caper is gonna make for a long day at the office for the good folks at the RNC/McCain press operation. Thought I’d offer a little help in a humorous vein; some other possible spin lines for the RNC.

1.) What you sneering critics in the liberal MSM fail to see here is… a Jobs Program! Saks floorwalkers, cashiers, a team of sweating porters to haul the merchandise from the store to the motorcade… chiropractors to treat those porters. Sarah Palin knows how to create jobs!

2.) What’s the difference between a Pit Bull and a Hockey Mom? You can feed a pit-bull for 483 years with 150 grand.

3.) Still cheaper than Mitt Romney’s hair products. We’re saving money here…

4.) William Ayres is a terrorist!

5.) New ad slogan: “Clothes for Gov. Palin? $150,000. Time machine to go back two months to late August and ask what the Hell were Schmidt and Davis thinking when they cooked up this idea and sold it to McCain? Priceless.”

Olbermann's Special Comment on irresponsible G.O.P messages

Racist, xenophobic, irresponsible G.O.P messages; America is Pro-America; Congressperson Bachmann kept movie Aladdin from being shown because she thought it promoted paganism & witchcraft; Character assassination of Colin Powell by Limbaugh (reactionary non-thought, blind allegiance); Powell reaching across the aisle, putting Country First...

oh yeah

Bush Strategist claims McCain put country at risk with Palin-Pick

From The Huffington Post:

Matthew Dowd, a prominent political consultant and chief strategist for George W. Bush's reelection campaign eviscerated John McCain on Tuesday for his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president.

Money Quote of the day: responding to claim that the Palin-pick had at least energized the GOP and McCain himself (by, of all people, HuffPost Washington editor at large Hilary Rosen), Mr. Dowd said, "To me it is like Halloween: you get energized by eating all that candy at night but then you feel sick the next day."

ed rollins on mccain's "schizophrenic" campaign

Ed Rollins, Republican strategist, from CNN:
...The first was the Rick Davis/John Weaver battle. Weaver and Mike Murphy, one of the best media strategists in the business, were the key players in the 2000 McCain effort and Weaver was the political guru who guided McCain's efforts since then. Davis, with a major assist from Cindy McCain and his former lobbying partner, Charlie Black, ousted Weaver.

Davis and Black, who masterminded Bob Dole's unsuccessful 1996 campaign and Phil Gramm's aborted presidential effort before that, are super lobbyists, and they opened the doors to their K Street allies.

Davis was then replaced -- in reality if not in title -- by Steve Schmidt, part of Karl Rove's operation. Schmidt is a first-rate tactician but new to McCain's world, and he still shares power with Black and Davis. This campaign would have been a much different operation if Weaver and Murphy had been brought back; but that was never going to happen with Davis and Black.

In the end, it's not relevant who holds what title in the McCain operation, because it is not being run by campaign professionals, but by the Washington lobbying class.

And no one seems to be in charge, least of all the candidate. The end result is a campaign suffering from "schizophrenia..."

another republican backs off mccain

Former Republican governor William Milliken backs off McCain endorsement:
"...But now Milliken is expressing doubts about his party's nominee, saying he is disappointed by McCain's personal attacks on Democratic opponent Barack Obama and other aspects of McCain's campaign. Reached Thursday at his Traverse City home, Milliken told The Grand Rapids Press that McCain should focus on the issues. The 86-year-old Milliken stopped short of saying he will vote for Obama, although he says he differs with McCain's position on the Iraq war and McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

christopher buckley's voting for obama

From The Daily Beast:
...John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

All this is genuinely saddening, and for the country is perhaps even tragic, for America ought, really, to be governed by men like John McCain—who have spent their entire lives in its service, even willing to give the last full measure of their devotion to it. If he goes out losing ugly, it will be beyond tragic, graffiti on a marble bust.

As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR... I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

david frum: stay cool baby

From David Frum in the National Review:
...American voters are staggering under the worst financial crisis since at least 1982. Asset values are tumbling, consumer spending is contracting, and a recession is visibly on the way. This crisis follows upon seven years in which middle-class incomes have stagnated and Republican economic management has been badly tarnished. Anybody who imagines that an election can be won under these circumstances by banging on about William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright is … to put it mildly … severely under-estimating the electoral importance of pocketbook issues.

We conservatives are sending a powerful, inadvertent message with this negative campaign against Barack Obama's associations and former associations: that we lack a positive agenda of our own and that we don’t care about the economic issues that are worrying American voters.

Republicans used negative campaigning successfully against Michael Dukakis and John Kerry, it’s true. But 1988 and 2004 were both years of economic expansion, pro-incumbent years. 2008 is like 1992, only worse. If we couldn’t beat Clinton in 1992 by pointing to his own personal draft-dodging and his own personal womanizing, how do we expect to defeat Obama in a much more anti-incumbent year by attacking the misconduct of people with whom he once kept company (but doesn’t any more)?

Here’s another thing to keep in mind: Those who press this Ayers line of attack are whipping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that is going to be very hard to calm after November. Is it really wise to send conservatives into opposition in a mood of disdain and fury for a man who may well be the next president of the United States, incidentally the first African-American president? Anger is a very bad political adviser. It can isolate us and push us to the extremes at exactly the moment when we ought to be rebuilding, rethinking, regrouping and recruiting.

I’m not suggesting that we remit our opposition to a hypothetical President Obama. Only that an outgunned party will need to stay cool. A big part of Obama’s appeal is his self-command. It’s a genuinely impressive quality. Let’s emulate it. We’ll be needing it.

george will: see ya john

From George Will in the Washington Post:
Time was, the Baltimore Orioles' manager was Earl Weaver, a short, irascible, Napoleonic figure who, when cranky, as he frequently was, would shout at an umpire, "Are you going to get any better or is this it?" With, mercifully, only one debate to go, that is the question about John McCain's campaign.

In the closing days of his 10-year quest for the presidency, McCain finds it galling that Barack Obama is winning the first serious campaign he has ever run against a Republican. Before Tuesday night's uneventful event, gall was fueling what might be the McCain-Palin campaign's closing argument. It is less that Obama has bad ideas than that Obama is a bad person.

This, McCain and his female Sancho Panza say, is demonstrated by bad associations Obama had in Chicago, such as with William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist. But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts -- telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans' accounts have recently shed. In this context, the McCain-Palin campaign's attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama's Chicago associations seems surreal -- or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, "like being savaged by a dead sheep..."

david brooks calls palin a "fatal cancer to the republican party"

David Brooks, the conservative columnist who helped get us into the Iraq War, said that Sarah Palin not only is not qualified to be Vice President but that she represents a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party." Wow. Check the link to the right for more of these Conservatives with a Conscience.

press kept under a watchful eye

From conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan:
No press conferences, no accountability, no Meet The Press, no medical records, and no college transcripts for the Palin Express. And now, the press is barred from even talking to her supporters:

Constantly under the watchful eyes of security, the media wasn't permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park to talk to Sarah Palin supporters. When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head toward the bleachers where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out of nowhere and confront him or her and say, "Can I help you?'' and turn the person around. When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn't allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written. The campaign wanted to avoid that possibility Monday.

This is not America. And it's a chilling preview of how Putin-like a Palin-McCain administration would be.

not all the conservatives were convinced

from Conor Friedersdorf:
...Finally, what about my call for Governor Palin to be kicked off the ticket? One criticism of my article was that the base would never accept it, and Governor Palin performed well enough tonight for that to be definitively true. But I don’t think she performed nearly well enough to allow John McCain to win the election, and neither did she convince me that she would be capable of becoming President on day 2.

To put a finer point on this, I ask the following of everyone who watched tonight’s debate — were John McCain assassinated at his inauguration by terrorists, even as two American cities saw buildings partially blown up by truck bombs, and Vladimir Putin used the opportunity to move troops into a former Soviet Repulic, would you trust that Governor Palin would have the knowledge, credibility, bearing and calming influence on the country to handle the situation? Or would having her in the Oval Office freak you out in a deep way? I’d be frightened, and I expect a lot of people now supporting Governor Palin would think, "Oh God, what have I done." I was hoping I’d change my mind about that tonight, for I really am all about not wanting worse case scenarios to happen, but alas I still worry about it.

the droid

National Review's Kathleen Parker is still not convinced:
Well, darnit all, if that dadgum girl (wink, wink) didn't beat the tarnation out of Joe Biden. Maverick Sarah Palin fersure surpassed expectations and said everything under the sun, also. And Biden smiled and smiled.

Palin is a populist pro. She hit all the notes that resonate with non-elite Americans: family (Hi Mom and Dad!), "Can I call ya Joe?" personal responsibility, Wall Street greed, children with special needs. Her most effective technique was speaking directly to the American people and letting Joe know that's what she was gonna do, doggonit.

Stylistically, she used the language of the people to great effect. And, you know what? If you want to know what the American people care about, you can go to a kid's soccer game on Saturday and ask parents how they feel, and "I'll betcha you're going to hear some fear."

I'll have to go to the transcript to figure out what Palin actually said and try to figure out whose facts were right. But there's no question: She won the debate on popularity. She did her homework, studied hard, and delivered with spunk. Still, I had the uneasy feeling throughout that I was witnessing a data dump from a very appealing droid. Even the winks and jaw juts seemed slightly programmed. And the question remains: Is she ready to be president should the need arise?

the omen in my mail

After conservative columnist Kathleen Parker wrote an article daring to suggest that Sarah Palin was not qualified to be Prez, she got so much hate mail that she had to write another article:
Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should "off" myself.

Those are a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down.

Who says public discourse hasn't deteriorated?

The fierce reaction to my column has been both bracing and enlightening. After 20 years of column writing, I'm familiar with angry mail. But the past few days have produced responses of a different order. Not just angry, but vicious and threatening.

Some of my usual readers feel betrayed because I previously have written favorably of Palin. By changing my mind and saying so, I am viewed as a traitor to the Republican Party -- not a "true" conservative.

Obviously, I'm not employed by the GOP. If I were, the party is seriously in arrears. But what is a true conservative? One who doesn't think or question and who marches in lock step with The Party?...

george will says she ain't qualified

Famed conservative columnist George Will told a gathering of Senate aides on Monday that Gov. Sarah Palin is "obviously" not prepared to assume the presidency if necessary, two event attendees told the Huffington Post. Appearing at a Senate Press Secretaries Association reception at the Cornerstone Government Affairs office, Will offered a rough assessment of John McCain's running mate. Palin is "obviously not qualified to be President," he remarked, describing her interview on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric as a "disaster"...

even the national review is scared

From the National Review of all places:
...Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this...”