Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain’s presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Post editors this morning.

“This election is not about issues,” said Davis. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”

Well obviously. Elections are always decided on rhetoric and personality, never politics. My question is: aren’t these the people who should be trying to change that? The ones campaigning? Who are the ones making this election into a beauty contest? But regardless…

I’ve been dutifully following the GOP convention these past few days, often with teeth gritted. Are these the most gifted speakers they have on tap? I had to skip Elmer Fudd on Wednesday night, but I did tune in immediately following for Palin. I was impressed, not because of substance, but because she performed capably, on cue. She’s likable enough.

The time spent adapting the McCain camp’s “generic masculine Veep speech” (as described by Rick Davis, see above link) to Palin was time well spent. Squirreled away at the Minneapolis Hilton, she was able to personalize said speech and rehearse all of the day’s talking points. Palin’s introduction to the world worked but her barbs at “the opposition” felt generic and scripted. Her attempts at qualifying herself for the position were laughable (polling suggests Americans didn’t buy it); her claimed accomplishments dubious.

It is still anyone’s guess as to whether or not this VP choice will help or hurt McCain. It has solidified the “base.” But how much of an affect will that have? Primarily fundraising-wise I assume.

Whether or not Palin helps McCain depends on how undecideds and independents view her. She has exhibited personality, but still needs to prove how she’ll help McCain beyond the election. In the White House. I can’t see how she does.

Last night was McCain’s acceptance speech. Nothing of note here, we’ve seen McCain before and heard it all before. The issues he paid particular attention to seemed directed at the Republican base rather than voters at large (school “choice,” trumping up education as the be-all, end-all for our current economic woes and unemployment, oil drilling and nuclear power). McCain has lost my respect over the course of the past few years, and this campaign especially. He’s surrounded himself with the same group that got Dubya into office, and he’s won the nomination… But lost authenticity.

The McCain campaign has a real issue with choosing a central message. They have railed Obama for being inexperienced or lacking substance, with mixed results (Obama fell in the polls, but naturally McCain’s numbers remained flat). They painted McCain as a “maverick” (seemingly always with a capital M), but we already knew of this image (real or constructed). They have transitioned him from being the maverick to being the candidate for “real” change. Change has been the central message of this convention (besides the chest-thumping irrelevence of military service). Change is a hot commodity. Change change changity change.

Will anyone buy it coming from Republicans? It’s hard enough to swallow coming from the Dems.

Probably the most interesting thing to watch over the course of the Republican National Convention has been the dance around Bush and the past eight years of Republican rule. McCain mentioned him once, not by name. We’ve heard speakers repeatedly railing against lobbyists and big oil. Against the “Washington Establishment.” Are we ignoring the fact that Republicans currently rule that roost? Are we ignoring Palin’s hiring of lobbyists during her tenure as mayor of some dinky town in Alaska, or her support of the oft-mentioned “bridge to nowhere”?

McCain supported the surge… He also supported the initial invasion. That support resulted in the killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands, the displacement of a million-odd people. We got to lynch Hussein. That was fun, I suppose. McCain experienced war thirty-odd years ago, but he’s orgotten the gravitas involved in sending troops off on cowboy expeditions.

Energy policy? Who needs one? Palin has added drilling in Alaska to McCain’s offshore drilling mantra. Oil, nuclear, natural gas, “clean” coal, and more oil - with alternative fuels relegated as a footnote at the very end. An addendum. Such an energy policy surely puts fear into the hearts of oil company execs.

Oh, the good times watching the RNC. Listen to one Republican speaker demonize Obama for his talk of giving “windfall profits” from oil companies to Americans… And then the very next day listen to Palin receive wide applause for doing the same exact thing in Alaska.

McCain touts his foreign policy credentials, but tough posturing and the threat of force at the drop of the hat are no way to run this country.

(transcript)
Russia’s leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power. They invaded a small, democratic neighbor to gain more control over the world’s oil supply, intimidate other neighbors, and further their ambitions of reassembling the Russian empire. And the brave people of Georgia need our solidarity and prayers. As president, I will work to establish good relations with Russia so we need not fear a return of the Cold War.

Savaging Russia in one breath, talk of work to establish “good relations” in the next. Anyone see the problem here? Anyone?

McCain is not out of touch with reality because of his age. He’s out of touch because of his ideology.

Has anyone noticed that Sarah Palin’s central claim to political fame is a fraud? She represents herself as a fiscal conservative who abhors pork-barrel projects and said no thanks to the “bridge to nowhere” — a $398 million span that would have linked Ketchikan, Alaska, to its airport across the Tongass Narrows. But as mayor of Wasilla (pop. 9,780), she hired a Washington lobbyist to bring home the bacon. And just two years ago as a candidate for governor, she supported both the Ketchikan bridge and the congressional earmark that would have paid most of its cost.

I know, we’re not supposed to pay attention to such inconvenient details. We’re supposed to be dazzled by how unaffected she is, how plain-spoken, how “genuine.”

Indeed, if you don’t get hung up on her actual record, Palin simply is who she is. It’s not her fault that she’s a former Miss Wasilla with a campy “Northern Exposure” vibe, doctrinaire social-conservative views and no discernible qualifications for being vice president. It’s undeniable that people in Alaska apparently like her well enough, though they seem to have been even more shocked than the rest of us when she was named to the Republican ticket. In any event, she’s not the one who created this farcical situation.

I’m pretty sure I watched this columnist appear as a talking head this weekend on one of the news shows. He makes for a better columnist than five second blurb automaton.

McCain’s veep choice just seems to get worse each day, even as the GOP establishment attempts to paint a more glowing picture. The interweb is abuzz now with revelations that Palin wasn’t even in the running until late in the game, as conservative pundits shot down any notion of a pro-choice vice president. (I’m going to puke the next time someone gushes about McCain being a maverick.) Apparently the team assigned to vet Palin arrived in Alaska the day before McCain made his announcement.

With time running out - and as Senator McCain discarded two safer choices, Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable - he turned to Mrs Palin, meeting her on Thursday for an interview and offering her the job moments later. Advisers to two of the finalists on McCain’s list described an intensive vetting process for those candidates that lasted one to two months.
…
Aides to Senator McCain said they now had a team in Alaska to examine Mrs Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet her in Alaska had not arrived there until last Thursday.

And of course there’s the 17-year-old pregnant daughter and the husband’s (ancient) drunk driving charge… These will have an affect on the campaign, for better or worse. But I’m more interested in Eugene Robinson’s point revolving around Palin’s support o’ pork and her support of some goofball Alaskan successionist political party. Oh, and the possibility of McCain, 72, not being able to serve his full term and Palin stepping up to the plate. Didn’t we just have eight years of an unqualified presidential puppet?

All of this as hurricane Gustav deflects attention from the RNC convention and as polling results begin to trickle in post-DNC convention - particularly among former Hillary supporters. Obama seems to have received a healthy bump, with all of the major polls putting him between 6% and 9% ahead of McCain (with the CNN poll a bit of an anomaly at only 1%). That’s a healthy 3-5% bump from the week before. With Gustav putting a damper on the start of the RNC convention, it’ll be an interesting few weeks to watch the polls.

If there’s a silver lining for McCain, he raised about $47m during the month of August. This is close to the $50m Obama raised in July, but more than likely a lot less than the Democrat will have raised in August (not revealed as of this post).

So I read transcripts and caught sounds bites of Michelle Obama’s speech, and I thought “OK, someone more informed than me thinks this is needed. Fine.”

Then I watched Hillary on day 2, and I let out a sigh of relief. Besides the odd introductory video… On message, clear, articulate, and a solid endorsement of her primary season rival. Good job, Hill. But I braced myself for Bill.

I missed Bill and only caught the tail end of Biden. But from all accounts, Bill came through, stating in no uncertain terms how Obama is the man to win this election. I wasn’t particularly impressed with Biden’s oratorical skills, but his prime time rivals at the event are the best in the biz, so I let it slide. Biden did deliver on his campaign season cachet: as the voice of experience and able bodied McCain thrasher.

I still bit my tongue, fearful that the last day would bring something unexpected. It didn’t. Obama delivered covering all of his bases in the process. In particular, I was looking for enough “specificity” to silence that particular criticism. He succeeded, insomuch as anyone can go into policy during a nationally televised speech. (McCain himself doesn’t - you talk nitty gritty and you loose the crowd.)

I don’t self-identify as a Democrat and aren’t registered as one, but at this pace I might just be able to put enough faith into the party to switch my affiliation. I never imagined I would agree politically with a major party candidate, but the pandering of the Democratic Leadership Council seems to have gone by the wayside, replaced by someone who means and believes what he says - and has the political platform for me to truly appreciate that quality.

Highlights include Hillary’s “Twin Cities” barb and Biden making the absolutely sublime point that the #1 qualification for the presidency is not experience, but good judgement. The stage last night at the stadium was not over done, contrary to the McCain camp’s exaggerations.

To top it all off, McCain announced his Veep choice today in an attempt to divert the country’s attention. But he made an odd choice, a woefully inexperienced and obscure governor from Alaska currently embroiled in an ethics investigation. Two years ago Palin was mayor of a town of 9,000. Now she’s the GOP VP nominee, solely to pick up a few lost stragglers hellbent on voting for something without a penis. A spokesperson from the McCain camp described this choice as a “maverick picking a maverick.” Apparently, McCain’s maverickness is based around a nonconformity to reality.

This week has gone much better than I could have expected.

(image courtesy of Jane Quinn, full photoset available here)

So I went to the NE Divisionals earlier this month (Aug. 9th-10th). This was a two-day autocross at Seneca Army Depot in Romulus, NY. I camped with my parents, and it almost felt like a homecoming being back in the finger lakes region (Romulus is in between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes). The event was hosted by Mohawk-Hudson and also a points event for our regional championships.

The location (an abandoned airstrip) is the best pavement available and allows for long and fast courses, quite a deviation from what I’m used to at smaller local events. The combination of an interesting course, fast competition, and clear weather made for a great event. (It rained both nights, but somehow cleared up during the days for our runs!)

I placed 4th in SM, behind the three nationally competitive drivers, and ahead of “everyone else.” I was curious if my Evo competition would be quicker on the faster wide open course, but I kept ahead of him (barely), mostly because of his worn shoddy tires which have since been replaced.

The best runs of each day were added up to form a total:
1st in SM — 113.254 seconds
2nd — 113.705
3rd — 120.138
4th — 120.782 (moi)
5th — 121.258
6th — 121.719
7th — 123.521
8th — 129.925

I was pretty damn close to third (which would have been a trophy), but not because I was a comparable driver. Third was the wife(?) co-driver of the guy who placed 2nd. Their car began running on limp mode during the second day. She was able to borrow the other SM Honda Civic (who’s driver placed 1st). So her times were slower in the (slightly) unfamiliar car.

It was a fun event and a good introduction to larger, national level events. There are a ton of pics here, even a few of my dirty car. I should mention also in attendance were about half a dozen other MINIs, running in stock and street tire classes. Everyone was friendly, fast, and.. uhm. Furious?

Few events in September, I might be able to catch something in October, and then it’s the cold, dreary winter off-season. I need to find an ice racer!

The first poll with McCain ahead by 5% last week got a lot of press, but here’s one with more interesting results…

One intriguing result from Sunday’s Washington Post/ABC poll (which showed Barack Obama maintaining a narrow, 4 percent lead among likely voters) was the Democratic candidate’s vault over John McCain on the question of leadership.

For the first time all spring and summer, when voters answered the question “Who is the stronger leader?” Obama beat his Republican foe.

The reversal is pretty dramatic. In March, those surveyed chose McCain as the stronger leader by a 53-40 margin. In June, McCain had a 47-44 lead. But in the August poll, Obama beats McCain by five points, 49-44. That is an 18-point switch in four months.

And later on (I just need to point this out)…

According to the Post/ABC poll, 64 percent of those surveyed think Obama is addressing the issues, and 29 percent believe he is intent on attacking McCain. The voters had a quite different picture of McCain, however, with 48 percent saying the Republican was primarily interested in attacking Obama and just 45 percent saying that McCain was addressing their concerns.

The Post/ABC survey ratified the results of the Battleground Poll, a survey taken by a bipartisan team of pollsters, which was released earlier this month. When asked who was waging the more negative campaign, respondents in the Battleground survey chose McCain over Obama by 50 to 21 percent. Today’s CNN-Gallup poll had a similar result, with nearly half of those polled saying McCain had attacked Obama unfairly.
…
As McCain said after surviving Romney’s televised assaults in the Republican primary season, “Negative campaigns don’t work.”

We’ll have to wait for additional polls that reinforce these results, but there certainly are drawbacks to running a negative campaign, and McCain may be beginning to feel them. In the meantime, the Democratic (and later, Republican) National Convention(s) will throw all of the polling for a loop.

A little over two months to go. Oh boy!