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 Posted September 10th, 2008 at 10:49AM
Today’s article, courtesy of Slate, on the topic of lipstick, pigs, and putting the two together.
McCain’s campaign perfects its outrage over sexism.
All campaigns must change in order to handle the arrival of a vice-presidential candidate. To accommodate Sarah Palin, John McCain’s Straight Talk Express has now installed a fainting couch. It’s not for the vice-presidential candidate—she’s plenty tough—but for McCain aides who are rapidly perfecting the act of expiring on the cushions on her behalf at every sign of perceived sexism.
Tuesday night they turned in a spectacular performance. Barack Obama used the expression “lipstick on a pig” to refer to McCain’s new pitch as a change agent in Washington. “You can put lipstick on a pig,” he said as the crowd cheered. “It’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still gonna stink. We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”
The McCain campaign reacted to the remarks with emergency umbrage. A conference call was ordered for 7 p.m. Former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift, the newly minted chair of the “Palin Truth Squad,” told reporters she was offended at Obama’s attack on Palin. She couldn’t explain how Obama’s general attack was a personal one aimed at Palin but asserted it was just obvious. She also took offense on behalf of her children. She may have even put her hand to her brow, but it was a phone call, so I couldn’t tell. (Note: If it had been a man on the call, I also would have used this expression because of the silent-movielike theatricality. I believe that this gesture is gender neutral, but if you have another one, drop us a line and we’ll fix it.)
…
It’s not clear what Palin thinks of the lipstick remark or the campaign’s nine-alarm ire. She’s spoken only to People magazine since she was selected. She’ll sit down with ABC’s Charlie Gibson later this week for a set of interviews designed around her son’s deployment ceremony, and perhaps he’ll ask her. She once spoke at length about the ways in which Hillary Clinton’s whining about sexism had hurt all women everywhere, so perhaps it rankles that it’s being claimed so frequently on her behalf. She seems like the kind of woman who can defend herself. She might even think making such a fuss to protect her is sexist.
We’ll see.
Oh, issues? The NYT has a piece on how an Obama administration will deal with education.
Posted September 9th, 2008 at 1:03PM
“They spent a lot of time talking about John McCain’s biography, which is compelling, and Sarah Palin’s biography. She’s a mother, a governor, a moose shooter — and that’s cool stuff,” Obama said of his opponents during his hour-long town hall in Farmington Hills. “Then they spent a long time talking about me. They didn’t talk about the issues.”
– Obama, Farmington Hills, Michigan 9/8/08
LOL. I loved this one. Moose shooting is cool? Come now, Barack. 
Posted September 9th, 2008 at 10:49AM
This is the sort of editorial I would write if I had more than fiften minutes to spend on this blog each day. I think Paul Begala makes some pretty salient points, regardless of whether you agree with his overall prognosis. Strip away the editorializing, and this is probably how the election will shape up.
What to expect from McCain, Obama in 56 days
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The party of Reagan — sunny optimism, criticism offered in folksy witticisms and the shake of a head — is gone. This is the party of Giuliani and Palin: sarcastic, sneering, snotty and snide. I don’t know why, but meanness plays with the GOP base.
…
So McCain is not going to make this a race about ideas. After all, he actually has voted with Bush 91 percent of the time. Perhaps that’s why his campaign manager said this election was not about issues. McCain plainly wants this race to be about biography. His is actually the campaign built around a cult of personality.
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The flip side of a character-based positive message is — you guessed it — a character-based negative campaign. I hate to say this, but the McCain campaign — and its right-wing allies — are going to play the politics of fear and smear.
You saw it in St. Paul: doughy Republicans scoffing at Barack Obama’s time as a community organizer — even though Obama’s work was the embodiment of the values the GOP claims to believe in: faith-based, family-centered, self-help, hands-on, non-bureaucratic.
If you thought you’d seen it all with Willie Horton, the vicious attacks on Bill Clinton and his family (including John McCain himself cruelly mocking the appearance of then-12 year-old Chelsea), or the “swift-boating” of John Kerry, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Obama’s been maligned from the right as a Muslim, an elitist, a socialist — and that’s just the warm-up act.
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For his part, Barack Obama needs to drill two numbers into the heads of every American: 91 and 134. 91 is the percentage of the time McCain has voted with Bush, and 134 is the number of corporate special interest lobbyists involved in the McCain campaign.
Obama will likely argue that no one who votes with Bush 91 percent of the time is a maverick, and that someone with 134 former or current lobbyists advising, funding or managing his campaign cannot be considered a reformer. If Obama can shatter the image of the maverick reformer, even McCain’s heroic POW story will not be enough to win the White House.
On the positive side, Obama will likely stress the economy, including his plan to cut taxes for middle-class families and small business, as well as his plan for energy independence. The key to success will be connecting with voters.
…
Posted September 8th, 2008 at 5:36PM
It struck me awhile back how the now ubiquitous comment section at the end of articles on virtually every website is a recent phenom. It wasn’t that popular even four years ago during the last presidential cycle. This got me thinking on the purpose and impact of these comments. Is anyone ever swayed by a comment posted on a news site? The potential is there to have thoughtful replies, but to date I’ve seen nothing but partisans spewing vitriol, whose idea of clever is to invent nicknames of candidates – “McSame,” “Nobama.” There are occasional sane and levelheaded posts, but these are the exception to the rule.
At face value no one ought to pay any attention to this drivel. But subconsciously it must devalue the conversation, the same way any attention on non-issues does. I tend to read the first page or two of comments on articles I’ve read, but now I’m wondering whether or not this is just polluting my mind.
There are people who pay close attention to these comment sections. You can watch rivals sniping one another, jumping from article to article. Never in a way that might sway anyone, always combative. What’s the point? It seems even more dubious than a blog like this one. The one result – that I can come up with – of comment sections during this election year is to reinforce images we’re already getting from the media (mainstream or otherwise), the candidates, and pop culture. If levelheaded comments are rare, original ones are nonexistent.
So they buoy negative campaigning, and little else? Here’s a case of technology letting us down – or (more likely) vice versa.
This post had Andy Rooney written all over it. Bleh. I apologize in advance.
Posted September 4th, 2008 at 11:31AM
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.
Posted September 2nd, 2008 at 11:21AM
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.
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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).
Posted August 29th, 2008 at 1:39PM
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.
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Comment Sections In ’08
It struck me awhile back how the now ubiquitous comment section at the end of articles on virtually every website is a recent phenom. It wasn’t that popular even four years ago during the last presidential cycle. This got me thinking on the purpose and impact of these comments. Is anyone ever swayed by a comment posted on a news site? The potential is there to have thoughtful replies, but to date I’ve seen nothing but partisans spewing vitriol, whose idea of clever is to invent nicknames of candidates – “McSame,” “Nobama.” There are occasional sane and levelheaded posts, but these are the exception to the rule.
At face value no one ought to pay any attention to this drivel. But subconsciously it must devalue the conversation, the same way any attention on non-issues does. I tend to read the first page or two of comments on articles I’ve read, but now I’m wondering whether or not this is just polluting my mind.
There are people who pay close attention to these comment sections. You can watch rivals sniping one another, jumping from article to article. Never in a way that might sway anyone, always combative. What’s the point? It seems even more dubious than a blog like this one. The one result – that I can come up with – of comment sections during this election year is to reinforce images we’re already getting from the media (mainstream or otherwise), the candidates, and pop culture. If levelheaded comments are rare, original ones are nonexistent.
So they buoy negative campaigning, and little else? Here’s a case of technology letting us down – or (more likely) vice versa.
This post had Andy Rooney written all over it. Bleh. I apologize in advance.