The madness will soon be over. Here's hoping the Bushies don't manufacture a crisis overseas.

Sixty-five percent of registered voters say Obama would bring real change, while just 37 percent say the same of McCain. Nearly 60 percent of voters say McCain would not bring change.

That there is some good news.

But, but, but...
The fundamentals of McCain's campaign are strong.

Damn. That only puts their RCP average at a tie. I thought it would swing back to Obama.

Oh well, that's better than having to see McCain's name up there.

If McCain keeps talking about how he's going to take on the "ole boys network" and "reform Wall Street", he's only setting himself up for people to bring up the Savings & Loan scandal and his extensive record of deregulation.

Some of these numbers are looking good.

Just 17 percent of registered voters say McCain chose Palin because she is well qualified for the job of Vice President. Seventy-five percent say McCain made the choice to help win the election.

Contrast that with the perception of Obama's selection of Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as running mate: 57 percent of registered voters say Obama chose Biden because he is well qualified. Thirty-one percent say the choice was to help with the election.

Her favorable rating among women has fallen 11 points in the past week.

So much for that "sexism" backlash among women.

Everyone should forward this powerful ad against Palin to everyone you know.

https://secure.defenders.org/site/Donation2?idb=0&df_id...

Finally an ad that looks like it could have come from the GOP.

Priceless!

The 17% who think she's qualified are members of Palin's church in Bumfu*k, Alaska, or are legally braindead, or are fetus in utero.

In the words of Bill, "It's the economy stupid."

Hammer it home for the next 48 days and Obama will be the next President. The long form commercial is a good start. Should he get a bit wonky in the days ahead? I think he will very likely strike the right balance. McCain is playing off the old playbook and that will hurt him. As for the ugliness, McCain's team might be a little gunshy to attack Obama in the old ways as the liar meme is gelling nicely. Any BS attacks will be fact checked rigorously by the MSM now.

There are 2 days left in the workweek. Obama still has to take it to McCain. Ignoring Palin is paying dividends. I expect it to continue.

New Indiana poll.

O47-M44

Where did you find that Indiana poll at?

Mr. Kleefeld,

The economy did not hurt McCain. McCain and the group of lying sacks o' crap who who hang out with him hurt McCain. This is strictly foot in mouth disease. The economy lacks aminus.

Unless you meant that the economy may have hurt McCain's husband's, the Ruling Queen of the Undead and Beer, investments AND therefore he, McCain, has less pin money. If that is what you meant I would give you that . . .

they are part of the same 28% that thinks W is doing a fantastic job. clearly the cream of the crop coming out of the country's educational system.

Meanwhile, McCain appears to think he's back in 1929, when the stock market was in free fall, Republicans claimed the fundamentals of our economy were sound, and Spain was ruled by a hostile dictator.

Not directly on topic, but did anyone catch Ben Stein on Larry King tonight with Bob Reich. He cedes the entire, and I mean ENTIRE crisis issue (and hence the economy) enthusiastcally to Obama. When the Fmr. Labor Sec asked him why he doesn't come over, all he can say is the choice issue. It's remarkable -- you need to check it out if you haven't seen it.

Add it to the Matthews grilling of the McCain hack, and you've got yourself a useful night at the funnies!

If we think the envelope of lying and skullduggery is already being pushed by M-P, imagine when they face being behind getting outspent and stretched in places like IN and VA. Rs aren't used to getting outspent -- money was supposed to be their bailiwick (oops!) -- and it should produce some awful contortions and skullduggery. We ain't seen nasty yet! Happily he's tarnished his credibility already, but it will be ugly.

Viva Viva

Is it just me or there is a sense in the air democrats are plotting a successful coup at the stroke of the midnight to take back the country.

Obama 49, McCain 45

NEW QUINNIPIAC POLLS!

btw...palin's answers at her "town hall meeting" are hilarious

A Conservative Former Editor of National Review Endorses Barack Obama

http://www.dmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm=Core Pages

(Excerpt)

“I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.’

“Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened."

There are some lights at the end of the Conservative Tunnel!

McCain new ad on the economy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjvzyFyMO-k&

Fear mongering at best: Lies about high taxes and massive government. They even dare to use the "Liberal" tag. This people have no shame. LIARS!

I began to take heart a bit when I was reminded that Geraldine Ferraro brought Mondale's ticket a temporary 15-point celebrity (female) bump, only to lose miserably in the general.

The View is a gift that keeps on giving, and that SNL stuff is unreal. (Anybody who hasn't seen that should -- "And I can see Russia from my house!" LOL!!!) Add to these things WomenAgainstSarahPalin.com, her peculiar public performances (such as I've caught glimpses from overseas)
and this poll, and I begin to suspect, knock on wood:

This is the big one. The ground they will never make up. Like the Tet Offensive.

Not Churchill's "end of the beginning," but indeed, the beginning of the end. May the Heavens smile upon this thought.

Cite:

Head of State

http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/09/cynicism-of-mccains-vp-choice.html

Monday, September 15, 2008

The Cynicism of John McCain and his VP Choice

If you read Jeffrey Goldberg's excellent piece on McCain in the new Atlantic, one fact stands out clearly. McCain's stance on the war is inviolate--it involves what for him are principles of honor that stretch back immediately and directly to his own experiences in the Vietnam war, and to those of his father in World War II. Just one example of many in the first-rate article:

I told Swindle [a cellmate and friend of McCain's] that McCain had argued to me that he doesn’t think about Vietnam overly much when he thinks about the wars of today.

“Bullshit,” Swindle said. “He’ll say Vietnam didn’t affect him, that he doesn’t think about it, that he’s aloof from it. But I see it. It’s there.”

This is the issue on which McCain is inflexible, certain, fully invested, passionate.

It is equally clear that as a result, he views all other issues as malleable, political issues--stances that can be easily taken, and easily changed, tactically-- in order to win a campaign and thus deal with the issue that, to him, matters.

This is utterly clear in his choice of Palin, where his Vietnam-and-since cynicism about political necessities is manifest--one of feeding the bread and circuses desire of the electorate, giving them, so easily fooled, as they were so easily fooled by the media in Vietnam, what they need, in order to be able to deal with the important issue.

The choice of a remarkably unqualified Vice Presidential choice is simply a political necessity. The attitude towards the public, and the media, in this choice, as in many of the public representations and statements of his campaign, is one of an extraordinary, jaded, cynicism: Feed the beast with whatever fantasies and half-truths it takes. The fundamentals of the economy are sound. We'll take care of it later.

Goldberg:

In my conversations with McCain, however, he never appeared greatly troubled by his shifts and reversals. It’s not difficult to understand why: tax policy, or health care, or even off-shore oil drilling are for him all matters of mere politics, and politics calls for ideological plasticity. It is only in the realm of national defense, and of American honor—two notions that for McCain are thoroughly entwined—that he becomes truly unbending.

This is no doubt rooted in McCain's eternal certainties, drummed in by three generations of such certainty. And there is no doubt strength and decency--as well as these "family values"--that drive this commitment to an ideological core.

The question is this: Do we need another president with such a core of ideological inflexibility, rigidity and unwillingness for self-reflection, linked to a long past conflict--and who is willing to resort to half-truths, deceptions, and distortions in its service?

Cite:

Head of State

http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/09/cynicism-of-mccains-vp-choice.html

People people people this financial crisis IS NOT being covered in this poll. MAYBE monday is being covered in the poll AT BEST. The results of this crisis won't be shown in polls until friday of this week or next week at the earliest.