Day: August 18, 2008

Obama: ‘This Is Not Going To Be Easy’

Jon Ponder

Barack Obama in Albuquerque yesterday:

“We’ve got work to do,” said the senator. “This is not going to be easy. It would be nice, you would think, given how badly Bush and his folks have performed over the last eight years and considering the fact that John McCain has facilitated and worked with the Bush Administration on this disaster, you would like to think that folks would say, we don’t even have to run TV ads, you just open the papers and say ‘we gotta throw the bums out.'”

But, Obama added, “American politics is never that easy.” Telling the crowd in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that he was “confident” that the public would be persuaded by the need for change, the Illinois Democrat shifted focus to his Republican opponent.

“You know, Americans will put up with a lot of stuff,” he said. “We are not, contrary to what John McCain’s advisers will say, we are not a bunch of whiners. We will suck it up and work hard even when things are unfair. But what really gets us mad, what really motivates and activates us is when we start feeling like the rules are so tilted in favor of the special interest, lobbyists and fat cats; that our kids might not have better opportunities we had. And when we start feeling that, that’s when we know the American people rise up. That’s when we know change is going to come about.”

McCain to Choose Ohio Veep?

Buck Banks

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder reported that Ohio Republican Party Chair Alex M. Triantafilou posted on his blog yesterday what appeared to be evidence that John McCain is planning to make a major announcement in Dayton Aug. 29 — the day after the Democratic convention ends:

Sen. McCain is expected to host a rally on August 29 in Dayton and is looking for a BIG venue and for a BIG crowd. He’ll get it. This is not yet public. I guess I just made it so

Not so oddly, the post has been wiped from the site.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

The way to win an election is to go onto the offensive against your opponent early, distort positions to whatever degree you can get away with, play upon people’s fears and prejudices — and never let up.

— Elizabeth Drew (1935- ), American political journalist and author

Cheating at Saddleback: McCain Appparently Knew Question About Supreme Court in Advance

Jon Ponder

MCCAIN: Could I — are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court Justices or should I mention —

WARREN: We will get to that.

MCCAIN: OK. All right. OK.

WARREN: You’re jumping ahead…

The McCain campaign is fighting hard against charges that McCain cheated on the rules of debate at a rightwing evangelical forum in a California megachurch over the weekend by cribbing the questions in advance. They are so desperate, apparently, that a McCain operative even played the POW card, citing McCain’s imprisonment by the Vietnamese 40 years ago as evidence somehow that he did not cheat Saturday night.
What’s suspicious here is that the topic of the Supreme Court had not come up in McCain’s interview, so it was not a topic to go “back” to.
Even “Pastor Rick” Warren, the multimillionaire evangelist who hosted the event — and who clearly favored McCain in the questioning — has admitted that McCain was not sequestered during the live session with Obama.

Warren told the live audience in the hall and on CNN that McCain was in a “cone of silence” to prevent him from having the advantage of hearing the questions in advance. In fact, McCain was in his car during much of Obama’s session, where he certainly could have listened to the interview.

And this exchange from the forum appears to indicate that McCain knew that Warren was going to ask him a very specific question about the Supreme Court. Notice how McCain asks if he can go “back” to a question about the court:

WARREN: Let’s deal with abortion. I, as a pastor, have to deal with this all the time, every different angle, every different pain, all of the decisions and all of that. Forty million abortions since Roe v. Wade. Some people, people who believe that life begins at conception, believe that’s a holocaust for many people. What point is a baby entitled to human rights?

MCCAIN: At the moment of conception. (APPLAUSE). I have a 25- year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate. And as president of the United States, I will be a pro-life president. And this presidency will have pro-life policies. That’s my commitment. That’s my commitment to you.

WARREN: OK, we don’t have to beleaguer on that one. Define marriage.

MCCAIN: A union — a union between man and woman, between one man and one woman. That’s my definition of marriage.

Could I — are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court Justices or should I mention —

WARREN: We will get to that.

MCCAIN: OK. All right. OK.

WARREN: You’re jumping ahead…

(CROSSTALK)

MCCAIN: When we speak of the issue of the rights to the unborn, we need to talk about judges. But, anyway, go ahead.

What’s suspicious here is that the topic of the Supreme Court had not come up in McCain’s interview, so it was not a topic to go “back” to. On the other hand, Obama had been asked a question about the Supreme Court during his earlier session, which McCain supposedly had not heard:

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In My Business We Call Them ‘Twinkies’

Buck Banks

Twinkies are young, gung-ho communications practitioners who sometimes take it inappropriately over the top when it comes to dealing with the press. In this case, John McCain’s twinkie brigade gets all up in the face of a Fox Channel video crew, creating some tense and awkward moments for everyone involved. Maybe “Tense and Awkward” should be McCain’s new campaign slogan ….

McCain Cites POW Status in Denying He Cheated at Evangelical Forum

Jon Ponder

Did John McCain cheat by cribbing questions in advance at the rightwing megachurch forum Saturday night?
UPDATE


McCain operative Nicole Wallace vehemently denied claims that McCain heard Barack Obama being questioned, even though McCain was not sequestered in a “cone of silence,” as Rick Warren, the multimillionaire evangelist and moderator of the forum, had asserted to the live audience.

What’s bizarre here is that Wallace cited McCain’s status as POW 40 years ago as evidence that he did not cheat Saturday night:

“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said. [Emphasis added.]

Here’s how Warren described the “rules” he established for the forum in his introductory remarks to the audience Saturday night:

RICK WARREN, PASTOR, SADDLEBACK CHURCH: Now, what I decided is to allow for proper comparison, I’m going to ask identical questions to each of these candidates. So you can compare apples to apples. Now, Senator Obama is going to go first. We flipped a coin, and we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence.

During his session, Obama gave what post-game analysts have called “thoughtful” and “nuanced” answers, which is a coded way to say he overthought the questions and his answers were too wordy.

However, when it was McCain’s turn, he gave very short answers — you know, like bumperstickers — and often interrupted Warren to start answering before the question was complete.

Was McCain in the “cone of silence” while Obama was questioned? According to Rick Warren, in an interview on CNN on Sunday, he was not:

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