Day: September 28, 2008

Obama Ad Shows McCain Winning

Trish

The Obama campaign provides a terrifying glimpse into the future, if people don’t register and then vote the right way.

I’m not sure how to feel about this ad. The New Age side of me worries about the power of visualization, which I believe is strong.

What do you think? Is this a good way to get out the vote?

Update: My mistake. The ad was produced by VoteForChange, not the Obama campaign. And it looks like they have pulled it.

Carl Hiaasen and The Sarah Rules

Trish

The Miami Herald’s Carl Hiaasen asks whether the press would follow The Sarah Rules and defer on every issue if Palin were a man.

Most journalists are still getting accustomed to the Sarah Rules, as established and enforced by John McCain’s campaign team. The most important is Sarah Rule No. 1: Don’t treat Gov. Palin like a male candidate, or you’ll be accused of character assassination…

…the same right-wing gasbags who’ve trashed Hillary Clinton for 16 years have morphed into sensitive souls when it comes to their own hockey-mom candidate. Each unsettling news revelation about Palin is automatically decried as a sexist smear.

But if the gender issue were removed? Think about it, Hiaasen says.

  • If Palin were a male candidate, Democrat or Republican, she’d be taking heat for ducking reporters when the election is only five weeks away.
  • If Palin were a male candidate, she might also be encouraged to discuss why she chose a high-school pal to head Alaska’s Division of Agriculture at a $95,000 salary. Among her flimsy qualifications, the woman, a former real-estate agent, claimed an affection of cows.
    • If Palin were a male candidate…
  • If Palin were a male candidate, she’d be asked why she put another childhood friend in charge of a money-losing, state-subsidized creamery that was supposed to shut down until Palin reversed the decision. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the doomed dairy cost Alaskans more than $800,000 in additional losses before it was finally closed.
  • [I]f she were a male candidate, she’d be pressed to explain why she billed the state more than $17,000 as ”per diem” expenses — for 312 nights she spent at her own home.
  • Imagine if her Democratic opponent, Sen. Joe Biden, had been videotaped while being solemnly blessed against ”every form of witchcraft.” The Republicans would jump on it, running blistering ads to portray Biden as a whack job unfit for the vice presidency.

It’s hard to perform this same mental exercise with, “If Obama were white…” and come up with examples of how Obama has been given similar passes by the press. Lord knows, we discussed his pastor’s much less bizarre sermons ad nauseum. When you consider Hiaasen’s key Sarah Rule, there is no comparison.

…the Sarah Rules allow everyone to explain Palin’s words and past actions except Palin herself.

McCain Channels Reagan in Debate; Saves POW Card Till the Very End

Trish

Did anyone else notice how, once Barack Obama began really getting under John McCain’s skin during the first presidential debate, McCain started calling upon the ghost of Ronald Reagan as part of every response? McCain channeled the spirit of the Teflon Communicator four times during the last third of the debate.

We have a potential drinking game for the last two debates: a swig every time McCain mentions Ray-gun, and a shot every time he says he was a POW
  • Back in 1983, when I was a brand-new United States congressman, the one — the person I admired the most and still admire the most, Ronald Reagan, wanted to send Marines into Lebanon.
  • The point is that throughout history, whether it be Ronald Reagan, who wouldn’t sit down with Brezhnev, Andropov or Chernenko until Gorbachev was ready with glasnost and perestroika.
  • And we ought to go back to a little bit of Ronald Reagan’s “trust, but verify,” and certainly not sit down across the table from — without precondition, as Senator Obama said he did twice, I mean, it’s just dangerous.
  • But in the case of missile defense, Senator Obama said it had to be, quote, “proven.” That wasn’t proven when Ronald Reagan said we would do SDI, which is missile defense.

But even Ronald Reagan can only take old school Republicans so far. What you really need to seal the deal is a reference to your prisoner of war status. Except McCain left out the “of war” part and made it sound like he had been released from the state pen.

Jim, when I came home from prison, I saw our veterans being very badly treated, and it made me sad.

So we have a potential drinking game for the last two debates: a swig every time McCain mentions Ray-gun, and a shot every time he says he was a POW. Who’s the designated driver?