What to make of the Sarah Palin choice

Everybody is talking about McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his VP running mate.

I think it’s sort of straightforward, actually:

1. The right-wing Republican base seems delighted. So he has shored up his shaky base.

2. He is obviously pandering to Hillary supporters, and that will probably have very little effect because Palin and Clinton disagree on almost all issues. But anybody he drags away because Palin is a woman – even a few percent of disgruntled Hillary supporters – will just be extra gravy.

3. He took away the news cycle from Obama the day after Obama’s big climactic finish.

4. Palin is sort of a “maverick” like McCain likes to think he is. So maybe he saw something of himself in her.

So as just politics go, it was probably a pretty good move. I don’t see any downside. Strong Obama supporters weren’t going to be drawn to vote for McCain anyway. So shoring up his base and maybe grabbing a few wavering women voters won’t hurt him any.

doug

Early predictions

I’m going to make an early prediction that barring a huge gaffe on the part of McCain that McCain wins the election. Because:

1. Obama didn’t even seriously consider Hillary for a running mate, even though she got basically the same amount of votes he did hurt, so he is further hurting party unity.

2. Obama made it even worse by going for a running mate completely inside the Washington system for over 30 years now, utterly contradicting his argument against Hillary and his whole argument for his own candidacy.

3. Obama backtracking on so many positions that nobody can believe anything he says anymore.

4. The fact that McCain and Obama are tied at this point, and that McCain is ahead in Ohio.

5. The fact that Obama really has a very thin resume, and seemed to just use one job as a way to get his next job without really accomplishing anything along the way…

All this just adds up to the Democrats having made a huge mistake this year.

doug

Heading into the Democratic Convention

Obama seems much weakened as time goes by. And now there is this new Reuters/Zogby poll showing McCain again by 5 points. The Democratic nominee in a year like this should be ahead by 30 points!

Obama peaked like in March. Hillary had the momentum after that.

What also drives me crazy is that:

(1) Hillary was the clear favorite among actual registered Democrats, and this was supposed to be a Democratic party nomination. The state and party rules are bogus.

(2) She did much better in states where they actually had primaries. The caucuses are not very democratic because there are no absentee ballots, and disabled and elderly and working people on fixed shifts have a hard time getting to them.

(3) If the nomination rules were like in the Republican party (straight proportional allocation or winner-take-all (which is like the real election!)) Hillary would have won the nomination by a landslide.

As it is, the Democrats end up with a hangover and weak candidate.

doug

Kathleen Sebelius

In the NY Times they had an article about Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as a potential Obama running mate:

This part was funny:

Her moment in the national spotlight, delivering the Democratic response to the State of the Union address in January, prompted blistering reviews and an annotated sendup by Jon Stewart: “Wow, flat and boring. What state is she from again?” (Ms. Sebelius had concluded by telling President Bush, “God bless and sleep well,” to which Mr. Stewart responded, “We’re way ahead of you.”)

doug

What song was #1 when you were born?

You can look it up here

Mine was “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley. 🙂

doug

Bad timing

Talk about bad timing for an ad campaign!

Greyhound bus beheading

That’s like when the Korean Airlines plane got down after it accidentally crossed into Soviet airspace and KAL rushed to removed ads advertising new air routes that said, “Our flights not only seem shorter – they are shorter.”

doug

Paris Hilton’s campaign ad

Actually, it’s one of the better ones I’ve seen this year!

http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf

doug

Running while black

 

 

In Bob Herbert’s latest column, he once again takes on race in the 2008 campaign in a twisted way.

The reason so many people feel, in Herbert’s words, “that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place” has nothing to do with his race.

It has to do with people finding a light-weight, thin-resumed, first-term senator speaking down at them with preachy platitudes annoying. I would have the same reaction no matter his race.

Doug Lerner