After winning a championship in any sport, I think there should be a moratorium on the mention of possible repeats or threepeats until the next season begins.  I hate to see when they ask a guy celebrating in the locker room if he thinks he can repeat.  Similarly, since we have a current republican president, I think it is a little early to speculate on who the next one will be.  So I am not  a big fan of this 2012 business.  What happens if the planet starts healing on Jan 22nd, and this whole planet rides this wave of hope to endless prosperity?  Chances are Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal will be hanging tight and claiming their favorite job is governor of their state.

A reader writes:

Did you hear this? It was on NPR the morning after the election. I’ve listened to it a few times, and out of all the commentary I’ve heard and read so far on the election, this is the one piece that keeps coming back to me.

If Weaver is trying to make it sound like the McCain campaign made a mistake when they let him get away, mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned.

I heard another commentator today say something to the extent that McCain made two huge mistakes:

1) Suspending his campaign to tackle the economic crisis.
2) Selecting Palin.

On the second point, this commentator didn’t seem to be any sort of Palin-hater. Rather, he said that one of the strong selling points of the McCain campaign is (was) experience, and that McCain’s attacks on Obama had been most effective when they focused on Barack’s relative lack of experience. The commentator asserts, however, that McCain’s ability to aggressively and compellingly attack Obama on this point was substantially weakened when he selected a running mate that also lacked experience.

The commentator also said McCain took a gamble on suspending his campaign and lost, but that suspending the campaign wasn’t a bad idea outright. Rather, McCain just didn’t capitalize on it in the appropriate way, and he came across looking desperate rather than confident and Presidential.

The BBC apparently has some serious Palin-haters, which surprised me. Have you been over to their web site since the election? They’ve been filling the front page with clips showing Palin calling her detractors “jerks,” and also the clip from Fox news where O’Reilly’s correspondent claims Palin doesn’t know which three countries are in NAFTA, or that Africa is a continent and not a country. Putting my personal thoughts about Palin aside, I must say I found these editorial selections to be rather surprising coming from the BBC, which usually seems fairly staid an conservative.

Anyway, all this is to say that I think the real problem with McCain and his campaign probably was this his strategists (and McCain himself) made many, many disastrous mistakes in working with and handling the media. I bet the campaign will literally become a case study in political science and perhaps PR classes on how not to work with the media.

In contrast, Obama’s handlers just hit the freakin’ media-spin ball out of the park, man. Among other things, they really get web2.0 and its power. There was a short piece from a NYTimes Bits blog about how their YouTube commercials were viewed a bazillion times, and, based on how much money the equivalent would have cost using MSM, they estimate the use of YouTube saved the campaign tens of millions of dollars.

My Reply Part I:

There is some serious infighting on the GOP side, which tends to happen when groups lose an alpha male, or the new alpha male is weak. That was definitely the case with the McCain campaign. There is a theory that Mitt Romney’s little army of Mormons was absorbed into the McCain camp and have been systematically sabotaging the campaign ever since. I mean, it’s beyond ridiculous. You’d never hear about anonymous staffers hating on a Bush-Cheney campaign, much less Barack Obama, or Clinton. The other theory is that it is McCain’s people and he is really being a jerk because everyone came to see Sarah and she raised 100 million for the RNC and he got zero for his campaign.

I actually tend to believe the former theory. Another staffer (Steve Biegun) have come up and put on the record that Palin knows full and well about Africa and follows issues in the Sudan and Egypt and Somalia. That staffer are named, the ankle biters are not. In general, I tend to believe those that go on the record over those that remain anonymous. Christians pay attention to the middle east, and I find it hard to imagine that your Todd Palin works for BP all your life and you don’t know where Nigeria, Libya, and other oil rich African countries are. I know people that are the reddest necks in the world, that barely made it through high school, that worked in Nigeria. I’m willing to bet Todd and Sarah know some people like that too. I think the NAFTA thing is equally ridiculous and hard to swallow, particularly since she is governor of a border state and negotiated a pipeline deal with a Canadian company.

Sarah was calling the ankle biters jerks, not critics.

Look, she has enough gaffes as it is by which you can judge her. I’m just saying don’t take this post-election stuff too seriously, b/c it is probably someone trying to make Mitt look smarter by knocking her down.

I supported Mitt in the primary but now think he is pretty much a bitter jerk and I won’t support him in the future, regardless as to whether these guys were his aides. He pretty much sandbagged it for McCain. I agree with you regarding web 2.0, but Howard Dean had all that fundraising too and look where it got him. Dean pretty much took a shiv to the Clintons with the Florida and Michigan thing, which like it or not would have swung this whole thing back to the dynasty. And like it or not, the honest thing to do would have been to let Florida count and let Obama be put on the Michigan ballot in the first place. So, all the web 2.0 stuff is fine and dandy but you need a good candidate and specifically Obama needed some love from party to make it happen.

Reply Part II:

The postmortems are all fine and dandy but seriously, given the gift wrapping Bush, Paulson, and Bernanke gave to the democrats with this horrible, horrible bailout, I can’t come up with a hypothetical situation in which McCain wins.

Sure, McCain could have voted ‘present’ on the bailout like Barack Obama did, but I can’t imagine that would win him any converts. I would have preferred that he vote against the bailout and cite it as another difference between him and George W Bush, just like the surge, election reform, torture, greenhouse gases reform, but that would have required McCain wanting to win the election rather than save face for his fellow Senators and keep the dudes in the back (i.e. the bankers) happy. Even if he does come out against the bailout, the press would pin the stocks dropping squarely on McCain. Instead, we are coerced into spending more money in a year on the bailout than the entire gulf war, and the stocks drop like a rock anyway. So, nope, I can’t talk myself into a McCain win.

Republicans will never out-Democrat Democrats, so when Republicans act like Democrats you might as well vote for the Democrats. Make sense?

The reason why the bailout didn’t pass the House the first time is that a majority of constituents like me went nuts and kept the phones ringing. From what I hear, reps that voted no were strong-armed by GOP party leadership into changing their position. My rep, John Culberson voted no both times because he has a pair.

On Palin, I can’t see any VP pick that brought more to the table. That is not a plaudit for Palin. Bobby Jindal wanted nothing to do with it and he just got elected (Jan 08) anyway. Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, nah. Mike Huckabee? Maybe you win Iowa, maybe Virginia, I doubt it. I think most anyone excited about Huckabee (lower class whites, evangelical Christians) were voting for Palin, too. The media wanted McCain to pick Lieberman, but that’s just because the media wanted Barack Obama to have a 50 state landslide. Jerks.

As for Weaver, when McCain ditched him his candidacy was considered toast and everyone was writing up how great Guiliani was. Many claim that ditching Weaver was the one thing that turned around McCain’s candidacy in 2007. So, he seems like a nice guy, but take it with a grain of salt.

My thoughts on the debate:

The only place Palin loses points here is early on when Biden keeps blaming the current bailout crisis on deregulation. I don’t know why Palin and McCain refuse to mention the expansion of the community reinvestment act in 1995. It is sad that Palin is willing to give the democrats a free pass on this one, and essentially join Biden and Obama in decrying Wall Street greed.

My answer would be something like this.

“Banks are a private institution that historically provide a great service to Americans and people throughout the world. They take all of our spare money and invest it in businesses small and large. Sometimes those investments pay off and the banks reward depositors with interest. Banking experts have developed great tools to help them determine to whom they should loan money. When banks are left alone they tend to make wise decisions about who should get a loan, and depositors do well, too. However, when government starts dictating and encouraging banks to give loans to people who cannot afford it, and when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provide a government guaranteed secondary market for these risky loans, banks will be coerced and cajoled into bending the rules. The size and scope of Fannie and Freddie is the root cause of this housing bubble and in a JohnnyB administration we would address this issue head on.”

Anyway my basic impression was that Palin was savvy and interesting and Biden was BORING. Yawnzers. Palin is right to deflect all Bush derived criticism away as “Looking back and pointing fingers” where she is looking ahead.

I got so tired of hearing Joe Biden beat up on Exxon Mobil. Exxon Mobil provides cheap energy to the world. Are they worse than Goldman Sachs or Countrywide? They provide good high paying union jobs in this country. When was the last time your government asked you to bail out an oil company? See, there’s another great line.

Palin’s approach to energy, and the private sector in general, is correct. The private sector is not to be demonized, but is a party with which government negotiates. Palin broke a pipeline monopoly (ok it is really an oligopoly) in Alaska by negotiating with Transcanada to build a (clean, green) natural gas pipeline. She wouldn’t let her citizens be exploited, but she gives them credit when due.

Gwen Ifill did a good job. Talking heads made too much noise about her book. Really, complaining about media bias is the sports equivalent to visiting Alabama and complaining about the refs. Nobody likes whiners and crybabies. Lehrer and Ifill are the two best moderators out there, a good moderator shouldn’t draw too much attention to themselves and that is exactly what Chris Matthews and the network guys do all the time.

The histrionics around Palin’s performance with Katie Couric was too much to bear. Palin picked a fight with the media, and then McCain sends her in to interview with them almost immediately. Clearly not thought through. The conservative media then lowers expectations, which I’ve been told is a soft form of racism, and she has clearly exceeded them.

Biden needed to look smarter than Palin, like Cheney did in 2000 when he offered to put Lieberman in the private sector. Biden did not do that. Biden’s fake choking up about his sons looked fake. I truly feel for the man, it was a real tragedy, but he tried to cover up his real concern with a phoney choking up concern for the cameras. Frankly I’m sick of tearing up in front of the camera by any politician, period.

On foreign policy, the lines have already been drawn. Biden didn’t look like he was smarter than Palin on any policies. Biden said he wants to be more aggressive in Sudan, and I guess Palin agrees with him. (Does anyone have a problem with this? Just asking). McCain was right about the surge, just as he was right about Fannie and Freddie in 2005, just as McCain and Palin are right about drilling for more oil and natural gas.

When Palin answers questions, I actually listened. Sometimes I cringed (especially when she kept harping on Wall Street greed; I mean geez if you really feel that way don’t support a bailout), but I cringe at all debates. With Joe Biden, it was a struggle not to turn it off or fall asleep.

These debates are really battles of attrition, and it seems like McCain is kind of winning, but wants to do it with the softest kid gloves imaginable.

Palin looks like a good sympathizer in chief. She could out “I-feel-your-pain” Bill Clinton.

By the way did anyone notice that the GOP raised $60 million this last month? I wonder if Kathleen Parker still wants Palin off the ticket? For David Brooks and others, sometimes when you have too many cocktails and/or triple lattes with colleagues at the NY Times and the New Republic, the more you want to impress them….

These are a couple of excellent articles (here and here, registration required and recommended) from Clive Crook at the Financial Times.  He points out how obviously the Liberal Elite and the Democratic party hold in low regard the very people they purportedly are so ardently representing.  A couple of excerpts:

Democrats speak up for the less prosperous; they have well-intentioned policies to help them; they are disturbed by inequality, and want to do something about it. Their concern is real and admirable. The trouble is, they lack respect for the objects of their solicitude. Their sympathy comes mixed with disdain, and even contempt.

Democrats regard their policies as self-evidently in the interests of the US working and middle classes. Yet those wide segments of US society keep helping to elect Republican presidents. How is one to account for this? Are those people idiots? Frankly, yes – or so many liberals are driven to conclude. Either that or bigots, clinging to guns, God and white supremacy; or else pathetic dupes, ever at the disposal of Republican strategists. If they only had the brains to vote in their interests, Democrats think, the party would never be out of power. But again and again, the Republicans tell their lies, and those stupid damned voters buy it.

And…

Efforts to smear the governor proceed at a frantic pace. My guess would be that there are now more journalists on assignment in Alaska than bothered to turn up for the Republican convention in St Paul, sifting through dustbins, interrogating Palin family acquaintances (extra credit for those with a grievance) and subjecting Ms Palin’s expenses claims to a fanatical scrutiny which I dare say their own record-keeping, or that of most senators, might not withstand.

Of course, they will find things. They may even find something important. But the sheer swarming zeal for trivial malfeasance and family embarrassments is rapidly raising the bar for impropriety. I think that many voters – and not just committed Republicans – find this whole spectacle disgusting, so on top of everything else Ms Palin is now getting a sympathy vote.

I, like the author, can’t help but laugh at the trap that the Democrats have walked into here.  It’s very simply a microcosm and expose on their attitudes in general.  It’s particularly amazing to me when I have conversations with supporters of Obama (you know who you are) who accuse McCain and Palin (and all their EVIL minions) of deliberately and consistently manipulating and fooling the American people into following them.  As if their beliefs have absolutely no value in and of themselves, it’s simply the Republican machine grabbing power.  You can’t simply disagree with the Liberal viewpoint, you simply must be too dense and stupid to grasp it.  There’s an astounding sense of intellectual snobbery matched by a decided lack of intellectual depth that continually boggles the mind.

The further irony (as Mr. Crook adeptly points out) is that Obama himself would never abide by this nonsense.  If his latest book is any indication, he seeths at the concept of insulting an entire group of people based on their beliefs.  And even though his campaign has eventually made its way into a predictable and depressing class warfare stump speech, I believe as the author does that his initial reaction to Palin was the right one, and it was a sincere one.  Unfortunately, the undeniable support he receives from the media is not matched by a solid control of it, and he couldn’t stop them from descending on Wasila like a pack of wild Banshees trying to find crazy preachers and 2nd grade classmates of Palin who would talk bad about her.

Here is a little known fact about Sarah Palin I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else.

Even when approaching the speed of light, Sarah Palin knows exactly the location and momentum with which she is traveling.

Sarah Palin Rumors debunked

Sour Grapes from Anne Kilkenney

This lady is entitled to her opinion, but why did she leave out the most important part…the shenanigans Sarah pulled to become starting point guard in Wasilla!

This is my favorite little known fact about Sarah Palin

The 2008 convention was the most sloppy, unorganized convention I’ve ever seen.

Joe Lieberman was a disaster.  I guess to make Sarah look good by comparison?

I felt bad for Mitt Romney for trying to throw out a low of red meat.  He looked desperate out there.

Mike Huckabee has killer charm on the pulpit podium.  When Sarah mentioned that “Some politicians use ‘change’ to promote their careers, and some leaders, like John McCain use their careers to promote change.”  He mouthed, “That’s a good line”.  This was almost as cute as when Piper licked Trig’s hair.

Guiliani was the perfect warm-up for Palin.  When he shrugged and laughed at Obama’s community organizing, I think he summed up the first impression of millions of Americans.

Michael Steele is quite a capable “official Barack Obama Criticizer”.

Rudy and more importantly Sarah Palin salvaged an otherwise dreary and unorganized convention.  The media is besides themselves because every attempt to malign Palin’s record only highlights Obama’s thin resume.

Is Lindsay Graham the Clay Aiken of the Republican Party, or what?

Tom Ridge is the warm-up?  Yikes.  My wife kept asking ‘Where is Condoleeza Rice’…I think she has a girl crush on Condi.

Mac delivers his speech rather badly, I think.  It may not be his fault, it seems his lung capacity is low, so he pauses a lot, and everyone foolishly applauses every pause.  The Big Mac’s timing is bad and he’s shaken a lot worse than W was in 2004 by the protestors.  W could give a good speech, but he’s horrible in debates.  With McCain, he’s horrible at these speeches but rather good in debates, at least in the ones I’ve seen against GOP contenders.

The backdrop is a nightmare.

Obama’s style and strategy seems a lot like a W from the left…raise a lot of money, run a tight ship.  He orchestrated an audacious convention but couldn’t overcome the party crashing of the Clintons.  W’s 2004 convention was airtight. In spite of itself, the GOP convention was a winner for them because Obama is so hindered by the Clintons.