McCain-Hutchinson?

It’s single-sourced from Halperin, so obviously doesn’t get any less reliable than that, but tactically my first impression is that it could be a really smart pick for McCain.  Definitely palatable to both the religious and non-religious extremist wings of the party.

What the heck??

McCain is now wasting money on this ad praising Obama. I suppose he wants to build some good will towards the Republicans among voters, but couldn’t he do that for free with a TV appearance, and not spend cash on this? Count me confused. I’ll be less confused if I hear that the campaign’s claims that they’re actually going to buy airtime for this turn out to be false.

We all have healthcare

Here is a quote from a McCain health care adviser saying that all Americans have some kind of health insurance since they have access to an emergency room.  He then states that the “uninsured” in our country are really just illegal immigrants.  And, well, they really do not deserve healthcare anyway. Comments like these should make its way to the front and center of the campaign.  How is emergency room care really true health care?  What a mess.

A Day in the Life of Lanny Davis

You know you want to…

Biting the Hand That Feeds You

McCain’s “prickly” (a well-chosen descriptor, no doubt) interview with TIME. It’s well worth reading.

Making History

The mainstream media gets a lot of things wrong, or at least a little off, but to their credit, one thing they did not miss was the historical impact of the first African American presidential nominee of a major party. I mean, wow!  As a member of a American minority but mostly just as a American, I’m incredibly proud of my country* and my party which, for better or for worse — and with agonizingly mixed results at times, aims to do right for all.

And best of all, he did it the hard way — he wasn’t born into power, fame, and riches, nor did he marry or otherwise weasel his way into it.  Rather, through hard work, perseverance, and yes, a good amount of confidence, he fought his way to where he is today.  Truly a self-made man, and the personification of the American ideal which all too often remains just that — an ideal and not a reality.

*UPDATE: I should add that, in case you were wondering, I have been proud of my country so many times before in the past that I’ve lost count.  In fact, I’m normally proud of my country several times a day — this particular instance wasn’t even the first time TODAY that I was proud of my country.

Roll Call

Just watching the live-feed on MSNBC of the roll call, and what can I say, Hillary Clinton is a class act — symbolically putting OBama over the top will presiding over the New York delegation.  However, in the motion to suspend the rules and declare Obama the nominee by acclimation, Nancy Pelosi called for those in favor to respond in the affirmative, which was met with a resounding “AYE!!!” and then called for those opposed to respond in the negative and basically cut off any attempt for the naysayers to have “their voices heard.”

I suspect the Republicans, the former Clinton support dead-enders, and thus the media talking heads will be all over this.

Hilarious

From the looks of it, some highly-placed Republican operative, not wanting Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman to get tapped by McCain as is running mate, contacted Robert Novak and told him that Lieberman himself warned McCain against picking him.  The result is Novak’s column today titled “Avoiding a Lieberman Disaster.”

This in turn has forced a desperate and bewildered Lieberman to contact the Politico to categorically deny and (”push back hard” on) Novak’s report. Good times!

Prescription for Happiness

Watch the convention on CSPAN or in online clips. Pay no attention to the cable networks or the hand-wringing blogs. Sleep soundly at night.

Hit Job

The New York Times’ Patrick Healy, who famously catalogued the Clinton’s sleeping patterns (”14 days a month on average,” dating back to the beginning of 2005, in case you were wondering), has an article out no less than 10 minutes after she’s finished delivering it on Hillary’s speech and how she hopes it will catapult her to the presidency.  From what I can tell, the article has been single-sourced from Lanny Davis.

The NYT’s online teaser headline on the front page, which used to read “Keeping Alive Her Presidential Hopes,” or something to the effect, now reads, “Betrays No Anger in Backing Obama Without Condition.”

A No-Doubter

Hillary has just finished delivering her speech, and I have no doubt that those inevitable handful of former supporters that will still sit out the election or perhaps even pull the lever for McCain are neither liberals nor true Democrats.

Best Line of the Convention So Far

Perhaps is sitting on the editing room floor:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who was asked by Obama to speak about the economy, was scheduled to deliver his speech Tuesday afternoon. The Obama campaign struck just one line from his speech, which slammed the Republicans and the Bush administration, according to a Democratic source… That line, addressing Republicans, read: “They’re asking for another four years — in a just world, they’d get 10 to 20.”

Mitt Romney

Is on my TV screen right now.  Just shoot me.

Bob Casey

Is delivering a real stemwinder right now, e.g., “McCain voted with Bush 95% of the time.  That’s not a maverick, that’s a sidekick!”

And now the crowd is screaming, referring to Bush-McCain: “Four more months!”

Our colleague Suzanne, if she were watching, would surely be loving it.

Humping the Tire Swing

Re: my earlier posts on the abysmal media reporting (here and here), I’m not surprised and yet I am that only one of the three Hillary-themed McCain ads has actually appeared on TV screens as a paid advertisement, and the one that has, featuring a former Clinton delegate-tuned-McCain voter, has only aired in Toledo, Ohio.  And yet, “[t]hat doesn’t mean these McCain ads won’t be seen by voters. The national media, which has its sensors tuned to any signs of Clinton-Obama drama in Denver, have readily amplified the messages…”

That’s some fair and balanced good times, my friends.  (via TNR)

To both die and live: tonight’s speech

 Tonight Hillary must do the impossible; die and live in order to survive.

To say that this is a difficult speech for Hillary is obviously an understatement.  In some ways, it will be the most important of her career.  She will need to both endorse Obama and at the same thing not go so far as to clearly end the notion of disunity so that it will allow him to get elected. She will need to show that she supports the ticket but still leave her ardent supporters feeling like if they give up this election they can finally have her for a full eight years.

She knows the stakes.  She goes too far with her support, she will lose the narrative that she is the only one who can represent her supporter’s interest.  If she does not support him enough, the anger of a loss will stain her forever. Also,  if you think about it, once Obama is elected there can never again be two  Clinton’s holding a convention hostage. The Clintons will no longer be a political force because all influence follows power— Obama will have all of it.

So what type of speech will we hear? We will likely hear exactly what we have heard thus far from her—an endorsement without a backing. A smile without the warmth.  A hope without heart. She will say Obama represents the democratic party and that Obama will get her vote, but to truly support Obama she must do two crucial things:

First, she must directly ask her supporters to vote for him.  Not as a way of reconciliation but because it is in their self interest to elect Obama. To state that if they do not support Obama they will be undermining the very principles that made them such stringent Hillary supporters.  Second, and most importantly, she must attack McCain with at least equal or more force than what she did to Obama in the primaries.  If you look back at her comments thus far, she only states that McCain does not agree with her or that he does not represent her views.  Hardly ever does she go out and say that he is incapable of being a good president.  For instance, the strongest thing she could say about his ads are “I do not endorse that message.” Wow, really strong.  Compare: John McCain and I have a lifetime of experience to lead this country…. Obama has a speech in 2002.

Who Knew?

Megyn Kelly, who suggested last night that “Michelle Obama gave ‘her critics fodder’ with word she didn’t say” is a Fox News anchor and not a pornstar!

Stacked Deck

I was going to make the same exact point, but it’s much easier to copy down what Steve Benen wrote. The backstory here, in a nutshell, is that aside from political junkies like us, you were probably unaware that former Iowa Rep. Jim Leach, a 15-term Republican congressman and GOP party leader, endorsed Barack Obama last night and castigated his own party — though, it must be said, he didn’t lose his sh*t in the process…

This development barely generated any attention at all. When Zell Miller appeared at the Republican convention, it was a key development. When Joe Lieberman, who isn’t even a Democrat anymore, announced his own appearance at the GOP convention, this was a major story. Some former Democratic delegate in Wisconsin moved inexplicably from supporting Clinton to backing McCain, and her switch is treated as exceedingly important.     (more…)

What He Said

Via Marc Ambinder, a former Clinton campaign staffer vents:

The issues that Hillary Clinton has worked so tirelessly for–expanded access to healthcare, a woman’s right to choose, the restoration of America’s standing in the world–have been just as tirelessly opposed by John McCain and the GOP. If you refuse to support Obama in November you are standing in opposition to Hillary and thwarting her lifetime of hard work.

What’s more, you will irreversibly damage her entire future. At BEST, Hillary will be seen as powerless and unable exercise leadership in regard to her supporters. At WORST, she will be seen as conniving to sabotage her own party at the most crucial political moment in a generation. Either way, her career will be over.

Tonight’s the Night

The world of political punditry is on the edge of their seats tonight with Hillary Clinton set to give her big speech.  Will she or won’t she??  The pundits, fed by talking points and internal memos from the Republican communications-PR complex, will certainly parse every single word for hidden meanings, and dramatic headlines notwithstanding, there is no actual suspense — this will be a rousing, stem-winding endorsement of Barack Obama for President.

The handful of irrational and illogical dead-ender supporters that the media seems to drudge up ad nauseum, on the other hand, are a different story (e.g., pro-choice Democrat Debra Bartosevich, who has declared her support for McCain in ads for him). Certainly, the bitter-fought campaign she ran has encouraged some of her supporters to hang on until the bitter end, far beyond the actual candidate herself — so Hillary is far from blameless here, but what about since she conceded?  Do you think Hillary has done and is doing all that she can to get Obama elected?  And if not, what more do you think she should do?  And on the flip side, has the Obama camp handled his former rival properly? Just curious what you think.

Angry

Some hack on Morning Joe, pointing out that the tone of the first night of the democratic convention was a little mild, just pointed out that Americans now are more angry than Californians were when they kicked out Gray Davis.

 True.  Funny that Gray was a democrat.  We seem to have no trouble kicking the dems in the teeth. 

The dems need to get angry and show it.  They do a lot of whining and reacting.  The blogosphere explodes on a daily basis with great attack lines.  We’re pissed and ready.  The MSM calls it “the liberal left” but really it’s anyone who’s been paying attention.  The so-called establishment democrats need to get a clue and tap that energy, instead of smiling politely, acting like the outrage is some fringe left contingency, and accepting Republican narrative lines. 

If they can’t do it, then our country really has no serious answer to the Republican party, and we get the leadership we deserve. 

Bizarre

Sure, this has been a campaign season unlike any other, but John McCain’s decision today to dispatch his wife Cindy to the war-torn Republic of Georgia, recently invaded by Russia, has to qualify as one of the weirder political stunts I’ve ever seen.

And as I write this, Leno is on in the background and McCain is tripling down with some POW-smackdown!

Two ways

There are two ways we can win this election:

 The greater public, finally, uncynically, follows a positive message, turns out, votes on hope, reason, and its best impulses. 

 Or, the democrats finally attack, attack, attack like they mean it and they’re playing for keeps.  I’m sick of hearing about how they respond quickly.  Who gives a crap. They need to attack quickly — first – every day.  It cannot be short of a new attack every day.  (more…)

Michelle Obama

Gave a great speech!  For most of the evening I followed the festivities on C-SPAN Radio but switched over the NBC so I could see living history with my own eyes.  She didn’t disappoint, but I could do without NBC Political Director Chuck Todd’s on-the-spot analysis that Michelle uttered “America” about 12 times and “values” just as many times — obviously a cynical response to the “kerfuffle of her own doing” when she said a few months ago that she was proud of America for the first time.  Quite annoying.

McCain’s Best Choice: Portman?

While Dillon has settled on Tim Pawlenty as McCain’s logical best choice for veep, I’ve long believed that the logical choice is a darkhorse that doesn’t even appear on Dillon’s short list, former Ohio Rep. Rob Portman.

Who’s Rob Portman?  (more…)