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October 31, 2008

Sarah Palin doesn't understand the First Amendment

Here's Palin defending her attacks on Obama's associations with Ayers, Wright, etc., and blaming the media for portraying comments like "he pals around with terrorists" as negative:

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

Is she being dishonest or does she just not understand? The First Amendment wasn't designed to protect government officials from the press, it's supposed to protect the press and the people from government officials. It's a right that is often misinterpreted, and people often equate freedom of speech with freedom from criticism.

But someone running for vice president should know better than that. I, too, worry about the future of our country "in terms of the First Amendment," but only if Sarah Palin somehow gets into office.

Alec over at PBH has been compiling a list of Sarah Palin's "greatest hits" from the campaign so far. This is, to me, one of the more disturbing quotes from her, and I think it's worthy of an honorable mention at least.

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And now, for something completely different

It's easy to develop a one-track mind as the election approaches, but there is other stuff going on in the world. Like an octopus in an aquarium in Germany that juggles hermit crabs, smashes rocks against the aquarium glass, and turns off the power by shortcircuiting a lamp. Here's why he turned off the lamp:

Staff believe that the octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction.

A spokesman said: "We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out a the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water."

Now watch this video of an octopus killing an effing shark and put the pieces together: They're smart, frighteningly strong, and easily bored/annoyed.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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October 30, 2008

White supremacists for Obama

This has been a strange election. And it doesn't get much stranger than Esquire's interview with four white supremacists and a black nationalist about their thoughts on the candidates. The result was just... bizarre. Three of the four white supremacists actually prefer Obama, and the black nationalist favors McCain.

This quote from Rocky Suhayda, chairman of the American Nazi Party, sums up the white supremacist position best:

"White people are faced with either a negro or a total nutter who happens to have a pale face. Personally I'd prefer the negro. National Socialists are not mindless haters. Here, I see a white man, who is almost dead, who declares he wants to fight endless wars around the globe to make the world safe for Judeo-capitalist exploitation, who supports the invasion of America by illegals--basically a continuation of the last eight years of Emperor Bush. Then, we have a black man, who loves his own kind, belongs to a Black-Nationalist religion, is married to a black women--when usually negroes who have 'made it' immediately land a white spouse as a kind of prize--that's the kind of negro that I can respect. Any time that a prominent person embraces their racial heritage in a positive manner, it's good for all racially minded folks."

Has John McCain's campaign really been so bad that Nazis would rather support a black man than vote for him?

And then there's the black nationalist, who said "finding out Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for president was one of the saddest days in black history," and compared him to "the greatest traitor to black people in modern-day history, Martin Luther King."

I'm speechless.

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Hope Votes III

The daughter of a slave has lived long enough to cast her vote for an African American president:

Amanda Jones, 109, the daughter of a man born into slavery, has lived a life long enough to touch three centuries. And after voting consistently as a Democrat for 70 years, she has voted early for the country's first black presidential nominee.

She is too weak to go the polls, so two of her 10 children -- Eloise Baker, 75, and Joyce Jones -- helped her fill out a mail-in ballot for Barack Obama, Baker said. "I feel good about voting for him," Amanda Jones said.

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In Texas, even the ignorance is bigger

It's ok, I lived in Texas for five years, so I can say that. Plus, it's hard not to smear the state after a poll found that 23% of Texans are convinced that Barack Obama is a Muslim. There's simply no excuse for one-in-four people getting such a basic fact about a major presidential candidate so wrong. This election has been going on for nearly two years, and Obama's religion has been discussed publicly many, many times. Hell, there was a major controversy involving his Christian pastor. You'd have to be either oblivious or a liar to not know the truth. And I suspect a lot of people are the latter.

Still, there's something extra special going on in Texas. Only about 5-10% of voters nationwide think Obama is a Muslim.

More on Texas public opinion:

The poll found that 89 percent of Lone Star State voters say the country's economic situation is worse than a year ago. And President Bush and Congress both get record low marks.

Just 34 percent of Texans approve of Bush's job performance -- a big change for a former governor who won re-election 10 years ago with 70 percent of the vote. And Congress is even more unpopular: Just 8 percent of Texas voters approve of the work being done on Capitol Hill.

I've heard that Texas is very slowly turning purple, and there's a chance it could be blue within a few years. I understand the demographic trends, but these polls make that tough to believe.

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October 29, 2008

Whassup

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October 28, 2008

Hate Votes, Too

Just keep in mind that these people are the fringe, not the majority, in today's America.

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Hope Votes II

Hold on, I think I got something in my eye...

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Where's the tightening?

When Obama hit his peak numbers a week or two ago, conventional wisdom said the race would tighten somewhat as we got closer to the election. But as has happened so many times this year, conventional wisdom has turned out wrong, so far.

Above is an aggregate of all national polls taken this year. While McCain seems to be improving from his nadir of two weeks ago, we haven't seen a corresponding drop in Obama's numbers. They remain steady above 50%, and if anything continue to improve. McCain's only real hope is to cut Obama down. He's thrown a lot against the wall in recent weeks (Ayers, socialism, etc.), and nothing seems to stick to the Teflon Candidate.

What's remarkable, when you look at the average of polls throughout the year, is how stable the race has been since Obama sealed the nomination. We heard a lot, until recently, about how volatile and neck-and-neck the race was, but the graph shows Obama with a pretty steady lead, minus the period immediately after the Republican convention. It seemed at the time as if the Palin pick had changed the dynamics of the race. But looking back, it now looks just like a bounce.

The state polls have been less consistent, however, and that's where Obama is really opening up significant leads. He is ahead by double-digits in most states won by John Kerry in 2004, and is pulling ahead in swing states like Colorado, Ohio, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. Hell, there have been three polls this week showing McCain's lead in Arizona down to single-digits (the closest had it at two points). It's very unlikely he'll win Arizona, but at this point an Obama landslide may be more likely than a tightening race.

Nate Silver, the best at this sort of analysis, says the following has to happen before we can expect a close outcome on election night: "John McCain polling within 2 points in 2 or more non-partisan polls (sorry, Strategic Vision) in at least 2 out of the 3 following states: Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania."

He currently projects a 3.3% chance of that happening.

UPDATE: Of course, almost immediately after I post this, the graph starts to show some tightening. Go figure.

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October 24, 2008

McCain's Two Americas Explained

Sarah Palin and John McCain elaborated on their definition of "elitist" in an interview last night with Brian Williams:

WILLIAMS: Who is a member of the elite?

PALIN: Oh, I guess just people who think that they're better than anyone else. And-- John McCain and I are so committed to serving every American. Hard-working, middle-class Americans who are so desiring of this economy getting put back on the right track. And winning these wars. And America's starting to reach her potential. And that is opportunity and hope provided everyone equally. So anyone who thinks that they are-- I guess-- better than anyone else, that's-- that's my definition of elitism.

WILLIAMS: So it's not education? It's not income-based? It's--

PALIN: Anyone who thinks that they're better than someone else.

WILLIAMS: --a state of mind? It's not geography?

PALIN: 'Course not.

WILLIAMS: Senator?

MCCAIN: I-- I know where a lot of 'em live. (LAUGH)

WILLIAMS: Where's that?

MCCAIN: Well, in our nation's capital and New York City. I've seen it. I've lived there. I know the town. I know-- I know what a lot of these elitists are. The ones that she never went to a cocktail party with in Georgetown. I'll be very frank with you. Who think that they can dictate what they believe to America rather than let Americans decide for themselves.

This is coming from someone who recently referred to certain parts of the country as the real, pro-America parts of America. If that isn't an example of "thinking you're better than someone else," what is? And that attitude represents, to me, the worst of today's Republican party. McCain and Palin are more than willing to wrap themselves in 9/11-based patriotic jingoism, yet they turn around and denounce the parts of the country that sacrificed and suffered the most on September 11 as elitist and un-American.

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October 23, 2008

Hope votes

These stories about early African American voters get me a little verklempt:

For me the most moving moment came when the family in front of me, comprising probably 4 generations of voters (including an 18 year old girl voting for her first time and a 90-something hunched-over grandmother), got their turn to vote. When the old woman left the voting booth she made it about halfway to the door before collapsing in a nearby chair, where she began weeping uncontrollably. When we rushed over to help we realized that she wasn't in trouble at all but she had not truly believed, until she left the booth, that she would ever live long enough to cast a vote for an African-American for president.

It's easy to be cynical about politics in this country, but as we get closer to this election, some of my cynicism is replaced each day by what can only be described as pride. We've come a long way since civil rights battles of a few decades ago. We certainly haven't solved all of our problems. But I think when we get past this horse-race on November 4, the magnitude of what's happening is going to really sink in.

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October 17, 2008

Pro-America America

Sarah Palin doesn't seem to be coping very well with the idea that people in some parts of the country don't think she's qualified to be VP and, quite frankly, don't like her very much:

"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe" -- here the audience interrupted Palin with applause and cheers -- "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom."

Why, if running for a national office, would you insult large portions of the population on a daily basis, and even go so far as to accuse them of being anti-American? Well, as I argued back when she was first added to the ticket, her job was to rally the base, specifically by driving a wedge between rural and urban America.

In the 2004 election, that strategy did a lot to help George Bush win. But this isn't 2004; that was a hyper-partisan election and there were very few real swing voters, so it depended almost exclusively on turnout. McCain's focus should have been on winning over Independents, not rallying Republicans.

But even if it's the wrong strategy, if you're going to go that route, at least execute it properly and have a little class. At least Busy/Cheney implicitly drove a wedge with the gay marriage issue and code words (e.g., elitist, liberal, east-coast, etc.). You don't just come out and say that small towns are more patriotic than big cities.

There's already a lot of talk about a Palin run in 2012, but I think a lot of people are seriously over-estimating her political talents. Not only is she incompetent in areas of policy, but she lacks the subtlety and smarts to even be an effective campaigner. With any luck, we won't be seeing much of her after November 4.

UPDATE: I guess I should look on the bright side. I grew up in a town much smaller than Wasilla, Alaska, and if we use Sarah Palin's yard stick, I'm one of the most American Americans in America.

Also, Biden calls her out on this.

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October 16, 2008

Three questions

Which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives? Who is the current Secretary of State? Who is Great Britain's prime minister?

Only 18% of people answered all three of those questions correctly when they were posed in a survey by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

That so few people would answer all three correctly isn't that surprising, sadly. We've seen surveys before suggesting most Americans can name more American idol judges than rights guaranteed under the First Amendment.

The breakdown by news audience is fairly interesting, though. Regular readers of the New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine did the best—nearly half of that group answered all three questions correctly. Following that grouping, a perfect score was obtained by 44% of regular listeners of National Public Radio (NPR), 43% of regular viewers of MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and 42% of the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" audience. Thirty-four percent of "The Colbert Report" audience and 30% of "The Daily Show" audience got all three questions correct.

Bringing up the rear with only about 10% of the audience getting a perfect score: National Enquirer (no surprise), Access Hollywood (no surprise), and CBS News with Katie Couric (???). I think we now know why Palin thought she might be able to pull off a CBS interview a few weeks ago.

Read the whole list here. Obviously, shows with a heavy focus on politics produced better scores. But what's interesting is, satirical comedy shows and the hyper-partisan shows they parody (I'm looking at you, O'Reilly), tend to have better-informed audiences than a lot of supposedly serious news programs. What does that say about today's news journalism?

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More kudos

Constance L. Rice in the LA Times follows Campbell Brown's lead:

Excuse me, but when did the words "Muslim" and "Arab" become acceptable epithets? I'm not a Muslim, and perhaps I was slow to see this coming ... Apparently, I was wrong. The undertones have become screaming overtones. And it is past time to object.

If it wasn't clear before, it became crystal clear last week in the aftermath of Republican rallies. Fomenting fear to shore up drooping support, Republicans sadly used heated demagoguery about "palling around with terrorists," about "Barack Hussein Obama" and about how Obama doesn't "see America like you and I," words that mixed subliminally to conflate "terror" with "Muslim" and to whip crowds into xenophobic anger. After his enraged supporters were recorded uttering death threats and racial slurs, McCain was forced on several occasions to try to tamp down the anger in the audience and to defend his opponent.

That was a good step one -- until McCain blew it. A woman stood up in the audience and said that she just couldn't trust Obama because, as she put it, "he's an Arab." McCain shook his head, took the microphone and said: "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."

So, what is he saying? Arabs aren't decent family men? They can't be citizens?

She calls McCain out for not repudiating his own supporters who are behind these slurs, but she also chastises Obama for not saying, ""For the hundredth time, I am a Christian, and if you are suggesting that there is something wrong with Islam or being a Muslim, you are wrong"?

I can understand his political hesitancy for not doing that right now, considering how any statement he makes will be distorted and used against him. But he ought to take a bolder stance after the election.

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October 15, 2008

Post-debate polls: Pundits are clueless

If this debate proved anything, it's that most political pundits don't have the foggiest idea what they're talking about. I popped over to Politico's roundup of reactions, and the consensus is that McCain did great, even if it wasn't a game changer. But look at the post-debate snap polls:

We've had four debates now, and each time the census from the pundits has been "it's a tie on points." But each time, voters have heavily favored Obama. How are so many people getting paid to be so wrong?

I think the problem here is political junkies and pundits are watching these debates for entertainment. They follow this stuff everyday, and they want a nice one-line zinger that they can dissect and replay and get excited about. But voters are looking for a president, not entertainment. Where pundits are giving McCain credit for "putting Obama on the defensive," voters are docking him points for dodging questions and coming across as condescending. Where Obama comes across as boring and "professorial" to pundits, voters give him credit for being presidential.

Here's the rub: Pundit reactions could actually change how the debate is interpreted after the fact. But if these initial polls hold up for a few days, John McCain is toast. He needed to turn this thing around tonight. If 60% of Independents are saying Obama won, he didn't accomplish that goal.

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Up is down, night is day

Observers who claim Obama's success has only been because of luck and a bad economy are seriously underestimating his skills as a politician. What Democrat, other than Obama, could have turned one of the most successful Republican talking points of the last 30 years completely on its head. Take a look at this nugget from the latest CBS poll showing Obama with a 14-point lead:

Which candidate will raise your taxes? Respondents, by 51% to 46%, say it's McCain.

Now compare that with a Gallup poll from September in which 53% of respondents said Obama would raise their taxes, compared to 34% who said McCain.

Yes, it is in part due to political malpractice on McCain's part. McCain just doesn't know how to counterattack. He's been leading the charge with Talking Point A, and Obama has successfully countered with Talking Point B. But instead of poking further holes with a revised Talking Point C, McCain has just kept repeating Talking Point A with little success.

But until recently, McCain was hitting Obama harder on taxes than perhaps any other issue, and taxes were a major focus of the Republican convention. Not only is Obama still standing, he's winning the argument. That's can't all be because of McCain's incompetence.

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Open blogrolling thread

This is primarily for The Moderate Voice bloggers, although if you're not with TMV and would like to add your blog, please feel free. Leave the name and url of your blog in the comments, and I will add you to my blogroll.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 10:36 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

October 14, 2008

Palin as president

Click on stuff.

I think the red phone is my favorite.

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"So what if Obama were a Muslim or Arab?"

I've got to say, Campbell Brown has impressed me with her willingness to say what other journalists have only been thinking this election season. First, she called out the McCain campaign for shielding Palin from the press "like a delicate flower who will wilt at any moment." And her latest commentary addresses the bigotry against Arabs and Muslims popping up at McCain rallies.

Last week a supporter told McCain she didn't trust Obama because he was an Arab, to which McCain replied, "No ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. That's what this campaign is all about. He's not, thank you."

Brown retorts:

Now, I commend Sen. McCain for correcting that woman, for setting the record straight. But I do have one question -- so what if he was?

So what if Obama was Arab or Muslim? So what if John McCain was Arab or Muslim? Would it matter?

When did that become a disqualifier for higher office in our country? When did Arab and Muslim become dirty words? The equivalent of dishonorable or radical?

We've all been too quick to accept the idea that calling someone Muslim is a slur. We can't tolerate this ignorance -- not in the media, not on the campaign trail.

Few have been willing to address that issue directly, and as a consequence, slurring Muslims/Arabs has become an acceptable shield for racists who would never have voted for Obama in the first place. Racism against African Americans has become so taboo that most genuine racists are afraid express themselves in public. But slurring people from the Middle East? Well, hell, we're at war and all. Nothing wrong with standing up in front of a large crowd with a microphone and spewing hatred for "those people," right?

I can understand why this is a sensitive issue in a post-9/11 world. But kudos to Brown for calling a spade a spade. Let's hope Obama follows suit. His response to accusations like this typically isn't much different from McCain's. He assures voters that, no, he's not a Muslim; he's just a decent family man. For once it would be nice to hear him respond, "So what if I was?"

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Finishing in Afghanistan

In a guest post over at TMV, freelance reporter Wil Robinson offers a five-point plan for stabilizing Afghanistan. The answer isn't another "surge" or a focus on military victory, he says. The plan:


* Stop all air strikes. Immediately and completely. Not another bomb should be dropped from an airplane in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Not one "smart-bomb" from an unmanned predator drone, not a "two-ton" bunker buster aimed at senior Taliban leaders, not so much as a grenade lobbed at a mud-brick house in a Hindu Kush village. Every civilian that is killed - mistakenly or not - by a U.S. or NATO bomb is a victory for the Taliban and a recruitment tool. Military strategists who are willing to accept collateral damage should take note that seven years of dropping bombs has not worked.

* Quadruple the size of the Afghan army. The Afghan defense force currently stands at around 70,000 troops. U.S. policy wonks are bemoaning the low levels of US and NATO troops (around 60,000). How can 70,000 Afghans succeed where 60,000 of the best-trained and best-equipped troops in the world can't? Part of the reason the Taliban gains sympathy and is able to recruit is because of the large base of unemployed young men who only seek to protect their families. There is literally a pool of potential soldiers to pull from; so far, only the Taliban has been taking advantage of this. Increasing the size of the Afghan army to 300,000 would diminish the capacity of the Taliban to increase their numbers, lift hundreds of thousands out of poverty with a paycheck, and provide the kind of troop levels necessary to secure the entire country.

* Buy every last bit of opium in the country. The United Nations estimates the yearly opium crop generates as much as $3 billion through the drug trade, and this is the substantial source of financing for the Taliban. If international forces bought the entire crop directly from the farmers, they would eliminate the middle men, Taliban drug lords, smugglers, and virtually all of the Taliban's funding. Afghan farmers grow the crop because it pays well; they will sell to whoever pays the most. If the fat-cats on Wall Street are worth $700 billion, then taking most of the world's heroin off the streets and choking off the Taliban from their golden egg-laying hen has to be worth $2 or 3 billion.

* Guarantee the farmers the same price for their crop for the next 10 years provided they switch to growing food instead of opium. $3 billion over 10 years is $30 billion - still a far cry from the $600+ billion spent in Iraq. Guaranteeing opium prices for food crops will ensure that farmers begin to build the country's food reserves and keep billions of dollars out of the hands of terrorists. The price could be incrementally lowered over the years and the difference used to invest in local irrigation and agricultural infrastructure projects - something the locals would see and directly benefit from in the long-term.

* Outline major reconstruction projects and disseminate this information across the country. Afghans need to know what the plan is, and is infamous for the low levels of literacy. Proposed projects and reconstruction plans need to be communicated directly to the people the same way they have for centuries - by word of mouth. Afghans can be hired to travel from village to village, telling their fellow countrymen and women what the international forces are doing to help them build their country. Call it propaganda - but if it's backed up by action, it will serve to give Afghans hope that they will not be abandoned and left to the whims of the Taliban.


All good points. One thing I would add relating to purchasing opium: Robinson likens it to a bailout, but there are legitimate medicinal uses for the crop. Why not use it for pharmaceutical production?

The important focus here is rebuilding the country. McCain and Obama have both focused primarily on increasing troop levels, when that's not the heart of the problem. But to give credit where credit is due, one of McCain's best lines from the debates was about Afghanistan. He said, "I won't repeat the mistake that I regret enormously, and that is, after we were able to help the Afghan freedom fighters and drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, we basically washed our hands of the region. And the result over time was the Taliban, Al Qaida, and a lot of the difficulties we are facing today. So we can't ignore those lessons of history."

It's been seven long years and Afghanistan is in some ways worse off than it was when we began. That is a disgrace, and part of the problem is we shifted focus to Iraq before cleaning up our mess in Afghanistan. McCain clearly hasn't learned the lessons of history. Let's hope Obama does.

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October 13, 2008

Even a broken clock is right twice a day

Last week I wrote this:

McCain has one last Hail Mary option that might work. He can fire Steve Schmidt and all other reminiscences of Karl Rove that are currently running his campaign into the ground and publicly apologize to the American people for losing control. He then has to promise to take the high road from here on out, and actually follow through.

And then in his column today, Bill Kristol—neoconservative Bill Kristol, who helped found the Project for the New American Century and beat the drums for war with Iraq long before September 11—wrote this:

It's time for John McCain to fire his campaign. He has nothing to lose. His campaign is totally overmatched by Obama's. The Obama team is well organized, flush with resources, and the candidate and the campaign are in sync. The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic. If the race continues over the next three weeks to be a conventional one, McCain is doomed.

I feel dirty.

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October 9, 2008

What's in a name?

This video might make your stomach turn, but it seems like more and more of these incidents have been popping up lately. Certain segments of society are becoming more vocal about their unease with Obama's foreigness and name. Maybe we're just paying more attention now. But it certainly seems they're responding in part to McCain's increasingly hostile character attacks.

But let's be honest. It's not just his name. Latching onto his nonexistent "Muslim" or "Arab" connections in many ways provide cover for good old fashioned racism. It's not racism, they can argue, it's just hate-speech against Muslims and foreigners. Which is apparently ok.

The obsession with his name that we see in the video should bother me more. I could certainly give Obama a run for his money in foreign-sounding names. But it doesn't. I don't view these people as representative of modern-day America. Yes, there are still pockets of blatant racism and bigotry, and yes we still have same latent issues to deal with. I'm not suggesting that these aren't relevant or that they should be ignored. But take a look at the polls. Obama currently has a nearly 90% chance to win this thing, and he has the potential to win by a bigger margin than any president since Reagan.

If a few years ago you had suggested that a black man named Barack Hussein Obama would have this kind of success against the war-hero maverick John McCain, most people would have laughed you out of the room. We've almost gotten used to the novelty of it by now, but think about it.

Barack Hussein Obama is on the verge of being the next President of the United States.

That itself says a lot about how far we've come collectively. And that's why there's no point fretting about what a few bigoted stragglers blurt out at a campaign rally. If they want to be left behind, then so be it. The rest of us are moving forward. Contrast the video above with this one featuring Donna Brazile. The latter is the video we should be paying attention to.

It's going to get worse before it gets completely better. I never thought Obama could finish this campaign without surviving one last all-out assault on the issue of race. It's his last hurdle to making history. It's our last hurdle to making history. Every step he takes closer to the White House is a step forward for us, away from a divisive, and sometimes downright ugly and shameful, past. He has cleared every other one that's been put in front of him, and there's no reason to think he—and we—won't do the same this time.

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Reporters have needs too!

I honestly can't tell if this is satire or not. Dean Reynolds with CBS tries to offer a glimpse into the lives of reporters covering the presidential campaigns and rips into how the Obama campaign deals with reporters. But look at his chief complaints:

Seriously? You're upset that Obama won't postpone his schedule so you can do your job and that he doesn't plan flights based on evening news broadcasts? And somehow these are bigger grievances than completely shielding a vice presidential candidate from the press?

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October 8, 2008

Is liberal still a dirty word?

The latest McCain campaign ad accuses Obama of a single, supposedly disqualifying, crime: Being liberal. But after this election (assuming Obama holds onto his lead and wins) Republicans are going to finally come to the realization that "liberal" isn't the dirty word it once was.

It is partly a generational issue. Baby boomers have been conditioned since the culture wars to instinctively know what "being liberal" means. And conservatives were very successful at making sure that connotation was negative. The label has been so tainted that for years conservatives have won elections by accusing their opponents of being liberal, and liberals have won elections by portraying themselves as anything but.

But yesterday's politicians assume those negative connotations have carried over to Gen X and Y, and I'm not so sure they have. When the under-30 crowd hears, "OMG, he's a liberal," rather than a knee-jerk revulsion, the response seems to be, "So what?"

Forget the fact that these generations tend to actually be more liberal. Even the independents are simply working on different definitions and don't make the same assumptions. The cultural issues that helped Republicans initially define the word have faded, and younger voters don't instinctively know why being liberal is bad when it comes to healthcare or the economy or foreign policy. If Republicans really want "liberal" to be a dirty word, they're going to have to redefine it for post-culture war voters.

For those of us who became politically aware under either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, liberals haven't the bad guys. Liberals didn't start an unnecessary war in Iraq. Liberals didn't mishandle Hurricane Katrina, or drastically expand programs to spy on Americans, or earn us a reputation as torturers. And liberals aren't the ones denying our friends basic rights based on their sexuality.

They may have been complicit, but they weren't the primary culprits. If you want to find a negative label that instantly turns off Generation X and Y voters, don't call your opponent a liberal. Call him a neoconservative.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 12:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 7, 2008

Snap polls: Obama won the debate

We seem to be seeing the same trend as after the first presidential debate and the VP debate: Pundits and political junkies saw it as a tie, but voters in snap polls give the edge to the Democratic candidate.

The results from about 500 uncommitted voters surveyed by CBS:

And from a CNN instant poll (via Pollster):

Obama may have quietly won the election tonight. People are starting to get comfortable with the idea of him as a president. He didn't need anything dramatic to give pundits fodder; he needed to appeal to unsure voters, and that's exactly what he did. McCain can't win it all in the last debate. He needed to shift momentum tonight to put himself within striking distance in the last debate, and he didn't do that. Now, he'll have to find another way to change the game between now and then. Look for it to get real nasty.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 11:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 4, 2008

Hockey Moms for Truth

H/T: Donklephant

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 6:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Please forward this link to your closest 100,000 friends

Slate takes a look at how bloggers (the professionals, not us part-timers) earn money. The breakdown:

Blogs with 100,000 or more unique visitors a month earn an average of $75,000 annually--though that figure is skewed by the small percentage of blogs that make more than $200,000 a year. The estimates from a 2007 Business Week article are older but juicier: The LOLcat empire rakes in $5,600 per month; Overheard in New York gets $8,100 per month; and Perez Hilton, gossip king, scoops up $111,000 per month.

Not too shabby. All I have to do is figure out a way to decuple my traffic.

H/T: Andrew Sullivan

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 5:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 3, 2008

How can you have a team of Mavericks...

...when the definition is "a lone dissenter"? Is that like those anarchist organizations you always hear about?

Just sayin...

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 1:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 2, 2008

The soft bigotry of low expectations

That's a phrase that's been used a lot with respect to the low bar that has been set for Sarah Palin. The low expectations (even from her own party) are justified, given her cringe-inducing answers to some softball questions Katie Couric threw her. At this point the bar is so low she could practically walk over it without missing a step. But shouldn't we expect candidates for public to elevate their game to where the bar has been set rather than lower it to meet their abilities?

But I don't make the rules, and that's why I don't know what to expect from tonight's VP debate. I think she will perform better than she has in her recent interviews, and that may be enough for her to be declared the winner. The pressure here is really on Biden. If he is aggressive, he'll be seen as picking on her. If he takes it easy, he'll be seen as patronizing. The pundits who hand down verdicts on debate winners and losers know that he knows the issues, so they'll judge every little detail. As James Fallows says, "Joe Biden will be judged on whether he gets anything wrong; Palin, on whether she gets anything right."

What I'm saying is, Obama supporters who are salivating at the coming train wreck may be surprised. I think she'll perform better than expected. And as I wrote over at TMV, the McCain camp already has an excuse prepared if she doesn't.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 4:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack