More Blog Updates and Business

Yes, I'm still tinkering.

I've modified my links on the side to create an Election 2008 section. The first set of links there are to my local SD Democrats Site to keep track of local races, the ActBlue California page for donations, Wes Clark's Securing America PAC site, and The Democratic Daily for Democratic News.

The next clump are polling and election sites. 270 to Win leads off, and then the Gallup Key Indicators page. This is far more interesting than their plain daily tracking poll because these offer longitudinal reports of key indicators allowing trends to be tracked. They have an interesting mix of reports. SUSA is next because of the range and depth of their surveying and then Quinnipiac, which does some of the best polls out there, but tend to be limited in the number they do. Rasmussen is in there since many people follow it, but their data isn't that useful. The NYT page has an engaging mix of maps. Pollster is there as a poll aggregation site. They pick up polls from less well known operations.

The Hillary sites are in their own section now. I moved my Contact link into the About area. Warning to people who email me directly - I ignore almost everything sent in. Sorry, I have a life. If you want to advance your latest conspiracy theory, tell me how much I suck, tell me how much Palin/Obama/McCain/Biden/Hillary sucks, pass on unfounded rumors, ask me for links/posts/money, or otherwise be a self-centered git, don't waste the effort.

Comments - The comments are getting pretty repetitive now, so most get deleted. Don't forward links from sites linked in my sidebar. Don't tell me how awful [insert candidate name here] is unless you can tie this in a relevant way to Democratic Party policies and goals. Ditto on telling me how wonderful [insert candidate name here] is. Comments that try to bully me for whatever reason are deleted. Comments that try to play "gotcha" by taking a point out of context suffer the same fate. Comments that even hint of sexism, racism, classism, ageism, etc., get deleted. Comments in ALL CAPS WITH LOTS OF !!!! go bye-bye. Comments demanding I take sides in the perpetual tit-for-tat blogger bitchfests get deleted. Sometimes I just delete comments because a bunch have backed up and I'm too tired to go through them all. Comments that have something in them that make me go, "Hmm, OK, I can see your point," even if I don't agree with them have a pretty good chance of getting published. Comments that say nice things about other commenters I try to pass on. Anything marked not for publication will be respected. Regular commenters get a little more leeway than new posters, but not much.

Why do I have links in my blogroll of sites I disagree with or who refuse to link to me? Because I think they say things that need to be heard, even if I find the message disagreeable or at odds with my opinions. Why don't I have links in my blogroll of sites that are in accord with me? Because they don't say things in a way that engages me. Or maybe I'm just too lazy to clean up the link list one way or the other. Or I like messing with people's minds. Or I don't really have a reason, the links are just there. Click, read and make up your own mind.

Anglachel

Begin Electoral College Bingo!

I always recommend 270 to Win as my favorite Electoral College map site. They've been beefing up the site in anticipation of the GE and have lots of new features and gizmos.

One new map is a simulator that works on probabilities. It is pretty cool though not very accurate at the moment due to a lack of current polling data. The site says to start looking at it in earnest next week. Be sure to read the explanation of how it works carefully.

They have a static map that they update based on polls from SUSA, Rasmussen and Quinnipiac that tracks polling in the individual states. This is useful because they show levels of support and not just who has the most support, and so indicates where opinions are still fluid.

Ad then there is the interactive map on the home page where you can play "What if..." scenarios until the cows come home.

Looking at the static map, there are five states to watch carefully because they could swing abruptly. Most are mildly blue:

• Washington - 11
• Minnesota - 10
• Wisconsin - 10
• Michigan - 17
• Pennsylvania - 21

The site shows Florida and Missouri as undecideds, but I think they have to be counted for McCain. The high plains - Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota - are unlikely to go blue. Virginia and North Carolina are likewise highly unlikely to vote Democrat.

That leaves Ohio, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Indiana and New Hampshire.

Now, there is a winning strategy for each of them that includes a loss of Ohio at this point. To lose Ohio and win the election, McCain must take all the states except Ohio. Obama could win with Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Minnesota, but lose Indiana, Ohio and New Hampshire. Let Nevada go red in that scenario, and you have a tied Electoral College at 269 each. I was amazed, but it could happen. (Actually, I have stumbled on three plausible tie scenarios.)

I still think Washington could very well go red because of the choice of Palin for the ticket combined with a very angry and aggressive Republican party that will be really turning up their GOTV effort to defeat Gov. Gregoire. If the Republicans can turn Washington and Minnesota, they can afford to lose Colorado and Ohio. Michigan and Wisconsin are also tepidly blue states that bear watching. The simulator has both Minnesota and Michigan turning red at various points.

All in all, a far closer race than anyone could have anticipated a year ago.

Anglachel

Rising Unemployment and Functional Recession

The LA Times has an article on the unemployment rate: "The unemployment rate spiked to 6.1% in August, much higher than anticipated and the first time in five years that it has topped 6%, the Labor Department reported today.The economy has shed jobs for eight straight months, the data showed, with the losses averaging 76,000 per month since the beginning of the year. The economy must create about 100,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with population growth."

Calculated Risk has a post on this with graphs: "Nonfarm payrolls decreased by 84,000 in August.The unemployment rate has risen to 6.1 percent.Year over year employment is now negative (fewer American were employed in Aug 2008 than in Aug 2007). This is a very weak report - more to come."

Paul Krugman blogs on the "Un-recession": "I can’t wait to hear how the White House tries to spin today’s employment report. But to be fair, this is an odd slowdown, by historical norms: no clear decline in GDP, no months of 6-digit job losses. Instead, the economy is being slowly ground down."

The question for me is why given the shitty condition of the economy, the endangered condition of our social safety net, the total mismanagement of foreign and domestic policy by the current administration, all heaped on top of the success of the 2006 mid-term elections, our lauded-to-the-stars presidential ticket is dropping in the polls, unable to retain the convention bounce? Why can't they get traction in this mess? Carville taught them what to concentrate on 16 years ago

It's the economy, stupid.

Anglachel

Change to the Blog

I finally gave in to Blogger's nagging and upgraded the blog to the new widgetized version.

Unfortunately, it won't allow me to put a list of links to recent posts near the top, but insists on populating the archive list with them. Look for links to off-page posts at the bottom with the archived items.

I'm curious to see how and if the feed mechanisms in the About (pale green) section work. Let me know. The biggest new item is at the foot of the right hand column where Blogger has come up with something called "Followers" where I guess it shows people who sign up to "follow" this blog. I stuck it in to see how it works. It may or may not stay.

Anglachel

SUSA Poll on VP Choices

I prefer using the SUSA polls to those done by the big media organizations because of the consistent methodology and the consistently illuminating cross tabs. (Under no circumstances trust any poll from Zogby.) The latest poll was brief and direct. It asked 1061 registered voters, out of 1200 individuals called, only eight questions, which I'm reproducing here to show how a well constructed poll is done:

1. Did you hear Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention last night?
2. What grade do you give her on the speech? An A, B, C, D, or an F?
3. On the whole, is Sarah Palin an asset to John McCain? A liability to McCain? Or, do you not know enough to say?
4. Does McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate reflect well on MCCain? Reflect poorly on McCain? Or do you not know enough to say?
5. On the whole, is Joe Biden an asset to Barack Obama? A liability to Obama? Or, do you not know enough to say?
6. Does Obama's selection of Joe Biden as a running mate reflect well on Obama? Reflect poorly on Obama? Or do you not know enough to say?
7. If you were placing a bet today, would you bet that Barack Obama will be elected president? Or, John McCain will be elected president?
8. Is the media rooting for Barack Obama? Rooting for John McCain? Or trying its best to be fair to both?

I won't go diving into the crosstabs of the poll very deeply, so click on the link to see for yourself (they have a very convenient downloadable PDF of the poll, btw), but will try to touch on the overall picture it presents.

The first question is vital because it defines who it is that they are polling. Everyone who was asked these questions is a registered voter but not a likely voter. 75% of them actually listened to Palin's speech, and there is no indication what counts as "listened" (All on the TV? Highlights from teh talking heads shows? YouTube clips?).

The sample was 52% female and 47% male, was weighted towards voters under 50 (56% of those sampled), was predominantly White (75%), and higher income than the average population (70% over $40K annual income). There were more Republicans in the poll (36%) than Democrats (33%) or Independents (26%) which doesn't reflect party registration but probably does echo voter turnout. Idoelogically, 34% identified as Conservative, 38% as Moderate and 14% as Liberal. The sample was divided into 4 geographic regions: South (36%), Midwest (23%), West (22%) and Northeast (19%).

This gave the pollsters a sample that is relatively young, relatively affluent, slightly more female than male, and significantly under represented Hispanics as their portion of the population (8% polled). This strikes me as a sample that calls upon demographic groups that are aligned with both candidates, though the significantly higher levels of white, Republican, conservative and Southern demographics I think provides a slight bias for McCain. What we don't know is the location the people live - urban, suburban, or rural.

The response to Palin herself was strongly positive, noting that saying she gave an "A" speech doesn't mean the listener agreed with or approved of the message delivered; it is an opinion of the effectiveness of the speech. The take away from me on this is people who liked the speech really liked it and there was a greater number who strongly liked it than who strongly disliked it. Independents in particular were not turned off by it, which is the political demographic both parts need to capture for a victory. Political moderates were not turned off by the speech. Higher income earners had a better response to it than lower income, which may seem odd given the "Aw shucks, we're just folks," packaging, but aligns precisely with Krugman's writings that the Republicans' electoral gains since the 70s occurred among higher income whites more than any other group. Thus, both McCain and Obama owe much electoral success to white affluent issue voters. The data points that must trouble the Republicans most are the low scores in the West, a full 10% less than those in the South. It matters, however, where those Western samples came from. If from California, not electorally important given it is a blue state. If from Colorado, a different kettle of fish. The data points that must rattle the Democrats is the lack of strong negatives in the Midwest, where the election will be decided.

When comparing the VPs and their effect on the races, Palin was considered a solid though not overwhelmingly strong asset to the ticket, while Biden barely broke 50%. There were a lot of people who had not made up their minds about Biden being an asset, which is not good considering that he is a known quantity. When comparing what the VP pick says about the presidential nominee, Obama is hurting compared to McCain. He does not even get 50% and is 7% behind McCain. This selection does not reflect well on him, particularly among female voters, the 35-49 age bracket (his own age cohort), wealthier voters (which is a big change from his primary voter patterns), and with Midwestern and Southern voters. In every region, McCain's choice was seen as reflecting well on him, all above 50%. This affects key swing states like Ohio, Michigan, Missouri and Virginia.

The part of the poll people point to most, question 7 about placing bets on the outcome, is interesting mostly because there was little indecision. Only a few categories showed indecision 10% or above, which means people feel confident about their take on the election. They favor McCain by 3%, though the undecided pool is large enough to move either candidate to over 50%.

Overall, Palin is viewed as a bigger asset to McCain than Biden is to Obama, people think more highly of McCain's selection of Palin than of Obama's selection of Biden, and a slim majority now place their bets on McCain to win. Conservatives and Republicans are more strongly behind their candidates than Liberals and Democrats are behind theirs. Hispanics are significantly undecided and so are people in the Midwest. Palin did not provide as large a gain in the West as the Republican strategists probably had hoped for, but a lot of that will depend on where in the West the respondents live.

At this point, national polls are almost useless except to measure broad trends. What matters is how opinion breaks down in swing states.

Anglachel

Game Plan

If you do not have Falstaff in your bookmarks or on your blogroll, this is a blog worth visiting. This post is both funny and true, especially the bit about Biden:

Defensive Assignments
Okay, I think I've got the Republican defensive game plan down now.

Palin, you're covering Obama.

McCain, you're going after Bush.

Don't worry about Biden -- he'll be occupied talking to himself in the backfield.

If they bring in Hillary to call some plays, just stand aside. Every first down she gets will just demoralize their bench and fans, thinking about who could've been their starting quarterback.

Okay, break!
Posted by Falstaff at 11:52 PM

What BDBlue said

The entire comment thread at Corrente is interesting, but BDlue's post neatly sums up the strategic failing of the Democrats:

I Don't Care About The Surge
Submitted by BDBlue on Fri, 2008-09-05 10:59.

But I do think the more Obama sounds like John McCain, the more likely John McCain becomes President. And Obama just agreed with one of McCain’s arguments for why he should be President.

The Democratic strategy seems to be, as always, if we just agree with the GOP we’ll take that issue off the table. Well, pretty soon there aren’t any issues left.

This is a variation on Bob Somerby's overall criticism of the media and Democratic politics, that Democrats keep trying to make inroads against the GOP by agreeing with the GOP arguments instead of staking out their own turf and standing up for their own policies and objectives. You can't take issues off the table. You can only counter that issue with one of your own, either a different answer to the same problem or else arguing that your issue should take precedence.

It is why the entire "bipartisan" approach Will. Not. Work. Have any of these political strategists bothered to read Krugman in the last 8 years? The GOP has no interest in compromising on anything and so it is Democratic principles that are compromised.

Anglachel

Why Your Party Loses

One of the last honest critics of the media and politics:

WHY YOUR PARTY LOSES: Inanity is their way of life–and no, they really can’t stop themselves. In this morning’s New York Times early edition, what photograph sat atop page one? A photograph of John McCain shaking hands with Levi Johnson. Who on earth is Levi Johnson? Atop page one of the Washington Post, a giant photo filled the page. This was the photograph’s caption:

WASHINGTON POST PHOTO CAPTION (9/4/08): As he arrives in Minnesota for the Republican National Convention, Sen. John McCain is greeted by his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and her husband, Todd, right, along with other members of both candidates’ families. To McCain’s right are the Palins’ daughter Bristol and her fiance, Levi Johnson.

No other “members of both candidates’ families” were pictured. Only Levi and Bristol.

Yes, these are the two newspapers’ early editions; they couldn’t use photographs of Palin giving her actual speech. But of all the things they could have pictured, each newspaper chose to picture the young unmarrieds. Let’s say it again: Inanity is their way of life. And no, they really can’t stop.

Press corps inanity to the side, has the media greeted Palin’s selection with sexism and elite condescension? Yes, there has been some of each–and there has been some exaggeration of same by major Republican honchos. But in all the events of the past few days, the major difference between the two parties has been made abundantly clear. It’s captured in this Politico piece by John Harris (for the record, the headline is grossly deceptive). If you want to know why your party loses, consider the highlighted passage:

HARRIS (9/4/08): As the controversy over her qualifications and McCain’s vetting process overwhelmed events here, hypocritical rhetoric was flowing at full tide on all sides of the debate.

Many conservatives, who spent a generation ridiculing the politics of victimhood and group identity, are now zealously invoking both in the Twin Cities. A common GOP talking point here is that Palin’s gender and experiences as a mother should be counted as an asset among her qualifications. At the news conference, former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift condemned “an outrageous smear campaign” against Palin, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said, “The Republican Party will not stand by while Gov. Palin is subjected to sexist attacks.”

Let’s repeat what Fiorina said: “The Republican Party will not stand by while Gov. Palin is subjected to sexist attacks.” Remove the limiting term there–“sexist.” Thus adjusted, Fiorina’s statement explains our electoral politics over the past twenty years.

The Republican Party will not stand by while its candidates get attacked. The Democratic Party, and its major affiliates, have done just that. For years.

Consider again the most remarkable instance of this repulsive conduct.

In August 1999, Gennifer Flowers–a public crackpot–was invited on two different cable “news” programs to discuss, at remarkable length, the various murders the Clintons committed. (You read that correctly: their murders. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 9/26/03.) On August 2, she appeared for half an hour on Hardball; because her performance was so bizarre, she was then invited to do a full hour on Hannity & Colmes. On the latter program, Flowers extended her brief; she not only discussed the Clintons’ murders, she took the chance to let the world know that Hillary Clinton was a big giant lesbo. After giving Flowers a full hour, Fox reran a half hour of “highlights” two nights later.

At the time, Bill Clinton was president of the United States; Hillary Clinton was your nation’s first lady. But so what? As best we can tell from Nexis archives, here’s what did and didn’t happen after those two programs aired:

• The Democratic Party didn’t say a word about this astounding misconduct.
• No name-brand, liberal columnist said a word about it. (Examples: E.J. Dionne; Al Hunt; Mark Shields; Frank Rich.)
• No name-brand “liberal journal” ever mentioned what had happened.
• No “media reporter” discussed what occurred.
• In the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz mentioned Flowers’ Hardball appearance. But he didn’t report what she’d said.

Now! Go back and reread Fiorina’s statement, and consider the conduct of the past several days. If you still don’t understand why your party loses, then let’s face it–you never will.

By the way, what else transpired as these Dem/liberal elements kept their traps shut in August 1999? On Fox, a gang of male pundits went on the air and mocked the way Hillary Clinton looked back in the 1970s. (They had a photograph, and it looked very funny. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/6/08.) And of course, all across the political landscape, the RNC and the MSM kept inventing new, bogus tales about the vile Candidate Gore. The Democratic Party never said boo about those matters either. Neither did those liberal journals. Nor those liberal columnists.

How does your political world work? Here’s how:

Sally Quinn and Maureen Dowd played the fool about Palin–and the Republican Party fought back hard. They’ve played the fool about Big Dems for years–and the Democratic Party said nothing.

Yep! There was some sexism in the coverage of Palin–and the Republican Party fought back hard, exaggerating as it did. But then, during this same campaign, a major Democratic woman was gender-trashed from December 2006 on. Eighteen months later, Howard Dean explained why he didn’t speak up. I don’t watch that much cable, he said.

As recently as last evening, some of our fools continued to say that they feel “insulted” by Palin’s selection. If they had an ounce of sense, they’d instead feel insulted by Dean.

Audacity Deficit

When did the presidential campaign become a contest for VP between Obama and Palin?

This is very bad news for Democrats up and down the ticket, because it indicates that the Democrats have once again (as usual?) misjudged the temper of the times and and played it safe, thereby losing control of the battle of perception. Joe Biden has failed to make a dent in the collective consciousness of the media, let alone the public, since his selection, which was more notable for its half-assed rollout than for the buzz it generated. Hillary's speech got her 26 million viewers, Bill got fewer than that, 24 million, the following night, and Biden did not increase on those numbers even as he was supposed to have been the headliner of the evening. Biden is simply out of sight, out of mind, which does not bode well given the importance of the VP in the recent administrations.

Bill and Al may have been the best, most audacious presidential ticket ever because Clinton took the unusual step of choosing someone who repeated and amplified all of his own strengths - Southern, young, intellectual, a believer in government, wonky, and a professional public servant. The Big Dog broke all the rules that had previously governed VP choices like geographical balance, ideological balance, and not being overshadowed by your running mate. It was a plus that he had a VP who was every bit as smart, sophisticated and driven as himself. It was a choice that spoke to Clinton's confidence in himself and in his party.

Neither Biden nor Palin are choices from positions of strength. However he came to his decision, McCain selected a running mate who provided strengths he does not possess. His most damaging vulnerabilities were within his own party and who he chose was dictated by the need to shore up that wall. To do this, he picked a person who appeals to much of the worst in the Republican Party. It was a strategically necessary pick for him as without a solid party behind him, McCain is guaranteed a loss. Palin gives him an opportunity to win.

What Palin brings to the table is a sharp contrast to McCain, not the least of which is gender, playing an obvious domestic (and domesticating) policy role to his claim to foreign policy expertise. Before any commenters wax rhapsodic about McCain's FP chops, read Pat Lang's Sic Semper Tyrannis. Perhaps what Palin does best is purely visual. McCain's age is transformed from crabby old fart to avuncular pater familias. The choice to shore up his weakness within the party by going for the culture warriors' vote ironically reinforces his myth of being a maverick (as opposed to being a loose cannon), increasing his appeal to moderate Republicans, Independents and undecideds. Circumstances may have compelled the choice, but it has paid off politically.

I am not as sure as BTD that Biden was the best Obama could have done for VP once he had ruled out Hillary, but it was probably the only option he allowed himself. The choice was, from any honest perspective, an admission of weakness. It tacitly confirmed the claims about his lack of seasoning at a national level or in national politics. He has never been at the head of an organization like the National Governors Association, which Bill Clinton headed in 86/87. He has not been a public figure involved in a particular cause besides his own campaigns, as Hillary has been for the Children's Defense Fund, her historic battles for women's rights, or her unending work to get health care for all, or Al Gore's life-long dedication to the environment. These are the kinds of experiences that matter because they require work with many kinds of interests, agencies, and organizations to make headway towards long-term goals.

To digress for a moment, I'm not talking about the shallow "experience" argument, as though occupying a job for X amount of time instantly gives you some kind of expertise in that area, or that there is some magic to having held executive vs. legislative positions. I apply this as rigorously to Palin as to Obama. It has to do with possessing a thoroughgoing knowledge of how national governance works, how to interact with complex and conflicting bureaucracies, and how to maintain a political philosophy in the midst of the practical demands for negotiation, compromise and pure power plays. On this basis, both Obama and Palin come up short though it is unproductive to try to compare them to each other. Measure them against their peers. Take Palin and look at her in comparison to other governors at comparable points in their careers, such as Bill Clinton, Ah-nold, Gregoire of Washington, Napolitano of Arizona, Pawlenty of Minnesota and, yes, Kaine of Virginia. How does Obama compare to a 1/2 term US senator like Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden? This should also be done of McCain and Biden himself, for that matter.

Biden is a sign of weakness because of who Obama passed over. Whether or not you would have wanted to see Hillary as VP, that choice would have been a measure of his confidence in working with a more senior politician with her own dedicated power base. There is no corollary for McCain to choose from on the Republican side because there is no one of that stature in his party. I mean, can you think of anyone? To have selected Hillary would have fallen somewhere on the "no guts, no glory" scale between JFK offering the post to LBJ (grudgingly, wanting a rejection, knowing it was the key to victory) and Bill asking Al (unafraid of the competition, respectful of Al's greater national statute, gambling on a powerful administrative team). Biden has mocked Obama in public, there is no synergy in the pairing, there is not enough contrast to produce creative counter balance, and Biden stands as repudiation of all the message of change.

The choice of Biden did nothing to secure party supporters who were not already on board, though it may have prevented some establishment types from jumping ship. McCain got a lot more political gains among Republicans with Palin than Obama did among Democrats with Biden. It was the exhortation of the Clintons that brought wavering Democrats home, and it was clear from the commentary of people who are not kool-aide drinkers that Obama's speech was judged by whether he could keep their momentum going for him. The panicked reaction to Palin on the Left shows not only their revolting classist and misogynist worldviews, but also the uncertainty that the base will show up in November. The message is not "we're better" but "they're worse", which does not exactly exude confidence.

The fallout of these choices on either side is that Obama is left in a contest with Palin, McCain side-steps direct fights and Biden is marginalized as the over-exposed face from the Sunday talking heads shows. This is not a comparison the Democrats should be trapped into making.

Obama in comparison to McCain stands up well. The message is more believeable when you're up against a DC insider who is like some barnacle encrusted piling of a dock to no where, rotted away by the incessant pounding of the political tides. McCain does not convey gravitas very well, and actually comes across as weird looking and mean even when he's not trying to pull a Dick Cheney. However, the Saddleback interviews should have put everyone on notice that the comparison wasn't a slam dunk. Now onto the scene comes Palin. Aside from being an accomplished presenter, what she brings to the table is something we haven't had in our Republicans of late, the ability to channel powerful resentments with an admixture of charm. She is in the Reagan mode (though no where near as polished and deadly) not like Nixon, DeLay, Gingrich, Buchanan, and the other angry white men on the Right. She is going right after Obama and doesn't bother with Biden (At a town-hall meeting in Virginia Beach, Biden called Palin a formidable politician and said he was impressed by her speech, which he said was stocked with "good, funny lines. . . . I'm glad they weren't about me. I was sitting there thinking, 'Whoa, zinger.' "), which is not a luxury the Democrats had vis-a-vis Cheney and which they now cannot avoid with Palin, having spent so much time building her up in the media. They should have listened to Hillary.

Palin has not been off the front page of the New York Times for a week and always with more coverage than Obama. Biden barely registers as present. All of this leaves McCain free to avoid the grumpy old fart role and be the wise old uncle. His age is being turned into an advantage and he is shielded from comparisons to his opponent.

This is the price that Democrats are paying for the political cowardice of the Obamacans. McCain would not have chosen Palin if Hillary has been on the ticket. I think the nod would have gone to Pawlenty in that case. Hillary would have spent her time rallying her people to give her the mandate to push for her objectives, most of all UHC, instead of trying to triage the festering wounds of the primaries. It would have been a massive FU to the press corps, but as Bob Somerby patiently explains, the Democrats will not treat that pack of jackals like the enemies they are.

The Democratic campaign has become a reflection of the lack of nerve that has dogged the Obama campaign since the start, substituting smears and dirty tricks for solid policies, going for fixes and backroom deals rather than reaching for the truly audacious possibilities.

Anglachel

A Change in the Weather

Obama owes where he is right now to being the Media Darling of a fawning press. But the difficult part of being the media's darling is you are one until you don't look like a certain winner, and then you're TSOL.

There are two articles in the NYT tonight to take note of.

Old Friends in the Media See a New Side of McCain - the elite kiss-up kidz of the media are suddenly worried that they don't have immediate access to and cozy relationships with Mr. Maverick. "That Mr. McCain is behind these emphatic attacks has startled many, especially those journalists who have known Mr. McCain longest. “Probably no one in American politics over the last 20 years has had a closer relationship with the national press than John McCain,” said Albert R. Hunt, the executive Washington editor for Bloomberg News. " They don't like being shut out of the great food McCain always serves the press and they really don't like the prospect of losing out on juicy insider stuff in the winning camp.

McCain Policies Differ Sharply From Party Plank - strong resuscitation of the old lies about McCain being such a maverick. See, he isn't as scary as we thought. Darn, he's almost downright moderate! If they weren't worried about him winning, they wouldn't bother to burnish this image. "As a senator, John McCain holds a reputation for diverging from many of his Republican colleagues on core party issues. Now, as the party’s presidential candidate, his record and policy views are putting him at odds with the overarching party platform adopted this week." Of course, as Hillary and Paul Krugman have informed us (The Precious being far too busy kicking the Democratic female base in the crotch and making goo-goo eyes at Republicans to talk about policy), McCain's fundamental principles on the economy, domestic policy, foreign policy and national security are standard conservative fare. Like Obama, McCain can spout some strongly worded calims that he will stand up to this and make sure about that, but quietly fold and compromise away his "maverick" stance to the the radical right.

So, I think the big question to be resolved over the next week is who will be the media darling?

The MSM only backs a winner, even if they have to make one up.

Anglachel

Sidelined

'... But you told us not to be hasty. Ought we to tell you anything so soon? Would you think us rude, if we asked what you are going to do with us, and which side you are on? '

'I am not going to do anything with you: not if you mean by that "do something to you" without your leave. We might do some things together. I don't know about sides. I go my own way; but your way may go along with mine for a while.'

'I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me...'

I followed the Republican convention tonight, becoming more angry by the minute. 2004 all over again, the DNC having boxed itself into a trap of its own making. On the blogs, Democrats are gleeful over Palin's performance, split between those who see her as a loser and those who see her as a winner. All I see is another bat-shit crazy conservative ideologue who cleans up nice, but this one as much a creation of the Left's penchant for self-immolation as the Right's lust for total control over bodies and the body politic.

I will not vote Republican, insulting Hillary's work by giving Palin my support. Sorry, feminist solidarity doesn't mean being stupid. I don't want her attacked and I sure as fuck do not want her in power. I will not pretend that McCain and Palin are anything except radical conservatives who will continue down the path of destitution, desolation and destruction the Movement Conservatives have followed since Goldwater. What they want for the country and the world is wrong and all the penny-ante party infighting passing as fighting corruption up in Alaska will not change that basic fact. Their very perception of reality is diseased, fearful and violent. They may very well be lovely people one-on-one, but I don't care about the soul of a politician. I care about their objectives and their votes.

But the DNC has shoved an illegitimate candidate in my face, and that, too, is not something I will support. The Democratic nomination was a farce writ large. The methods used to win, the impulses encouraged and the allies enlisted in the aide of trying to use a slack election cycle to kill off political rivals, render their candidate anathema to me. The tactics the Obamacans embraced are now endangering the Democrats' bid for control of the government. As with Gore and Kerry, they are running as hard as possible from the policies and personalities that could actually secure a victory. Obama won the nomination by attacking his own party, decrying the value and worth of our partisan positions, joining with the mainstream press to attack not just a rival, but the core contituency of the Left. The entire party is being made to pay for his narcissism. Denying that this is happening won't make it go away.

I no longer have a dog in this fight. My candidate and my concerns have been asked to exit the stage. There is nothing I can do that I am also willing to do to affect the outcome in November, so I'll be spending the next ten weeks or so on the sidelines, picking apart the cultural baggage and writing political theory.

Anglachel

Taking Out the Trash

The out of control misogyny being aimed at Gov. Palin and her family since Friday is breathtaking in its breadth, depth and total inhuman cluelessness. I fear to visit Shakesville anymore because they keep finding more and worse practically by the hour. Melissa McEwan has a far stronger stomach than I do to view and chronicle the atrocities instead of just screaming invectives at the screen. I don't doubt but that she hurls a few invectives as well, but the chronicling is nothing less than a public service.

There is an aspect to the misogyny that is mentioned here and there, but doesn't get the full attention it deserves, and that is the class bias thoroughly interwoven with the gender hatred. Gov. Palin (yes, kids, she *is* a governor and I'm damnwell giving her the title she has earned.) and even more her daughter are being typified not just as female or sexually promiscuous females, but specifically as white trash females. Class, race and gender are all mixed into a seething stew served up by the privileged white males (and far too many females) of the MSM and the political establishment (Both parties - contemptuous stereotyping is not just for Republicans anymore!). In a class by itself, we get the raving Boyz of Left Blogistan, revving up the Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby known as Daily Kos and going for a gang-banging joy ride through the Palin family's reproductive organs.

I have written about this before, pointing out the deep revulsion the political and cultural elite feels towards things working class and especially things working-class, white and Southern. The original sin of Bill Clinton was to be a hick from Arkansas who didn't disavow his roots. The greater sin of Hillary Rodham Clinton was to marry that hick and stick with him even when he acted like a Bubba. Lower class white females are treated with even greater contempt than their male counterparts, reduced to Dolly Parton boobs, Daisy Duke butts, and Britney Spears midriffs. Above all, a lurid fascination with their alleged propensity for beastiality and incest, with accusations of the latter making an appearance in the current assaults. After all, "we" nice clean college educated denizens of Whole Foods Nation know about "those" kind of people. What do we know about them?

• Poor
• Lazy
• Uneducated
• Racist
• Stupid
• Religious
• Unhygienic
• Drunkards
• Druggies
• Violent
• Promiscuous
• Smokers
• Unhealthy
• Bad taste

It is not just that Gov. Palin is female and conservative. The cheeto brigade would not heap this kind of visceral hatred on Republican women who are part of their own class. The names are already bandied about - Carly Fiorina, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Christine Todd Whitman, Liddy Dole, etc. "Why weren't these more deserving women selected?" goes the cry (hint, it has to do with the conservative base, you know, a political decision?) These women are not "beauty queens" with questionable sexual pasts (that we know virtually nothing about their sexual pasts kind of proves the point - they are not being dug up), they have the correct number of children (if any) born at respectable points in their lives and properly raised not to get knocked up at politically inconvenient times. That Gov. Palin is a smart, college educated woman who knows how to gets things done (bracketing for a moment whether those are the things I would wish to see done) simply won't be acknowledged. It's all about how she uses her reproductive tract. It is even alleged that McCain chose her because he simply wanted to stare at her body, agin reducing her to her (slutty) sex appeal and him to a dirty old man. As I've discussed over the last few days, the refusal to look directly at the political reasons for choosing Gov. Palin only hurts Democrats.

Another element I don't think is being addressed enough is the "taking out" part of removing the trash. Aside from Hillary, name me another presidential ticket contender who has been the obsessive focus of such widespread and aggressive verbal violence. These attacks are far in excess of anything necessary to discredit a political rival. The politically savvy thing to do was to play it cool like Hillary did, and calmly, politely and firmly dismiss this person on the only grounds that matter - Republican policies. Hillary keeps trying to remind the party that when the political objectives of your opponent are wrong, none of the rest is relevant. The Democratic message should be the same whether the VP choice is Palin or Pawlenty, Ridge or Romney.

But there do not appear to be any bounds to the indignation, even rage, that this, this, tart from Alaska presumes to be the VP. As with the assaults on Hillary, the squalls of the MSM and the blogosphere are like the infant who can't make Mommy do what he wants so he is going to wish her dead. The posts and comments on Gov. Palin and her oldest daughter are invasive, trying to tunnel inside of their offending bodies and shred them from within. It is the same rage that Olbermann spewed when he asked for someone to take Hillary into a dark room and murder her. It is not as far from the recent murders of women in Pakistan - shot and buried alive - as we would like to believe. These women sought to control their bodies and their lives and were murdered for it. Bristol Palin is living her incredibly ordinary teenage life and these modern day Dimmesdales have appointed themselves judge, jury and executioner in her case. How dare a 17 year old "girl" fuck without our consent! (Or our participation...)

And now we are into more tropes of white female trashitude with the Boyz naming her upcoming union a "shotgun wedding". Never mind that she wears an engagement ring and that her neighbors were well aware of the situation and were happy for the young couple. Yup, Pappy's gunna make that young buck git hitched, even iffen' he don't wanna, an make an honest women outta the lyin' slut. Um, no. I have too many friends who are in fully committed relationships from their late teens onward who do not bother to get married until a pregnancy occurs. My own very traditional in-laws had collective freak-outs over the fact that me and the spousal unit were (gasp!) living together in sin (What are her folks going to think? my FIL demanded of my not-yet husband) until I was presented a proper engagement ring. Then it was cool. Then the hubby had done the correct social thing and his immigrant Catholic family was content that all was right with the world. The rituals of marriage are more flexible and common sense than you think.

The media mesage is coming through loud and clear - white trash women are sluts for us to fuck with as we please. They should not aspire to higher than the shanty that houses their (incestuous) family and should know this is not their place to trash. They need to remain breeeders and feeders. I mean, how can we associate with these women? They don't even have Ivy League degrees to make up for their slutitude! If they won't stay in their place then we will take them out like the trash they are.

Women preceived to be of a lower socio-economic classes, regardless of their color, regardless of their actual status, are treated like trash - cheap, dirty, used, disposable objects undeserving of civil rights and privacy, let alone common decency.

Anglachel

Choices

One of my choices in life is not to have a child. Another of my choices is never to have an abortion. I am lucky enough to have been able to hold true to both those choices thus far. Sometimes, like when I was holding the less than 24 hours old son of dear friends last week, I wonder if I made the right choice. Other times I know I have.

Most of my female friends have experienced at least one of those conditions. Several have experienced both. A few others have experienced miscarriages. Some were in their teens when they had their first (and even second) child, some in their forties, most somewhere in between.

Some didn't use birth control at all. Some used birth control and it failed. Some tried for years with all the reproductive fertility technology available to them. Some were just getting laid. A few were raped.

I know several women who decided they wanted a child without the benefit of marriage. A few did so to win freedom from their families and married the guy later or not at all. Several were engaged to be married and became pregnant deliberately before the wedding. Several were engaged and became pregnant accidentally before the wedding. All of my lesbian friends have borne their children as "single mothers" despite the presence of their loving partners.

I have family members who were born out of wedlock and those born within it. I have a number where baby number 1 was before the "I do" and the rest afterwards. A woman I know was conceived after her mother divorced and tossed out a pain-in-the-ass husband. She belonged to her mother alone.

My friends and co-workers and acquaintances and women I know tangentially are an interesting mix. They run the gamut from far left to far right and determinedly a-political. They grew up in households both strict and permissive. They, like me, make choices about their reproductive lives and they, like me, live with the consequences, especially when the choices don't work out.

Unless they tell you, though, you aren't going to know what those choices are. Do any of you know why I won't have a child? No, and you won't. How many of you have become pregnant by accident? On purpose? With or without marriage? Is it anyone's business? If your relative or parent is a public figure, does that change anything about your choices?

To try in any way to make a public example or a political point by singling out any individual for scrutiny and shaming is an inhumane thing to do.

Anglachel

Update: I have many, many comments on this post, some of which moved me to tears. Most commenters have asked not to be published. After looking through the collection again, I've decided not to publish any comments for this post. Thank you, all of you, for sharing your thoughts.

Political Issues and Tactics

The Democrats are, once again, threatening to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory because they have misunderstood the political issues, which leads to ineffective political tactics.

At this point in the election, there are only two issues that matter. One is the Republican ticket and how that will affect Republican turn out. The other is the disaffection of the Democratic base.

Republican Ticket
There is little the Democrats can do directly about the end run McCain is attempting with Palin. McCain correctly identified his electoral weaknesses (loss of image as outsider, growth of image that he is not a mover and shaker, belief that he is not sufficiently conservative) and has located a running mate who helps him shore up issues without detracting from him. He has reasserted the maverick brand, positioned himself as a change agent, and has neutralized most of his hard-right defection threat. What Democrats need to understand is the VP selection was all about McCain and the problems he was having creating the right image and was not about policy, credentials, or filling an office. Our Republican friends are ecstatic about the selection of Palin because it fixes their problems with McCain. They now have a positive reason to vote for their ticket.

The tactical blunder then is to attack Palin, which is exactly what the Democrats are doing. Hillary hit the right note by congratulating Palin for winning the slot but flatly saying that the Republican policies are wrong, which conveys the right message - no VP choice will change the fundamentally flawed Republican approach to government, even if that person is an historic choice and personally very nice.

What too many on the Left see as Palin's weaknesses will not, repeat, NOT be seen that way by her base. For example, there is an article today in the NYT by Kit Seelye about Bristol Palin's pregnancy. The headline screams "Palin’s Teen Daughter Is Pregnant; New G.O.P. Tumult," but the text of the article shows one Republican after another saying some variation on "Stuff like that happens. I wish the family the best." No tumult at all. Kind of like the Pope approving of Madonna's song "Papa Don't Preach." Also, absolutely do not under any circumstances breathe that Gov. Palin should have to produce medical records related to her reproductive history. Quite aside from that being a HIPAA violation, it is what the Republicans want the power to do, so do not damage your own privacy interests.

Attacking Palin on personal integrity grounds, as was done to Hillary, will boomerang into increased conservative support because you are outsiders attacking one of the tribe and they will come to her defense. The experience issue is a non-starter. McCain has already abandoned that as a significant argument and it is now the Democrats who keep the meme alive. No one who intends to vote for Palin cares about the "experience" argument and it allows the Republicans to shoot back "But what about Obama?"

To continue to go after Palin as an individual is to put yourself onto Republican turf, engaging in a politics of personal take-down. This is where the Republicans want to fight because it distracts from their policies and practices. Anything you say or do can be turned into a smear - just ask Hillary. This is why both the Clintons in their convention addresses and in their campaign speeches do not bother to talk about the individuals (except to praise them as people), but return over and over to the political acts of the Republican Party that have brought the country to the brink of ruin since 2001.

Democratic Base
This is the one area of weakness the party can affect directly. My grim opinion is that the window of opportunity to repair this rift has passed. The party is now stuck with a divided and angry base. The party must be under no illusion about why this has happened: The DNC and the Obama campaign denigrated and dismissed the preferred candidate of more than half the party, using misogyny and false accusations of racism and giving the CDS-afflicted media carte blanche to act out its worst impulses. When the candidate refused to be intimidated out of the race, the smears were aimed at her supporters. These smears continue to this day. These two lines of attack, one aimed at the voters, the other attributed to them, have inflicted damage that the Obamacan faction will not take responsibility for, let alone move to fix.

Before McCain's VP selection, the rift was not so crucial because McCain also was struggling with an uninspired and disaffected base. This did him more damage because the Republican pool of voters is smaller than the Democratic pool of voters. They have always had to make up for numbers with turnout, and that is a function of identification and enthusiasm. The Democrats now face a bad electoral situation, with an abruptly energized Republican base (all the more enthused because of a come-from-behind-finish possibility) and an angry and increasingly alienated Democratic base.

The danger is not primarily defections to McCain, no matter the news headlines or the rantings in Left Blogistan, but a silent opting out and refusal to cast a vote for the Democratic ticket. This group will be larger than any defections to McCain. There will be defections, of course, just as there will be Republican defectors to Obama. However, because the disaffection among the base springs from a sense of unfairness (rather than a lack of interest in the candidates), the defection rate will be higher than it would usually be. This does not have to be (nor will it be) all 18 million HRC primary voters, but even 5% of that 18 million could be enough to decide the election if the abstentions and defections occur predominantly in swing states, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico and West Virginia.

Democratic weakness in what should be our year, particularly in the face of an energized opposition, is a direct result of the conduct of the Democratic primaries. The people withholding their votes are not deciding between platforms or policy stances. People who have been voting Democrat for 20, 30, 40+ years know the the issues and the differences between the parties. Instead, they are passing political judgment on their own party. They are angry at the conduct of the party leadership towards a specific candidate. When that candidate was refused a place on the ticket, an enormous opportunity was opened up for the Republicans to exploit lower turn outs and higher defections. This was probably the single largest tactical error of the political season.

I have no reasonable or viable suggestions for how the rift in the party can be mended. If I did, I would state them loud and clear.

No prognosticating in this post. Just a presentation of what I see as the position of the Democratic Party heading into the GE.

Anglachel

Gustav Weakening

Some good news from NOAA, which is that Gustav stayed significantly west of New Orleans and that it weakened to a category 2 hurricane. This still means that anything and anyone in the area is going to get battered, but that the work done over the last three years may be sufficient to hold back the worst.

The map to look at is the storm surge map because that shows where the waves of water the storm generates are most likely to hit. See all that dark purple? That is where the worst damage will be. If I'm looking at the map correctly, the delta and mouth of the Mississippi River and then up the river to New Orleans will be most severely affected. It was the storm surge more than the wind that caused the horrific damage after Katrina. The biggest worry I have seen in the news reports was that, because Gustav was passing closely to the west of NOLA, the storm surge was going to come up the Mississippi and hit the river levees and flood walls which are not as high as those near Lake Pontchartrain, possibly damaging them. It would also put flooding into the higher elevations ofthe city (higher being a very relative term) that had escaped the flooding last time. We won't know this for hours, maybe even not until tomorrow.

So, Gustav has hit and hit hard, but not as badly as it might have, which is a very good thing. It is going to do nasty things to southern Louisiana, but hopefully enough people got out of the way and the levees have been reinforced enough that the damage will be contained. Finally, let's hope that power and services are restored quickly so people can return to their homes within the next few days.

Anglachel

Update: Good reporting in the NYT. Avoids the breathlessness of CNN and actually has some details of what is happening in New Orleans.