"O My Prophetic Soul" Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, Scene 5, Act I
Words are all I have. As a British citizen I cannot vote in this election. I cannot phone canvass. I cannot donate. All I have are words. But after this amazing campaign and all the words we've all expended, I just want to release two more crucial words into the blogosphere: thank you.
Thank you for the flames and mojos, criticisms and kudos, thank you for the fail pictures and the polls, for the LOLZ cats and live blogging threads. But above all thank you for your tolerating me here. As a foreigner in these virtual forums I've experienced the best of American hospitality, just as my son has experienced it during the last few days in Pennsylvania, organising, canvassing, getting out the vote.
Thank you. These are just words. But I cannot vote or donate. Words are all I have.
Words are all I had four years ago when I first became actively engaged in your debates. I had my reasons for being so caught up in the last election, but I was mainly a lurker. But nearly exactly four years ago, on November the fourth 2004, just after the savage and dispiriting defeat, I wrote my first ever diary on a blog to thank Democrats, even in defeat, for providing such inspiration and passion and hard work.
On that terrible day in November 4th 2004, I also tried to write some words of consolation. I don't know how much they helped. I drew analogies from the Labour Party's three successive defeats and 18 years in the wilderness, to encourage you all to rebuild and regroup.
A few days ago I took a look at that diary for the first time in four years and I was stunned to find this:
Let me start by saying that I believe McCain's call to postpone the debate is a shrewd tactical maneuver. If nothing else it allowed him to seize the initiative, put Obama in a reactive stance, and make the headlines about him rather than about the economy. And while it is a big gamble, there is the potential to exploit any outcome that has Obama sitting alone at the debate in Mississippi. First, the Republicans will plaster the television with images of McCain sitting in a study, glasses tipped over his nose, reading important looking papers and conversing with "top economic advisors." They may also release, immediately before, during, or after the debate, some new proposal that has the complete and total acceptance of every Congressional Republican. Even if that proposal is hogwash - as it surely would be - McCain will at least look like he was getting something done while Obama was out-of-the-loop half a country away.
All that being said, I think there is a way to outflank McCain on this with a sublime maneuver. Tomorrow afternoon the Democrats call a press conference and Harry Reid announces that he is scheduling debate in the Senate at the same time the Presidential Debate would have taken place in Mississippi, saying something to the effect of: "The country deserves to see the two candidates for the highest office in the land debate. We cannot deny them that opportunity. At the same time Congress must decide which course we are going to take. And so there is no better time and no better place to have these two distinguished Senators engage in a robust discussion about our nation's economy than tonight on the floor of our the Senate. Let their fellow Senators, and the American people, hear what each has to say and see what proposals each will bring to the table."
First, this move would put Democrats in the driver seat and allow them to reclaim the initiative. McCain is the one that would now be put in a reactive position. Second, it would play to Obama's strength in terms of his speaking style. During the primaries I thought that the candidate debates were his weak point; he is much, much better at delivering prepared remarks. Third, it would make for incredible political theater: the two Presidential candidates, both Senators, having it out in the halls of Congress over the economy and a Bush's bailout plan. No doubt it would be the most watched Senate debate in the history of Senate debates. And think of all the points Obama could hit: capping CEO pay; helping families facing foreclosure; cutting taxes for Middle America. We could even get Biden in the game by saying a thing or two and then Palin would be the one who was left out in the cold. (No Cold War pun intended.) Finally, it could boost the prospects of the Democrat's Senatorial candidates; people would see that the Senate is actually doing something and maybe understand that having Democrats control that house (with a filibuster-proof majority) is of the utmost importance to the future of our country.
Today, Obama said, "I don't care what they say about me." What a wimp thing to say when you are battling the dirtiest campaigner we have ever seen in our lifetime, Karl Rove.
Here is what Obama should be saying: McCain is a weakling. He is a political weakling, afraid of his own convictions. We have seen him time and again since he started running for president give up his position to whoever yelled the loudest. He caved to Bush on the tax cuts for the wealthy. He caved to the extremists on immigration reform. He caved to the extremists and kneeled down for Falwell. And he caved to Bush on torture.
McCain has no backbone when it comes to standing his political ground. The straight talk express goes straight in one direction until John McCain gets scared, and then it backs up and goes in the opposite direction.
It's too bad that a man of such strength in the Vietnam War is such a weakling when it comes to politics. McCain can't take the heat for his own convictions. It's a real shame to watch him cower in the face of political pressure.
Why?
1. Longer experience in government than McCain
2. He owns 1 house... and it's in Delaware... and he commutes to and from it and doesn't live in Washington DC
3. He is, after 3 decades in the Senate, not a wealthy man, ie: he lives on his Senate Salary and does not turn his political power into $$$
4. Tremendous foreign policy background
5. Relatively enemy free... people on both sides love him
Now some bring up his verbosity... I pulled this off YouTube from one of the earlier Presidential Primary Debates. This says it all:
The clearest indication I have seen to prove that voting for McCain is the equivalent of voting for a third Bush administration is this video from the Larry King Show in 2001 that The Jed Report has put out on the web:
(Direct netroots-to-public-eyeballs messaging. No consultant middlemen. This could be the future of activism--or at least reasonable chunk of it. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Get FISA Right (GFR), the internet based activist group begun on mybarackobama.com to alter Sen. Obama's stance on government surveillance and telecom immunity, has moved on in a big way. After losing the legislative battle on FISA the group faced a challenging decision: disband and look for ways to effect government action on illegal surveillance individually or find new causes to organize members around. The active members knew they had captured lightning in a bottle with their melding of dedication to a cause and mastery of internet based activism. What they decided was to take the fight for rule of law and protecting your constitutional rights forward by empowering you to fund their new television ad.
So the progressive blogosphere has (mostly legitimately) been a bit frustrated as of late with the two veep prospects who seem to be getting the most attention from the press (and, sort-of, Obama himself): Evan Bayh, the centrist Democratic senator of Virginia, and Tim Kaine, the one-time-progressive-lurched-a-bit-to-the-right, bad-on-labor-issues Governor of Virginia.
Of the two, I think Bayh is the superior pick, and here's why:
First, let's address his problems. He is clearly on the wrong side of the Iraq war--he didn't just vote for it, but was very neo-con in his behavior in 2002 and 2003. Though he has moved (with public opinion) to the left, increasingly pushing for more accountability, calling early on for Rumsfeld's departure, and now finally seeming to embrace the Democratic position of withdrawing, carefully, all troops, he's had to do a bit o catching-up.
HUGE problem, right? Obama's defined by his anti-Iraq-war stance, right? Wrong. Obama's defined amongst progressives and Democrats as the anti-war, anti-lobbyist Democrat who will take on some of the establishment forces that have been hurting not just our country but Democrats in particular. While he's shifted right lately, this is who a lot of his still consider him to be.
But I don't think it's how the public at large perceives him. They see him as a charismatic and smart leader who is a Democrat and will hopefully change the economy, plus someone who, generally speaking, has been prescient on calling out Bush's failed foreign policy. In that sense, while Bayh isn't perfect, he starts to fill in some key gaps for Obama, and reinforce other ones.
So getting back to Bayh's Iraq problem, note that:
1) The war is less salient every day this campaign goes on.
2) Obama, not Bayh, is running to be Commander-in-Chief. I actually think having an older, white, more "seasoned" Washington hand on his ticket as EVIDENCE of Obama's superior judgment, someone who would constantly say "I was wrong, the conventional thinking was wrong, this war was wrong," would be a HUGE boon. It's not enough for the "presumptuous" (read: uppity) Obama to talk about how smart he was. Bayh is the perfect white bread messenger for that concept: WE fucked up on Iraq, so let's follow this guy who got it right. It's OK to follow him, because I am too. Look how calm, white, and patriotic I am.
You can't overestimate the cultural validity that Bayh provides, and while these political considerations might seem cynical, they matter. And I think they'll work.
Finally, I think Bayh actually functions to REINFORCE Obama on two key points: youth, and geography. They are both handsome, young, and, in their own ways, charismatic. Bayh is quieter, even bland, but he commands a positive presence nonetheless. You don't need excitement, Obama can provide that. He won't overshadow the nominee like Edwards almost did at the 2004 DNC.
Geographically speaking, Bayh is another Midwestern candidate, reinforcing Obama's heartland appeal (look how strong Obama is compared to Kerry in the Midwest). I think they'd take Indiana by a few points, and Bayh would help solidify Obama's stranglehold on the Great Lakes region, putting Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin out of play for good. He'd also help in rural Ohio.
Finally, as Nate at 538 tried to point out, Bayh (partly because he planned on running for president) has moved further and further to the left in the last few years, and, for where he is, is a decently progressive Democrat. While he definitely has some of that centrist, "post-partisan", DLC in him, so does Obama. They'd reinforce each other, and Bayh has held the line on enough causes (gay marriage amendment, Bush tax cuts, etc.) in such a hostile environment that I think he'd be a decently progressive leader. He's no Max Baucus, people.
Ok, ok, so maybe I'm drinking the Kool Aid. But while I agree with a lot of the criticisms of Bayh that are being made, I think these are some important factrs that work in his favor, and these are worth discussing.
Agree? Disagree? Angry at me for being a DLC plant? (I'm not!) Discuss.
There's been a lot of hand-wringing--here on OpenLeft and elsewhere, including the MSM--over McCain's celebrity ads, his new caricature of Obama, and whether his more aggressive, attention-grabbing message (over the last 10 days or so) has been hurting Obama by feeding into voter concerns with him.
People, including myself, have been reminded of August 2004.
I think there are a couple of substantive differences, though, and I think the Obama camp is aware of them:
First, the celebrity ads (and the immaturity that underlies them) are McCain ads, not third party ones. Bush had just enough distance in Aug. 2004 that he could plausibly deny affiliation with the SBVT. McCain, of course, cannot. Perhaps more important, unlike Bush, McCain's brand is about rejecting politics as usual and partisan bickering and a lot of the crap we see on CNN everyday. How do these ads do anything but fall into that gutter and hurt his brand? I think--MAYBE--Obama's people deliberately let McCain go negative and nasty first, because they think it is much more a double-edged sword for him than it is for them.
That's not to say the tightening of some state polls and the national polls (sort-of) isn't concerning. The Obama camp seems to have decided the June-August time was a period of occasional, concise, targeted moments of positive media coverage--the trip, the VP choice, the convention--rather than an aggressive, multi-faceted onslaught. A lot of people are upset--and worried--about their (at least until the last couple of days) lack of aggression, their inability to control the narrative.
I dunno. I feel like we're still missing something. It's as if they're lying in wait, guns primed, just biding their time. Maybe I'm wrong and they're just incompetent or weak(in reality, it's probably somewhere in between). But I find it hard to believe they aren't aware of all the concern popping up over the last couple weeks and the narrative McCain has produced. Despite Obama's response ads (and a couple of decent, if less-than-perfect, counter punches), I still feel like they're WAITING. Mike Lux calls it Beltway caution, and maybe it is. But what else could it be?
A grand strategy? I have no clue. I wish I knew, but we won't until after labor day. Until then, while we can raise red flags and warn them to get more aggressive, to control the message, we can't get Axelrod and Gibbs' attention any more than that letter in The Nation can get Obama's.
I've been thinking about the hit and miss structure of the McCain campaign, and his also hit and miss structure during the primary, and I am wondering if this seeming incompetence is not deliberate? That is - like a pool hustle - is McCain feeling out the Obama camp's strengths and weaknesses in a drunken careen, only to straighten out late in the game and play serious hardball?
I think it's highlighted by this bit (from The Page over at time.com):
The Democratic nominee-to-be faces the public at a town hall in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
"While Senator McCain has spoken out on energy reform in the past, in this campaign, he isn't offering any solutions to help Americans pay for high gas prices. Instead, he's proposing a gas tax holiday that's nothing more than a Washington stunt."
I think this is probably the only way to win this election. The media have determined, rather systemically, that McCain is a straight-talking Maverick reformer, and you can't just batter that head-on. That helps, and maybe that's enough, but you also have to acknowledge the meme to connect with the viewer. If you say, "McCain was a maverick but now he's a Bush Republican, it's more palatable, and, eventually, more persuasive to the electorate at large.
Or maybe we should just trash the hell out of him. Seriously. Wouldn't mind!
It's fairly common knowledge that the position of President in Iran holds very little actual power. Back when moderate reformer Mohammad Khatami held the presidency, we were regularly reminded that he was pretty much of a figurehead with no real power. Now that the confrontational and controversial Ahmadinejad holds the office, we don't hear so much about how the president is not really the top dog. Obviously he makes a convenient boogie man for the right. Why spoil the scariness value. So it's no mystery why the neocon McCain would play this political game. But surely he's not so clueless as to be unaware that the real power in Iran is held by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the cabal of clerics known as the Council of Guardians. After all, McCain is the security expert! Hillary Clinton has assured us that he has passed the Commander in Chief "threshhold"! Could McCain really be that clueless about the leadership of the country he claims is the biggest threat we face? You decide:
Before I answer this question, I would like to first thank all the commentators for their interest in my disability and their questions about the obstacles I have faced.
I lost my vision gradually throughout my childhood so that, while I could still read large print when I was ten or eleven, I could not when I was thirteen. Using a cane became necessary in my junior year of high school.
By the time I went to college (Brandeis) and grad school (Harvard) I was totally blind. I started at Brandeis in 1968. These were the pre-personal computer dark ages. For all people, the personal computer has radically changed their lives; for blind folks, this change is downright revolutionary.
I've heard it said that the ideal political candidate is the individual who neither wants nor needs to hold public office. Instead, the ideal candidate is the individual who serves simply because he or she feels a civic and moral responsibility to do so.
This individual is Dennis Shulman, a Democrat running for New Jersey's fifth congressional district seat in the United States House of Representatives.
So, who exactly is this ideal candidate? As a longtime student in Dennis's classes and congregant at his services, I believe I'm in a unique position to answer this question.
