Who's Laughing Now?

Tomorrow's Results Tonight

Let's keep the predictions short and sweet:

ELECTORAL VOTE: Obama 419, McCain 119

POPULAR VOTE: Obama 54%, McCain 42%, Barr 2%, Nader 1%, McKinney 0% (rounding to the nearest percentage point)

KERRY/GORE STATES: Obama wins them all

TOSS-UP STATES: Obama wins Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, and Virginia

SURPRISE STATES: Obama wins Arizona, Louisiana, and at least one electoral vote from Nebraska

STATES WHERE I'M HEDGING MY BET: Alaska, Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia -- I don't think Obama will win these, but if it's as big as it could be, these states will be closer than expected, even if they don't tip.

SENATE SEATS: Dems net +11 seats (including wins for Martin in Georgia and Musgrove in Mississippi)

CLOSEST SENATE RESULT: McConnell/Lunsford in Kentucky

BIGGEST SENATE SURPRISES: Graham/Conley in South Carolina, Johanns/Kleeb in Nebraska, and Cornyn/Noriega in Texas (These will be much closer than expected, and the Dems may pick up one of these seats.)

HOUSE SEATS: Dems net +42 seats (including seats in Alaska, Idaho, and Wyoming)

BIGGEST HOUSE SURPRISES: Dems take total control of all House seats in New England and Minnesota, and all but 2 in New York; their margin in the Southwest (AZ, NV, NM, and CO) goes from 10 of 21 seats to 16 of 21 seats

GOVERNORSHIPS: Dems hold North Carolina and Washington and pick up seats in Indiana and Missouri, for a total of 30 governorships

FUN GUBERNATORIAL FACT: Indiana would thus have its first female governor in Jill Long Thompson, and North Carolina its first female governor in Bev Perdue. If both women win, then in January there will be nine U.S. states with female governors, the highest number at any one time in U.S. history.

HOW LATE WILL I GO TO BED?: I might not. But then I have Wednesday and Thursday off. (Wednesday night I'm going to the "Celebrate Obama" event at the Texas Embassy, so that could be a late one . . . )

Another November 4

On November 4, 1980, the American people elected Ronald Wilson Reagan of California as our 40th president in a landslide. He won the popular vote by 10 points, trouncing President Carter 489-49 in the Electoral College. On President-Elect Reagan's coattails, Republicans netted a gain of 12 seats in the Senate, putting them in control of that house of Congress for the first time in decades.

Interestingly, Carter had held a narrow lead in the polls until right up before Election Day, as there was a sense (among the media, at least) that voters would not trust Reagan to run the country. He was too far to the right, a "right-wing nutcase," even. And then, on November 4, 1980, he won in a landslide that redefined America as a center-right nation for a generation.

And now, this Tuesday, some 28 years later, a generation later, another November 4 sees another monumental election in our nation's history. And I predict, just as on that past November 4, the polls have failed to reflect the true momentum of what has come to pass.

The fact is, we are no longer a center-right nation. Party ID has shifted massively from a slight advantage for Republicans to a much more sizable advantage for Democrats, and also an increased edge for independents. Are we a center-left nation? That remains to be seen. But the nation, as a whole, is a much bigger tent than it used to be.

And people are hurting, and much more open to the possibilities. And that's because the last eight years have seen a massive failure of all the institutions on which we thought we could rely. Banks have failed. People have lost much of their savings, their retirement funds. They've lost their homes. Three thousand people were murdered on September 11, 2001, and we have failed to apprehend the culprits, let alone bring them to justice.

Instead, our government lied its way into an unrelated war, all while relegating extraconstitutional powers to the vice-president, withdrawing from the Geneva Conventions, and authorizing torture and other profound violations of our most fundamental principles. Here, I am speaking not only of the Constitution, but of our sense that we, as Americans, must hold ourselves to a higher standard, because we are the standard to which the world aspires. To paraphrase President Reagan, and the Americans who came before, we are that city on a hill.

And yet, in the aftermath of the bloodiest day on the American mainland since the Civil War, our leaders failed us. There was no true call to national unity, no sense of a need for moral courage, of a calling higher than our own individual interests. Instead, the president told us to go shopping. All the while, the Congress ratcheted up spending, not only on defense, but increasing entitlements to a level surpassing that of Lyndon Johnson.

In retrospect, then, it's no surprise that Americans drowned on their rooftops and starved on the streets of one of our great cities for nearly a week before the government could figure out where they were and how to save them. And now, with the financial industry on the brink, and unwilling to spend its own capital to save itself, the government writes a blank check, nationalizing banks nearly destroyed by their own greed.

And the debt. The unthinkable debt. Since the fiscal year ended September 30th, we have already added an additional $500 billion to the national debt. This is as much as was added in the entire last fiscal year. Now it's well above $10 trillion and counting.

That number is so large, it's nearly unfathomable. What people see is their own bottom line. They're not making much more than they used to, but they can't buy as much. And we're talking basics, like gas, like milk. And employers are cutting back on health care.

In short, the nation is ready for a change. And actually, I don't think it was at all a sure thing for a Democrat to win this year, or to win big. A Republican that could have run strong on economic issues, connecting to the concerns of middle class and working class voters, could have had a chance. We could have had a debate on economic policy, instead of hearing the same BS talking points again and again and again.

But even that's not the fundamental problem with McCain's campaign, and the major asset of Obama's. Obama spoke in the language of American exceptionalism. McCain never did. To be fair, that's not the type of guy McCain is; he's something of a fatalist, if a romanticized one. He may have ridden to office on Reagan's coattails, but McCain was never an American exceptionalist. Obama is one, in his truest heart; really, he has to be, when you think about where he's come from.

What do I mean? Take this final viral video as an example:

Every so often, there are times when America must rise to meet a moment. And our moment is now. This is our moment. This is our time to unite in common purpose, to make this century the next American century. Let's go change the world.

Yes, obviously, it's a campaign speech. But there you have the essence of American exceptionalism that has been so lacking the last eight years: yes, the stakes are higher than they've been in decades. But together, we can meet the challenges we face, and the challenges to come. Together, united once again in our common purpose, this still-young century could be as great as the one that's past.

And, in short, I think that's why Obama will not just win, but win with a margin that's comparable to Reagan's. Sure, get-out-the-vote is a big factor, enthusiasm among the young and among African Americans is a factor. But the young and the black do not deliver a margin of 10 points or more.

If, tomorrow night and Wednesday morning, things end up blowing up as big as I think they will, you will hear a lot more about President Reagan, measuring his victory -- and his temperament, and his sense of America's greatness and great promise -- against that of America's 44th president-elect, Barack Hussein Obama of Illinois.

All Souls

So I am going to post my 2008 election predictions later tomorrow/today (Sunday, the Lord's day).

This may not happen till after I screen the new Bond film at one of my favorite cinemas, the Vue Islington, which I am rather looking forward to. Unfortunately, some of our group didn't buy their tickets in advance, and the screening had sold out Saturday afternoon. It's on four screens, but oh well . . .

So there's something to look forward to. I plan to predict electoral votes, as well as Senate, House, and gubernatorial races. I am totally spoiled now that I have my cable FINALLY working, thankfully in time for Election Night in America.

Further Insights on the Governor of the Welfare State

Three more thoughts on Sarah Palin:

1) Is she dyslexic? I mean this in the nicest way possible. I started thinking about this after her malapropism from the debate with Biden:

I'm not one to attribute the actions of man to climate change.

Well, I thought it was a malapropism, but then she said the same thing, in exactly the same words, in a TV interview a week or so later. Maybe she just hadn't memorized her talking points very well. I wonder, though, whether she might have at least a mild learning disability? I suggest this as it might be a reason she bounced between colleges (as at the time she attended college, there would have been little support for dyslexic students).

2) Do her children go to school? My mom brought this up before Andrew Sullivan did (after all, she is a teacher). It's problematic enough to have a governor who is anti-intellectual, anti-science, even anti-reading (and how I wish that was an unfair slur), but to hold her up as some sort of "hockey mom" while her children appear to be ever-present at campaign events (and not only at weekends) raises the question. Although point no. 1 above might explain why she's not a reader, and wouldn't place such a value on education (even in her own family . . .)

3) How can she possibly have a shot in 2012? I don't mean just because of her completely disastrous rollout on the national stage. Leave that aside, and consider: she is the governor of the Welfare State. No wonder she said "The government doesn't have to worry about money," because, in Alaska, they don't. They don't tax their citizens; they tax corporations, and then cut their citizens an annual check, to the tune of several thousand dollars a year for every man, woman, and child in the state.

Earlier this year, Palin imposed a windfall profit tax on the oil companies, and gave all her state's residents a second check, in addition to the one check they were already going to get this year.

Here's my point: without McCain as the focus, and with four years till her next shot at national office, surely there'll be more attention on this. And should the civil war for the future of the Republican party that I expect actually ensue, won't her fiscal record make her anathema to her party's base?

I repeat: she imposed a new windfall profit tax to give every person in her state an extra check this year. If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid wanted to impose a windfall profit tax, the GOP would call it socialism. But, hey, she's a MILF, she's not hot on book-learnin', and she didn't have an abortion, so it's fiscal-schmiscal.

In Which I Say Something Nice About Sarah Palin

. . . for a change. (And that's change you can believe in!)

I am watching a program called View from the Right on CNN International, with David Brody, Stephen Hayes, David Madden, and a couple other conservative pundits. One of them just referred to the fact that Gov. Palin "can see Russia" as a reason not to present her as a foreign policy expert.

Amazing, isn't it, that Republican pundits have assimilated Tina Fey to the point that they attribute her joke to Gov. Palin? Because Gov. Palin never said "I can see Russia from my house." That was Tina Fey on SNL.

Of course, Gov. Palin did say a lot of silly stuff, but nothing quite that deliberately stupid. After all, Wasilla is on the mainland, in the Mat-Su Valley, and not on the island that shares a maritime border with Russia.

Just interesting, isn't it, how such a claim not made by the candidate can come to so thoroughly permeate the national discourse . . . Not unlike the claim that Al Gore said he invented the internet (which, likewise, he never actually claimed to have done) . . .

Memo to GOP: White Devils Trump Your Race Cards

So I called my parents last night before bed -- about an hour after the evening news in the U.S.

"Did you hear about Jeremiah Wright?" I said.

"Did you hear about the plot against Obama?" my mom said. "The Klan is out to get him. There's something about the numbers 88 and 44 . . ."

And so it goes. This is not unexpected, as Alma Powell could have told you. Not even the first time. It always amazes me that white people don't realize how racism works. Or that they forget. But then I've studied on it, and sometimes I forget how much they forget. So we're all crackers like that, I suppose.

But, man -- how much does it suck for the Republicans to tear up the last lighting fixtures and doorknobs, throw those suckers at Obama, and then be upstaged by actual white devils mere hours later?

And all of it upstaged, of course, by that Last Frontier devil, Ted Stevens. With whom McCain has been known to pal around . . .

Memo to GOP: white devils trump your race cards. And there are actual white devils in America, and an actual KKK. These are not figments of Rev. Wright's imagination.

And a shout-out to white devils across the land: thanks for being the batshit crazy crackers you are. Sometimes white folk need a reality check. And you provided that in spades.

Now we just need the inevitable press release from the Klan, disavowing these crackers and their tactics. 'Cause the Klan claims Obama is driving up membership. Why, it's almost as if they have visions of a U. S. of KKK-A.!

Having Thrown the Kitchen Sink, the GOP Scrounges for Lighting Fixtures and Doorknobs

Eight days till Election Day . . . nothing is working . . . so time to play the race card. Again. Today. But, wait a sec, y'all, this is the ULTIMATE race card. (Seriously, though, how many race cards can the GOP have in their deck? Surely there are some hearts or diamonds in there somewhere?)

Check it:



Here's my question: Whose mind is this going to change?

If you already knew about Rev. Wright, this is old news.

If you didn't know about Rev. Wright, and you already decided to vote for Obama, are you going to change your mind for this reason? Hard to see -- especially if you made that choice in spite of being someone who openly says "nigger" to strangers.

If you didn't know about Rev. Wright, and you hadn't made up your mind, perhaps you would be affected. Point taken. But now you've set up Sen. Obama to explain to all those ignorant folk how Rev. Wright does not speak to him, and tell them all about his own Christian faith. As he is, ya know, an African American Christian, and not an Arab Muslim. (And thanks to the GOP for giving Obama this assist late in the game.)

Bigger problem: If you've already lost a good portion of crackers who'll be "voting for the nigger," you might want to check that deck again.

Toss-Up States

Here's my list of toss-up states for Election '08:

- In the Midwest: Ohio (20 E.V.), Indiana (11 E.V.), Missouri (11 E.V.), Nebraska CD-2 (1 E.V.)
- In the South: North Carolina (15 E.V.), Florida (27 E.V.)
- In the Southwest: Nevada (5 E.V.)

These states (and one Congressional district) have a total of 90 electoral votes. Also, N.B. that these states (and CD) all voted for President Bush in 2000 and 2004.

To get to 270, McCain has to win ALL of these states (and CD), plus at least 18 electoral votes from the McCain longshot category.

Here's the kicker, folks: Obama does not need to win any of these states.

Here's why: Add up the electoral votes from the Obama's floor states and the McCain longshot states (from below). Obama's floor (234 E.V.) plus McCain longshots (52 E.V.) give him 286 electoral votes, and make him the 44th president of the United States.

So Obama can win without Ohio or Florida (or even Nevada).

Now, if someone McCain did pull out a win in Pennsylvania, Obama could still win by picking up a state from this list -- even Nevada, with its 5 E.V., would put him back to 270.

Basically, then, McCain can only win if it's super-close, and even then, he has a very specific path to victory.

McCain's Longshots

In my electoral map, here are the states that I consider longshots for McCain to pickup. Based on extensive close reading of poll results and news reports from these states over the last six months, I seriously doubt any of them will turn red next Tuesday.

Still, I've listed them here in the sake of fairness. (Also, to highlight the desperation of McCain's strategy, which I'll explain shortly.) Here are the states:

- In the Northeast: Pennsylvania (21 E.V.) and New Hampshire (4 E.V.)
- In the South: Virginia (13 E.V.)
- In the Southwest: Colorado (9 E.V.) and New Mexico (5 E.V.)

N.B. that to get to 270, McCain will need at least 18 electoral votes from this list. That assumes that he has already won ALL the McCain's floor states and Obama longshot states as listed below, and ALL the toss-up states listed above.

So McCain can't win the election unless he wins one of the following:
- Pennsylvania (for a total of 273 E.V.)
- Virginia and Colorado (for a total of 274 E.V.)
- Virginia and New Mexico (for a total of 270 E.V.)
- Colorado, New Mexico, and New Hampshire (for a total of 270 E.V.)

If you look at Obama's leads in Virginia and Colorado, you can see why Team McCain might double-down everything on Pennsylvania, and a Cracker Country strategy there. It's the only state on this list with a large enough Cracker Country populace that it might just work.

Obama's Floor

Looking at it from the other side, here are the states that I consider to be Obama's floor -- states that McCain has no chance of winning:

- In the Northeast: Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia
- In the Midwest: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan
- In the West: California, Oregon, Washington

These states, with 234 votes, are Obama's floor. Barring a major disaster and screw-up by Obama, these are states (plus DC) McCain will not win.

Technically, Pennsylvania should be on this list, but I am leaving it out, as McCain's entire strategy for winning is based on winning Pennsylvania. I think this is all but impossible at this point, but will indulge the senior senator, if for no other reason than the sake of suspense.

Obama Longshots

In my electoral map, here are the states that I consider longshots for Obama to pickup. But you could well see them turning blue next Tuesday, ordered here from least to most likely (within each category, and among categories overall):

- Cracker Country surprises: South Dakota, Alaska, and Nebraska CD-1 (7 E.V.)
- Cracker Country outliers: West Virginia, Arkansas, North Dakota, Montana (17 E.V.)
- Dixie surprises: Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi (23 E.V.)
- Southwest outliers: Arizona (10 E.V.)
- Dixie outliers: Georgia (15 E.V.)

These 11 states (and 2 Congressional districts) have a total of 72 electoral votes. Give them all to McCain, along with his "floor" states, and he has a total of 162 electoral votes.

McCain's Floor

Just to be clear, the 10 states I think Obama has no chance of winning, in any scenario:

- In the South: Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama
- In the Great Plains: Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska (at-large and the 3rd CD)
- In the Mountain West: Idaho, Wyoming, Utah

These states, with their 90 electoral votes, are McCain's floor. They are also the heart of Cracker Country.

Just to be clear.

And, yes, I am aware which states I'm leaving off the list . . .

How the Southwest Was Won

. . . by Obama, that is.

To wit: check out this new poll from Arizona, which shows McCain's margin down to a mere 4 points.

Apparently there are some more polls coming that also show Obama closing the gap in McRage's home state. I don't think this is the tightening the McCain camp had in mind.

My friends doubted me a few weeks back when I said Arizona was perhaps a longshot for Obama, but I wouldn't include it on the list of states (such as Utah, Idaho, and Oklahoma) that he surely wouldn't win. My reasons? Demographically, the same factors that work to Obama's advantage in Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada are at work in Arizona. Also, we hadn't had any polling in Arizona for nearly two months (since early September), and McCain didn't have a whopping lead then.

Now, if we could just get some fresh numbers in Alaska, please . . .

Sarah Palin, Christian Nationalist?

That's her most viable move, according to Newsweek, all to make a play for "low-education white voters":

But what the intellectuals have not always acknowledged is that there is an easier, if less utopian, way to speak to the anxieties of working America: full-fledged culture war. There are, in fact, wedge issues the Republican Party has yet to fully exploit. Rather than expose the divide between McCain and the base of his party on immigration (the nominee takes a moderate stance; party activists are filled with close-the-border zeal), the Republicans have taken the issue off the table in 2008. But any politician who thinks millions of middle- and working-class white Americans have stopped caring about it is delusional. It is only a matter of time before a candidate with A-list name recognition decides to make it a pet issue.

Why not Palin? Unlike most top-tier Republican candidates, she owes very little to the party's business wing and thus would have little to lose by taking an anti-immigration stand. Since joining McCain's ticket, she has echoed his moderate position on the issue. But she could turn this into a virtue: yet another McCain mistake she had to grin and bear. She could use the issue as a jumping-off point to break the party from business altogether on things like trade, making a protectionist argument from the right. The inexperience that has dogged her this year could help her in the future; without a record of party fealty, she could easily dispose of any party orthodoxy that kept her from marrying pitchfork populism with the ideals of the Christian right.

No telegenic Republican has tried this since Pat Buchanan in the 1990s. No superstar Republican has tried it in history. In Palin's hands, this strategy could spawn a movement. In the event of a Republican embarrassment on Election Day, the real story won't be John McCain licking the wounds from his lonely defeat. It may be Sarah Palin reinventing the Republican Party—not from the middle, but from the right.

So (Pat Buchanan)^2 + James Dobson - Big Business = New Republican Party?

And I didn't realize we'd only been having a half-assed culture war. Pansies!

The important thing is she's telegenic. And she has no "record of party fealty," certainly not in this election.

A Case of Pot Calling Kettle "Socialist"

Brokaw was especially deft at drawing at McCain's own brand of "socialism" (which is not actual socialism, as practiced in countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, or Bolivia, where the government controls the means of production. Stop me before I go all book learnin'!).

First, Brokaw tosses out a seeming softball, asking McCain to gloss the S-word:

MR. BROKAW: But there, there is this continuing use...

SEN. McCAIN: ...I feel that...

MR. BROKAW: ...of the phrase "socialism." How would you describe the $700 billion bailout that has the United States government buying shares in American banks, in effect nationalizing those banks to a degree, and even your own mortgage plan of spending $300 billion to buy bad mortgages from banks, having taxpayers who have done the responsible thing, in effect, subsidize people who've done the dumb or wrong thing?

SEN. McCAIN: Because we are in a financial crisis of monumental proportions. The role of government is to intervene when a nation is in crisis. A homeowner's loan corporation was instituted in the Great Depression. They went out and they bought people's mortgages, and, over time, people were able, then, to pay back those mortgages. And the Treasury actually made some money.

OK, fair enough, McCain does not want to go on record that a significant number of Americans were irresponsible and bought homes they knew (or should have been adult enough to know) they couldn't afford. Straight Talk is so Y2K.

But, then, Brokaw seems to let the matter drop, only to come back around to the nasty S-word (which is a word and not a "phrase") a few questions later [with my comments/imagined internal monologue in brackets and boldface]:

MR. BROKAW: Let me ask you quickly about your $300 billion bailout of, of mortgages.

SEN. McCAIN: Hm. [Uh-oh.]

MR. BROKAW: Some people have said, look, if there's a homeowner out there who's done the irresponsible thing... [Can we please have more of the media and politicians calling out Americans as "irresponsible," "dumb," and "wrong" when we have in fact behaved that way? That's straight talk, my friends.]

SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm.

MR. BROKAW: ...and a bank is looking at that foreclosure and saying, "Hey, I don't have to work this out. I can just get the government to pick it up," why should a taxpayer in Waterloo, Iowa, or in Akron, Ohio, have to subsidize somebody who has done the dumb, wrong thing? ["EXACTLY!" shouted I to the webcast. Can we please have some Republicans who think that government is not the answer to every problem in American life? So we could have an actual debate on both parties' policies, rather than a debate solely about one party's candidate and his policies?]

SEN. McCAIN: Well, in simplest terms, if their neighbor next door throws the keys in the living room floor and leaves, then the value of their home is going to dramatically decrease as well. [Indeed, so-called abandonments "by throwing of keys" are the number 3 cause of home loss in my home state of Ohio, after foreclosure and fire. Usually, though, it's the kitchen or, most likely, garage.] And again, this has been done before. As I said, during the Great Depression and... [Oh my Lord, he is not going to use FDR as an example of what Republicans should do now!!!!!!!]

MR. BROKAW: And that's when Republicans called it socialism under FDR. [Dude, if you did not see that one coming, how are you gonna, like, stop us from having wars, and stuff?]

SEN. McCAIN: Well, look, in the Great Depression, there were some things that worked and some things that didn't work. [Most of them didn't.] But for the government to do nothing in the face of a massive crisis of proportions that we have not seen, [So the current crisis is worse than the Great Depression? I didn't know unemployment had topped 20 percent. And where are the Okies?] I mean, it's hard for us to imagine how, in, in retrospect, how serious the Great Depression was [Actually, World War II worked. Not to give you ideas . . .], but the fact is that Senator Obama, by the way, opposes that, that [I can hear the ad voice-over now: "Who is Barack Obama? He opposes the Great Depression."]; and I want to use some of the $750 billion to go and buy those mortgages and that, I think, will stabilize the market. [Since the bailout passed, the markets have been nothing but stable. You can count on them to go up or down by several hundred points on a daily basis -- that's reliability!] It's not the only thing that needs to be done, but I think it's a vital first step so Americans can realize the American dream. [So socialism is okay, in this instance, since it's necessary as a "vital first step" for the American dream. And Obama opposes that socialism . . . but he's probably still bad anyway since by inference he also opposes the American dream. Hey, it's not like we're going to be Sweden, with the government installing saunas in everybody's house.]

MR. BROKAW: I stop...

SEN. McCAIN: And by the way, this is primary residences. [So my 12 other homes would not be eligible.]

MR. BROKAW: Yeah. [Just stop. Really.]

SEN. McCAIN: There's a lot of circumstances that, yeah. [Okay. Yeah, I'll . . . Okay. Yeah. I'll stop.]

Just to be clear: 2 of my grandparents were/are lifelong Dems who loved FDR; 2 of my grandparents were/are lifelong Republicans who hated FDR, and became Republicans because they were outraged at his various efforts (successful or not) to expand the scope and power of the federal government. And they are far from the only ones.

So McCain should seriously have seen that one coming.

Don't you love as well the false choice between "socialism" (FDR/Great Depression-style) or otherwise doing nothing, which is the only alternative McCain mentions? Of course, Brokaw was trying to highlight the hypocrisy in throwing the S-word at Obama when McCain's centerpiece proposal is from the FDR playbook (and denounced by his own party with said S-word). Makes you long for the straight talk of Mitt Romney . . .

Good to know, anyway, that Obama opposes socialism. Somebody tell Palin!

McCain on MTP

Senator McCain came back to Meet the Press today for the first time in 9 months. And it was perhaps his worst showing, in his several dozen appearances on the program.

I haven't been watching MTP that regularly since Tim Russert died. Let's be honest: Tim Russert, like most Washington journalists, was a douchebag much of the time. His basic approach was to set up a series of "gotcha" moments, finding newspaper clips or video (far more often the former) of politicans from past years, contrasting their words then with their actions now, to create the appearance of hypocrisy, and even corruption.

Now, many politicians are hypocrites, and some are actually corrupt. But they are human beings; moreover, they are allowed to change their minds on issues, and the fact that they've done so does not mean that they are hypocrites, or corrupt. In some cases, they might even change their positions on issues to better reflect the will of their electorate. This is hardly definitively a bad thing.

In any case, Russert's approach was the same for every politician on his show, so you knew what you were getting into. And you'd hear the rise in his voice as he laid out the case, brought up the old newspaper clipping, and then went in for the kill. The rhythm of it all was very familiar.

By contrast, Tom Brokaw, who's filling in through the election, has a very flat upper Midwestern accent, and the rhythm and flow of his prosecutorial style are not nearly so predictable. And some of his questions are downright odd, like the first one:

I don't have the most encouraging news for you today from the NBC News/Mason Dixon poll. Here in Iowa, it now shows that Obama has a lead of 11 points, 51 to 40 points--percent. Four years ago, as you know, George Bush won this state. It's been determined a battleground state. But the lead has been widening for Senator Obama right along the way. I know you're a film buff, so let me begin with a film metaphor. Do you feel more like Kevin Costner in the "Field of Dreams," or like George Clooney at the--at the tiller of the ship in "A Perfect Storm"?

This, understandably, send McCain into a flurry of blinking and fast-thinking, leading to the inevitable "I would be the Gipper in the Knute Rockne picture" response. Honestly, Brokaw might as well have asked, "Are you Che Guavara in The Motorcycle Diaries, or Ray Cohn in Angels in America?"

The most brutal twist came near the end. Brokaw spent several minutes retelling McCain's POW story (as today is the 41st anniversary of him getting shot down over Hanoi), and reading a letter his mother wrote to LBJ supporting the president, even though he was from the other party. McCain must have thought Brokaw was gonna lob a softball. Instead, a very nasty changeup:

MR. BROKAW: For all the obvious reasons, that experience was a defining moment in your life, and you said it changed your attitude toward you are your country's from then on, not your own man. How has this campaign changed you?

SEN. McCAIN: It hasn't changed me. It's made me humble and grateful and aware of the trust and faith and confidence that so many people have in me that it motives me to continue to want to serve my country. But I think it also validates service to country and putting your country first. We're going to do well in this campaign, my friend. We're going to win it, and it's going to be tight, and we're going to be up late; but it will be because there's so many Americans who believe that I can give them the future for themselves and their children and their grandchildren that we all aspire to. And I'm deeply honored.

So Palin isn't the only one who doesn't read The New York Times.

All in all, Brokaw more than redeemed himself for the disastrous job he did moderating the 2nd debate. And, despite all my qualms about a continuous climate of "gotcha" journalism (which becomes a bit silly when the stakes are smaller than they are this year), there's something wonderfully tense and clarifying about getting a politician in the chair on live TV and making them answer questions for 20 minutes solid without a commercial break.

There's a very telling exchange from the interview as well, which I'll post separately.

McCain Staffers: Palin an "Adult"; "Diva"

Normally the knives come out after the election. But that was back in the old days, when Republicans were conservative.

And so, a pre-election contest: which unnamed McCain staffer hates Sarah Palin more?

There's unnamed McCain staffer no. 1:

A McCain insider told The Post that relations between Palin and some of the campaign aides with her have soured. "She's lost faith with the staff. She knows the $150,000 wardrobe story damaged her," the insider said. But the novice vice-presidential candidate is partly to blame, the campaign official sniped.

"She's an adult. She didn't ask questions about where the clothes came from? She's now positioning herself for her own future. Of course, this is bad for John. It looks like no one is in charge."

And, brandishing a very different knife, we've got unnamed McCain staffer no. 2:

“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone, she does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

So what's worse, getting schooled grandma-style, or in the style of a bitchy gay man slinging back cosmos on Saturday night?

Defending herself, Palin's gettin' all mavericky:

“Your state is filled with good, hard-working people all loving the outdoors,” she said [to a crowd in Sioux City, Iowa], “and it was nice and crisp getting off the airplane and coming into the — it reminded me a lot of Alaska, so I put my warm jacket on, and it is my own jacket. It doesn't belong to anybody else."

Check it -- her jacket is a metaphor for herself. I didn't know they sold mavericky jackets at Wal-Mart. And besides, if your jacket is one that belongs to someone else, and you're wearing it despite the fact it does not belong to you, that's like, socialism, or terrorism, or elitism, or one of those -isms, or at the very least something that would call someone's status as a maverick and reformer and independent-minded person into question?

Campaign Update

And a few quick thoughts on the presidential campaign:

1. John McCain is a grumpy old man. He was somewhat independent when he ran in 2000, and I voted for him in the primary then (and might have voted for him over Gore, given the chance). However, in the last 8 years, he has bent over backwards to become Bush's man, to the point of compromising on the torture bill just before the 2006 elections.

So, basically, we have a really old guy, self-righteous, occasionally independent (when it suits his political fortunes). And every now and then he has to have cancerous lumps cut out of his face. Why, exactly, should anyone vote for him for president? You'd think he might want to give us a few reasons.

Instead, he keeps running nasty, petty ads with increasingly ludicrous attacks on his opponent. An enterprising reporter might ask the gentleman from Arizona: on what grounds, exactly, do you find Senator Obama to be like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton? Are you not in fact contributing to the poisonous discourse you once claimed to oppose?

Until McCain shapes up, I will no longer take him seriously as a contender for the Oval Office. I have had previous reservations about his temperment -- as he is prone to anger, and can't let go once resentment takes hold. Now he has allowed his judgment to come into question -- and thus also his candidacy.

2. Some will point out that Obama is at best 5 to 7 points ahead of McCain in most national polls, and suggest that he should be 10 to 15 points ahead. I would point out that polls take their samples based on models of past elections, and that poll-takers have to make any number of judgments about who is a "likely" voter vs registered voter, and that in most states, you can still register to vote in the November elections.

My point being: this year has blown all past models out of the water (at least where Obama is concerned). Thus it's very possible that the old polling models would not be adequate to reflect what's really going on in the country at large (and, certainly, mid-summer polls cannot be expected to reveal what will actually happen on that Tuesday in November).

3. OK so they actually showed the "biggest celebrity in the world" ad again -- one of the benefits of living in the ultimate battleground state. How can the McCainiacs honestly say that Obama wants "more foreign oil"? This claim is not credible on its face, nor is it backed up by any of Obama's speeches or policy proposals. (One might add as well that, following McCain's statements in recent days, Obama is not the only one who seems to want "higher taxes.")

Final Thoughts

I fell asleep during the second hour of last night's GOP debate. And it was a long day at work on Thursday. But I did want to post some final thoughts.

In the contest for who can be the biggest douchebag, I have to agree with my brother. Romney wins by a country mile. The greatest douchebag moment was when a black man listed a series of issues where most African Americans agree with conservative positions. Then he asked, "Why don't we vote for you?" Which is a really good question.

In response, Romney said the most important thing is to get back to "family values," which means every family should have a mother and a father. That's the way to address a lot of these concerns.

Amazing, isn't it, how Romney can manage to be completely condescending and racist without actully answering the question. Which manages to answer the brother perfectly. I mean, when you think about it, the only surprising thing is that the man asking the question wasn't currently in prison. Surely he has some sort of record. Not the kind 50 Cent puts out.

The second biggest douchebag moment, of course, was in a response to a question about how the rest of the world views America due to its attitudes towards Islam and Muslims. The question was asked by a young Muslim American woman wearing a head scarf who said she had spent time studying in the Middle East. While others took pains to point out that there are Muslims who are not terrorists, for Giuliani the most important point is that "we have to stay on offense." Apparently the War on Terror is like a college football game. Giuliani did not specify where this "offense" would take us -- do we need to invade some other country full of brown people to show we still got game? Hmm, maybe it starts with an I?

Finally, I have to say, I was bloody well impressed with Huckabee. He's just as smooth as a previous man who found a path from Hope to the White House. He impressed by not pandering to the audience (as all of them, even McCain and Ron Paul, did multiple times). He was cool and clever, using his wit to get out of some tricky questions. When asked about the death penalty -- "what would Jesus do?" -- he quipped that Jesus chose not to run for public office, which made nicely the point about rendering unto Caesar where others might have faltered.

And he was eloquent and compelling rationalizing how one can be "pro-life" on abortion and yet sign off on death warrants as governor. I didn't buy it, but he put on a good sell. And, most impressively, he was the only one not to cater at all to the anti-immigrant sentiment that was so strong in the audience. He actually gave a convincing and deeply felt (as far as it seemed) argument for why we should not punish the children of illegal immigrants who have been raised and educated in the U.S. for the sins of their parents. This was in defense of his support for a proposed Arkansas law that would have let children of illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition at state universities, and even be eligible for in-state scholarships.

To be clear: I think they're all atrocious on the substance. Huckabee included. But he is the only one who brings sufficient sugar along with the medicine. If he does well in Iowa, things could get very interesting. The problem for the GOP this time around is they're pitching immigrant-hate, abortion-hate, gun control-hate, Muslim-hate, gay-hate. Not a word about the looming crises with the environment, oil, the economy. . . . Theirs is entirely the wrong medicine. And even Huckabee won't be enough to help it go down.