Sorry to be merchant of doom again but there is a plausible election result which could put John McCain and (sharp intake of breath) Sarah Palin in the White House. McCain is focusing a lot on Pennsylvania and there’s a good reason why. Even if Obama wins all other Kerry states and adds Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Virginia, McCain would still win by somehow flipping Pennsylvania (probably through a combination of gaining some traction with one of his attacks on Obama, a strong get-out-the-vote effort and low voter turnout) and clinging onto all other Bush states that are currently considered toss-ups. There could even be the nightmare scenario where McCain scrapes the Electoral College vote while losing the popular vote by 2-4%
However the good news for Obama is that his support in Pennsylvania seems to have hardened, with outright and hilarious hostility having been demonstrated by Flyers hockey fans towards the “Queen of the Hockey Moms”. Also in the northern mountain area, Montana North Dakota and, to a lesser extent, South Dakota have come into play and, should the scenario I described earlier happen, they could shockingly end up being the deciding states. Or if things go well they could be the icing on the cake of an Obama landslide.
So McCain and Palin have decided on a new line attack on Barack Obama – that his policies are Socialist – and like their other attacks just a cursory look at the facts should debunk this. So let’s see what they’ve tried before:
1. His middle name is Hussein and his last name is nearly Osama, thus he must be dodgy – turns out, this is what is widely known (although maybe only in liberal Anti-American circles) as a COINCIDENCE!!
2. He’s a Muslim, although obviously a pretty rubbish one, as he kept making a wrong turn into a Christian church for decades.
3. He attended to a radical, jihadist madrassa in Indonesia. However when one of the British news networks went there, the staff and students were all nice and friendly, we learned that they were respectful of his Non-Muslim status, although during Islamic religious studies he and other non-Muslims went to another room to catch up on their studies, and that they all wished him well (there goes number 2).
4. He’s dangerously inexperienced on foreign policy, yet in his debates with McCain he more than held his own on this area…and now Colin Powell has backed him.
5. He’s in league with America-hating terrorists…well, one actually, and his terrorism acts occurred when Obama was eight…and he’s been lecturing at a major university for twenty years…and they weren’t really in league with each other, they served on the board of the same charity…and that charity was set up by a member of the Reagan Administration…and Palin has much stronger ties with the America-hating secessionists of the Alaska Independence Party.
So how about the Socialism claims…well I don’t know, you go ask a middle-aged Eastern European whether an increase in tax on people earning over $250,000 from 36% to 39% equates to their experience of Totalitarian Socialism and watch them roll on the floor laughing. Oh My God, tax rates for the rich will go back to the levels they were at under Comrade Ronald Reagan!
Seriously, there is no country in the western world which is either purely capitalist or purely socialist. The US has socialized police, fire services, education and many other important (and perhaps some not so important government programs) while other countries like Germany, France, Britain and Canada manage to combine a Universal Health Care system and strong social safety net with a functioning market economy. And seeing that the eight-year experiment with extreme deregulation and deep (and unaffordable) tax cuts hasn’t exactly worked out as planned, perhaps it’s understandable if the good citizens of the USA aren’t completely freaked about a modest shuffle to the Left.
Quite simply, aim for a better result than what the polls say is most likely because each step up indicates something important
If Obama looks like winning narrowly, aim for a clear win to avoid any challenges or repeats of 2000
If Obama looks like winning clearly, aim for a comfortable win so that Obama has a definite mandate for change
If Obama looks like winning comfortably, aim for a landslide so as to punish the Republicans so that they purge themselves of the neocon ideologues who have hurt America so much over the past couple of decades and return to being the Republican party of Eisenhower and Lincoln.
Who won? Who lost? Was a knockout blow landed? How should the debates be analysed? Is there an objective measure to determine who succeeded? Sporting metaphors abound (well actually boxing metaphors, mainly). But me, I’m going to use another sport for my analysis metaphor, one which unites me with suburban American Heartland homemakers: soccer.
Firstly, the clubs: It’s Obama-Biden FC v McCain-Palin United
Secondly: Tournament format: Four games with the first, third and fourth being contested by the clubs’ first teams, the second set aside for each club’s reserves. Winner determined by aggregate scores over the four matches.
Game 1: Team Obama v Team McCain. Played on what was supposed to be Team McCain’s hope patch, a late change in weather conditions combined with knocks picked up by Team McCain through over-exertion in an external mini-tournament plays into Team Obama’s hands somewhat and the tie becomes the proverbial “game of two halves”. In the first half Team Obama go on the attack forcing Team McCain onto the backfoot. Pressure pays off as Team Obama score a tidy goal by taking advantage of weaknesses shown by Team McCain that are similar to those displayed often by the unpopular, dirty and ultimately inept Team Bush. In the second half conditions improve for Team McCain and they score an early equaliser. However Team Obama show themselves more adept at the conditions than anticipated and soon retake the lead. Team McCain continue to attack, only to find that Team Obama are happy to soak up the pressure and create chances on the counter-attack and the game finishes with no additions to the scoreline. Final Score: Team Obama 2, Team McCain 1.
Game 2: Team Biden v Team Palin. In spite of being a reserve team game, this matchup is eagerly anticipated as the experienced but unpredictable Team Biden take on the inexperienced and unfancied Team Palin. There are concerns about whether Team Palin has any ability whatsoever and whether Team Biden will be too aggressive, losing support among neutral spectators or underestimating Team Palin and lose the match. The game starts at a high tempo, with Team Palin playing at a frantic pace and managing to string some passes together, leading to a scrambled goal for them. However, Team Biden soon take control of the game, smartly absorbing pressure from Team Palin and putting together a number of fluid passing movements, creating numerous chances and scoring two goals before half-time. In the second half the pattern continues and Team Biden score two more as Team Palin seem to run out of ideas and are reduced to chasing the game frantically and putting in a couple of wild tackles. Team Palin score before the end but it’s only a consolation. The most entertaining tie of the tournament ends: Team Biden 4, Team Palin 2.
Game 3: Team Obama v Team McCain: Played at a smaller, older, small-town venue, ostensibly to test the teams ability to play at grassroots level. This turns out to be a bad decision as the pitch turns out to be small and waterlogged and not conducive to expansive soccer and leads to a dull encounter. Team McCain doesn’t seem to want to attack to strongly, possibly due to fear of Team Obama’s counterattacking ability. Team Obama, meanwhile, seem happy to absorb whatever attacks are made by Team McCain comfortably, and this makes them appear like the superior team. However the only vaguely exciting moment of the evening occurs when Team McCain pick up a yellow card for a petulant kick out at “That One”. Final Score: 0-0
Game 4: Team Obama v Team McCain: Team McCain come out fighting aggressively, knowing that they need a big performance to have a chance of catching Team Obama. However, due to inferior ability, they resort to tough and sometimes dirty challenges on Team Obama. Team Obama manage to ride most challenges but Team McCain receive a yellow card for persistent fouling. Team McCain’s tactics lead to a scrappy goal, however Team Obama’s calm passing ability lead to two goals. Final score: Team Obama 2, Team McCain 1.
So final aggregate score in the tournament: Obama-Biden FC 8 McCain-Palin Utd 4. So I hope that clears it all up.
Do you agree with this analysis? If the debates are viewed as a soccer tournament, what was the aggregate result? Vote below.
In recent days Barack Obama’s lead in polls has tightened somewhat-for example the Gallup Daily has seen margin reduced from eleven points to seven. It’s still a winning lead but with two and a half weeks left to Election Day, with more attacks to come from the Republicans and considering he’s held a lead on two or three occasions before only to see it fritter away within days, it’s time to ask:
I’m going to say it – you’ve got to feel a little sorry for John McCain (I said a LITTLE). It seems that everything he does in this election is going against him:
– He finally gets to be GOP Presidential Candidate after been viciously torn apart by Bush in 2000 and has to kiss Bush’s ass to shore up his base
– When he kisses Bush’s ass, he loses all the independents and moderate progressives who Bush is hugely unpopular with
– He probably was prepared to come up against a formidable candidate in Hillary Clinton, was relieved to come up against an inexperienced opponent in Barack Obama only to find Obama to be not only formidable, but inspirational as well
– He probably thought Obama’s liberal record would count against him, only to find that Americans seem willing to give progressive political views a hearing this year
– When Obama chose Biden as running mate, McCain may have thought that there was a huge opening for him and all he had to do was find a dynamic, possibly youthful, female, senior Republican politician and ended up with…SARAH PALIN!!
– He plans for an opening debate focusing on his strong area, National Defence, only for it to be changed at the last minute to focus partially on the economy and for Obama to perform well in the National Defence section.
– When he tries to focus on issues, he bores people, when he goes on the attack his psycho supporters start threatening Obama (although he should have anticipated that happening), and when he tries to cool things down by saying that Obama is a decent person all his supporters boo him and Palin continues talking crazy anyway.
Poor old McCain, nothing he tries seems to be working. He must really feel as though he’s in the wrong party because this is normally what happens to Democrats. Having said that, he’s still the wrong person to lead America at this point in history when the country needs someone cool, intelligent and rational. So if Obama has a good debate tonight that should put him in a very strong position. For those of you wondering how good this could get, check out pollster.com: North Dakota is now considered a toss-up state! Although it’s still too early to declare Obama president (must not get complacent, must not get complacent, must not get complacent, must not get complacent, must not get complacent, must not get complacent, must not get com….)
1. Economics – Are you a wishy-washy liberal who hopes that everything will come together as long as “we all get along” and long for the “Age of Aquarius”? Do you find yourself frustrated in arguments as conservatives talk about the hard-nosed choices that must be made so that the economy can grow and spread prosperity and that government has no place in the economy and then call you naive? Then read Paul Krugman, Princeton professor and NY Times columnist, who today was announced as Nobel Prizewinner for Economics.
I started taking an interest in economics again a few months ago (I had studied some at school and university) and along with Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs and John Kenneth Galbraith, Krugman was one of those whose books I read. I covered The Return of Depression Economics and The Great Unraveling. For the Wishy-Washies amongst you who run a mile from terms like Monetarism, Supply-Side, Long-Term Equilibrium etc, don’t be alarmed. Krugman is an immensely accessible writer, who brilliantly attacks the economic rationale of the Bush Administration and neo-conservative free enterprise theory. So go read his work either in book form or as New York Times columns and next time somebody talks about how trickle-down will work in the long run, be able to pick the argument apart and finish it with the famous quote from John Maynard Keynes – “In the long run we are all dead”
2. Freakonomics – Republicans over the weekend urged John McCain to put forward a broad plan for the economy and last night I saw Senator Lindsey Graham call for further tax cuts (I think it’s safe to assume including a good portion for the wealthy). Here we go again. The Republican response to the abject failure of the Bush Tax Cuts to keep the American economy growing is to call for an extension of these policies!! At this point I no longer think they’re smoking pot, I think they’re all going on “team-building exercises” with Sarah Palin to Wasilla to score some crystal meth!!
So it’s a week since Sarah Palin tried to equate Barack Obama with terrorism, thus signalling that “the gloves have come off”, otherwise known as “the Republicans can’t win on issues, so they’re going to try irrelevant smearing”. So far it seems to have had little impact on the polls, although Obama’s lead in the Gallup Daily Tracker has softened a bit in recent days so let’s not get too complacent. So what’s different this time around (as opposed to 2004 and before)?
Firstly, I think the blogosphere has had an impact. Many bloggers, from yours truly to Bobby Kennedy Jr (if you’ll pardon the self-indulgent claims) have picked up on the hypocrisy of Palin questioning the patriotism Obama by accusing him of “palling around” with William Ayers, when she herself has a much deeper relationship with the secessionists of the Alaska Independence Party. As the mainstream media has, to a large extent, reneged on their responsibility to aggressively and quickly question these statements, those on the internet can catch these smears before they can grow legs and run.
Next, Obama’s response so far has been appropriate. He pre-empts and emphasises the personal nature of these attacks by saying that he can take them but that the issues of the election are more important instead of going on the defensive. If he keeps this up he may actually to keep his campaign reasonably clean, even though there is plenty of ammunition on McCain and Pali, with which to go negative.
Also, I think the smears from McCain and Palin have, so far, been kind of weak compared to what the likes of Karl Rove in the earlier years of the century and Lee Atwater in the 80s threw at their opponents. They have also been very clumsy and so blatantly rabble-rousing that their rabble have been roused into outrageous actions at recent McCain and Palin rallies, thus causing such a backlash that McCain has been forced to, temporarily at least, put a few fingers back in those gloves, thus costing his campaign precious time.
Finally, and possibly most importantly, perhaps the American people, particularly the Susceptible Centre I mentioned previously, have finally grown tired of being bullied and scared into making electoral decisions that go against their best interests.
There’s still three weeks left to the election so it’s still too early to start acclaiming Obama president, but he has so far successfully survived the new attacks from McCain and Palin. If he has a good debate on Wednesday, he may be able to gain a lead big enough to protect himself from further smears until his 30-minute spot airs at the end of October and then hopefully, this will see him through to polling day.
I was about to go to bed with nothing complete to add for today when I read this on the New York Post’s website: “The Alaska governor and self-described “hockey mom” heard a few boos when she walked onto the ice, but that soon turned to polite applause as she headed to center ice” and “Palin waved to the crowd and smiled as she dropped the puck to applause and cheers.” and remembered that she was supposed to drop the puck at the Flyers-Rangers game tonight so I went to YouTube to see how accurate a description this was; a few boos turning into polite applause my ass. That was a sustained and thunderous cacophony of boos. Added to that the TV cameras didn’t show one crowd shot during the whole event. Over here that happens at sports events when some moron invades the pitch and the producers show anything but said invader. Were the visual responses offered by Flyers fans too offensive for primetime TV? And even with the focus constantly on Palin, you can still see some people in the background giving the thumbs down. Hell, even the sheepishly bemused faces of the Rangers players say it all. What the hell are they smoking at The New York Post?
So congratulations to Philadelphia Flyers fans on joining women as a second demographic not to be fooled by Palin into thinking she was one of you. Now all we need is Alaskans, patriots and genuinely decent small-town folk to reject her and she’ll have nobody left.
Well, I just saw the second presidential debate last night and the main thing that struck me about it was just how boring it was. It may be that I was just tired or it may be that I’m suffering from Election 2008 overload but, after spending the whole day looking forward to the event, I spent a good portion of it splitting my attention between the TV and the internet. I think it’s something to do with the format. The term “Town Hall Debate” is misleading, to my mind. When I think of this term, I envision regular people confronting and challenging politicians forcing them to defend their positions. But all I saw last night were a few regular people politely asking really basic, sanitised versions of already sanitised questions that have been asked in the media over and over again and then allowing the candidates to individually give responses reminiscent to their stump speeches.
None of the audience challenged the candidates, the candidates generally only indirectly challenged each other, in a way that they can already do in separate speeches and as for Tom Brokaw, he may as well just have literally phoned it in. I don’t know how pundits could expect John McCain to thrash Barack Obama because the format didn’t allow for thrashings to be handed out by anybody. I could have debated either candidate in that format, whilst drunk and restricted to words of two syllables or less and not gotten thrashed. So it’s not surprising that one third of respondents in CBS’s focus group called it as a tie and the rest split for Obama but not by a huge margin.
Seriously, if the last debate is going to be like this, I want them to bring Biden and Palin back. Their debate was WAY more exciting and, somewhat surprisingly, for all the right reasons AND in spite of a format that was ostensibly more restrictive. Or what the hell, send in Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and Ron Paul to spice things up. If you’re going to involve ordinary voters in a political debate, maybe use the BBC TV show Question Time as a template. There, ordinary citizens pose the questions but they also follow up their own questions, they follow up the questions of others, they strongly challenge the views expressed by the politicians on the panel and generally add their two cents worth (or over here I guess it’s 1.2 pence worth). Meanwhile, the moderator, Jonathan Dimbleby, strongly challenges the politicians and the politicians strongly challenge each other.
So given all that, who did win? I guess Obama because of two things: firstly his composure as he focused calmly and clearly on the issues – while McCain talked about the need for a steady hand for The Presidency, Obama displayed it (plus he didn’t make any “that one” comments – probably not racist by McCain, but certainly a little disrespectful). Secondly, the fact that McCain needed to land some blows but didn’t will continue to make people more comfortable with the idea of Obama as President. But as regards undecided voters making a decision based on the substantive performances of the candidates, I don’t think Tuesday’s snoozefest will make a whole lot of difference.
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