McCain/Clinton ’08

It would do a couple things:

1) Crush Obama/Biden by stealing half of Obama’s base

2) and picking up almost all the women (figure of speech)

3) Remove a liberal from the Senate (although most likely to be replaced by another)

4) Force congress to reach across the isle (?)

It’s better than McCain/Lieberman (hopefully that never had a chance) and even Hillary in the White House is far better than Obama/Blowhard Biden.

Okay. The moment’s up. As you were.

…staring at my cell phone, waiting for The Text from The One, I was thinking “Mitch?  You know that the one area where “Barack”, as his friends call him, is vulnerable is among hard-core establishment liberals from the northeast.  If only “Barack” could shore up his support among white, upper-middle-to-upper-class northeastern liberals, he’d really become a strong “buy”. 

And then The Phone beeped.

It was a special offer from my cell phone provider.  I erased it.

And then The Phone beeped again.  It was The Text from The One, with The Choice!

“Wow“, I thought, “that was weird.  But what a choice!  “Barack” could have chosen Evan Bayh, to appeal to the more-moderate midwestern vote, the Hillaristas, where he’s traditionally a tad weaker.  Or he could have chosen Bill Richardson, and actually brought some common sense to the ticket.”

“But he picked Biden – and by doing so, he not only shored up his Northeastern Urban Institutional Liberal vote, but he also added “foreign policy experience”, because Joe Biden forty-odd years in the Senate where has been utterly wrong on every foreign policy issue from the Cold War on down“. 

I nodded my head, satisfied.

And then I pressed The Button to erase The Message.

The Next Bailout: Detroit

First came Bear Stearns, then mortgage lenders and borrowers, followed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: They’ve all looked to Uncle Sam for a bailout, and now the word around Washington is that Detroit will be next on the taxpayer supplicant list.

Bear Stearns wasn’t a bailout. It was a buy out, orchestrated by the government to protect our nations financial infrastructure.

Detroit’s political calculation is plain: Having seen the way Washington has bowed to rescue the mortgage industry and Wall Street, why shouldn’t auto makers give it a try? Michigan is up for grabs in the election, so now is the time to strike with a goal of getting the Bush Administration and both Presidential candidates to agree.

Many of us have already done our part. I own two American cars, both rare examples of exceptional design and appeal. A Chevy Suburban and a Chrysler 300C, both with advanced safety features and cylinder-deactivation technologies that allow for fuel efficiency that belies their size and utility.

None of us should be expected to pay to allow Detroit to play. Our American automakers, as much as most consumers would hate to see them fail, deserve their fate. Our political integrity (I know – that’s an oxymoron) should not be allowed to be held hostage.

They are not victims of the fear and economic conditions brought on by an act of terrorism like the airlines.

They are not critical to our financial system as our major banking and mortgage institutions are.

They are public (most of the time – Cerberus-owned Chrysler a current exception) companies that operate in a free (albeit heavily regulated) market.

While they may have been severely impacted by a spike in fuel prices and a concurrent (and resultant) recession, they are not victims of it.

The car makers can also claim with justification to have been hurt as badly as anyone by Washington’s policy blunders. The weak dollar has contributed to the spike in oil prices that has socked their most profitable vehicles. And the nonsensical way that fuel-economy standards force Detroit to subsidize cars that consumers won’t buy has helped put the Big Three in this hole.

Over the last two decades or so, the vehicles with the highest sales numbers have been either a four door family sedan or a pickup truck. The Big Three have dominated one and consistently ignored the other.

Auto industry publications have been imploring the “Big Three” to be competitive in the family sedan segment for decades while the Japanese, primarily with the Camry and Accord, have almost completely poached the market. Market trends have driven fuel economy for decades as well and the Big Three have ignored the signs. I don’t begrudge them the success they have had in the light truck and SUV segment – but at the same time ignoring the rest of the market has for years left them vulnerable to the inevitable day that gas prices would adjust for inflation, let alone represent a crisis as demand has outstripped supply. 

Americans won’t buy the cars that the Big Three have had to subsidize because the product, until only relatively recently, has lacked quality and appeal. When Honda and Toyota build factories in America to build the cars that GM, Ford and Chrysler claim aren’t profitable, their argument falls apart.

There also happens to be a thriving U.S. auto industry outside of Michigan. These plants are owned by foreign companies, but they employ 92,000 Americans and build and sell cars here. Tens of thousands of their shareholders are Americans.

Certainly the UAW shares a large share of the blame. Their myopic strategy of bleeding their host to death, ignoring market conditions and grossly over-valuing their collective services have forced the Big Three to cut content and engineering to compete on price with the Japanese. The result is a widening of the already formidable gap in quality further undermining consumer goodwill and forcing American domestic brand loyalty beyond its limits. In the end the UAW will be left holding the bag.

A bailout at this point is a really bad idea. First of all, it’s been done before – at least once. The result? The Chrysler minivan which simultaneously saved Chrysler and emasculated millions of American males.

More importantly, our long standing economic dominance in the world is predicated on the fact that capital and talent is free to find it’s highest and best use. Pouring billions of capital into a national bailout is exactly the wrong move, evidenced by the extended Japanese recession not all that many years ago. Good money was sent after bad. Capital became scarce. Failed business models and management teams were kept on life support rather than being forced to retool and reinvent.

Regardless of where and why these federal bailouts started, American taxpayers can’t save everyone. The only way to stop this parade of supplicants is to start saying no — and Detroit is as good a place as any.

If there’s one thing I’m looking forward to having past us this political season, it is the leftymedia’s relentless comparison of every inconvenience thrown in the way of people who break the law en masse at the Denver and Saint Paul conventions as some sort of “Guantanamo” or another.

Pan over to David Brauer, doing his best to delegitimize regional law enforcement in a hack-job entitled “Gitmo on the Mississippi?”

Fox9’s Tom Lyden has a look at the St. Paul parking garage where Republican National Convention misdemeanor arrestees will be held.

Well, an exterior look anyway; officials wouldn’t let Lyden inside. Fox9’s camera shows a new air-conditioning unit and ductwork at the ramp’s street level.

I’d like to ask Brauer to put aside his tut-tutting for a moment to ask – what do he and the rest of this city’s bleeding hearts propose the city do with people who break the law, after over a year of committing to break the law?  Put them up at the Saint Paul Hotel until room opens up at the Ramco Jail?

Perhaps with a mint on their pillow?

Convention-site holding facilities have become an extremely hot topic since a Denver warehouse’s chain-link-laden…

wait for it……..wait for it……..

… “Gitmo on the Platte” was revealed.

Lyden says the garage is underneath the Ramsey County Emergency Operations Center. In the report, he notes, “If all goes well, those who have identification on them will be in and out with a ticket within four hours.”

So, bleeding hearts – where should they be held?  Or should the cops justs not arrest anyone at all, no matter what they do?

My original suggestion was to hold ’em in a couple of barges down by the Lafayette Bridge.  But if an underground garage isn’t good enough for them, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of volunteers to jam them, tokyo subway-style, into the existing holding cells.

Seriously, bleeding hearts – do you have an actual suggestion (beyond cutesy renamings?)  Or is deligitimizing law enforcement your only goal?

Discuss.

WOOOT!  MPR released a poll showing that Al Franken has pulled even with Senator Norm Coleman!

This is huge news! Why, even MNPublius’ kept Frankenblogger Aaron Landry says so!

…It boils down to this: some people have a strange impression that Franken’s campaign isn’t doing as well as it should, it is comparatively getting a ton of bad press and that Franken doesn’t own on the issues. It’s basically what you’d think if you used right-wing talking points to get your news.

We’ll come back to the “talking point” bit in a moment here…

…but first, let’s get to the bottom of what would seem, according to the MPR poll, to be a return from the dead for Franken.  I searched in vain in the MPR story for the set-up numbers – who they actually polled. 

Swiftee, over at MDE, would seem to have heard the answer:

it was revealed that in the MPR-HHH poll released today, which revealed a stastical tie, 59% of the respondents identified themselves as Democrats, and 39% identified themselves as Republicans.

In other words, the poll started with a 3:2 advantage for Franken before the tabulation even ran – and he still could only manage a tie!

It seems like more and more people are actually realizing that Franken is solid on the issues, especially as Franken has been continually touring the state talking about them.

Still waiting to hear what Franken’s “issues” are. 

As for negative press, Franken is only getting prodded on non-issues. 

Actually, while I don’t care about his career as a freelance writer or comic, I think the fact that Franken has nothing by which to judge him except his writing career, a couple of relentlessly smug “political” books and a failed talk show would make a sentient voter a little hinky about Al.

As most of the polls seem to be showing.

UPDATE:  My neighbor Flash seems to have replaced the beer in his kegerator with Koolaid.

First off, what movie is that quote from? Anyone?

Hillary gets stiffed

Wow. Obama may not be showing the best judgment here.

Does he underestimate the Clinton Empire? Does he not anticipate the shiver that will fall across the stage when Billary enjoins the festivities at the convention? Does he not need Hillary’s voters in what is now a margin-of-error race?

Obama could have at least vetted Hillary, even as a gesture. Now “a Democratic official” is reigniting the scorn of millions of liberal female voters.

What will this do for pantsuit sales?

How would you like to be Bill Clinton comin’ home to the little missus tonight?

The Convention might look like a WWE smackdown.

With the two respective party’s conventions nearly upon us, I found myself reflecting on the candidates as ostensibly one will be our next President, for better or for worse.

One is running on a platform of leadership and experience; the other: hope and change.

I must admit, the concept of change is alluring. Not to steal a line from Obama’s script, but I think we can all agree that a change from politics as usual would be nice in our near future and will ultimately be required (read forced) soon enough.

The blockbuster Term Limits, our own homegrown Vince Flynn’s first political thriller stories an operative and his father who conspire to cleanse our national government of the dead weight of perennial politicians…by murdering them systematically.

So apparently change has a ring to it when you think about all the things gone wrong with our government.

Change certainly resonates with Obama’s base. Liberals are always angry, the government perpetually the object of their ire while simultaneously the savior to their plight.

But let’s be clear on one thing. Neither candidate represents change.

No longer are the days that having a Republican in office forebodes fiscal restraint (although having a Democrat in office with a Democratically-controlled Congress all but guarantees a fiscal free-for-all).

Furthermore, if one man could bring change, it isn’t the President of the United States. McCain is no more a Ronald Regan than Obama is a John F. Kennedy.

Right now McCain and Obama are trying to associate each other with various unsavory characters, the ilk that have weaved their way through the lives of most every politician so it isn’t hard to do. They are deriding each other for not knowing how many homes one owns or for not knowing how many states there are in America. Obama is accusing McCain of being wealthy when really it’s only relative. McCain should be a lot wealthier. As well all know by now – he’s a lot older.

In the end, who knows how much any of this will matter. It reminds of the old advertising mantra: “We know that half of our spending on advertising is wasted. We just don’t know which half.”

The only thing novel about Obama’s candidacy is the color of his skin. While that shouldn’t be a factor in a modern and civil society, it most certainly is for some. Other than that, the more I read about Obama in the media that is self-admittedly skewed in his favor, the more I realize that Obama is no less marked by political avarice than anyone that has come before him.

Unless you consider Change a life spent perfecting the art of mass persuasion, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in recent history, Obama represents no more a Change than McCain. However, while most great leaders possess charisma, charisma doesn’t guarantee leadership. In fact, charisma without leadership and integrity is dangerous and that already represents a concern among Obama’s less committed supporters.

As it stands, Obama’s groupies won’t be swayed my McCain’s TV ads any more than McCain’s core will be by Obama’s. The meaty middle is the battleground. Nader will grab some. But the rest will decide in the next few weeks, even at the last moment, or maybe just as likely, stay home and watch TV, go for a walk or read a story to their kids.

The irony: we have two candidates, one with undeniable charisma and questionable leadership and one with undeniable leadership and questionable charisma. The election might pivot on this very point.

There has been much talk of a certain dissatisfaction with both candidates. Voters seem to want to give them back and get two new ones from the dealer.

Given that scenario, those voters who do show up may find themselves (and there is no better way to say this than the cliche) choosing the lesser of two evils.

They will choose the candidate that represents the least risk to their sensibilities. That, in my mind, is why the polls are leveling off, and why in the end I John McCain will have the advantage.

Q:  What do you call Dan Quayle if he’s black?

A: Barack Obama.  From Hinderaker:

Barack Obama without a teleprompter is an accident waiting to happen. Sometimes he reveals his ignorance of history, sometimes he stumbles incoherently, and sometimes he blurts out what he really believes. That’s what happened today when Obama tried to talk about Georgia, a topic that has embarrassed him more than once already, beginning when, in the first hours after the invasion, he parroted the Russian line.

Today Obama equated Russia’s invasion of Georgia with our toppling of Saddam Hussein:

Democrat Barack Obama scolded Russia again on Wednesday for invading another country’s sovereign territory while adding a new twist: the United States, he said, should set a better example on that front, too…

So our “charging into” Iraq–with dozens of allies, supported by a U.N. resolution, as a last resort after six months of build-up and negotiations, to unseat one of the cruelest dictators of modern times who had twice invaded neighboring states, was in violation of more than a dozen U.N. resolutions and was responsible for the deaths of something like two million people, who was shooting at American aircraft and had tried to assassinate a former President of the United States, in Obama’s childish mind, was just like Russia’s “charging into” Georgia, which resembles Saddam’s Iraq in no respect. And, of course, we invaded a horrifying charnel-house so as to establish a democracy, whereas Russia invaded a peaceful democracy that it wants to re-incorporate into its empire.

Four years ago, I said I  could never vote for a Democrat because they were so very unready to lead a nation in a complex world.

I feel today that I may have been almost too hard on Kerry, by comparison.

This message is aimed at you if you…:

• want to participate in the alternative media coverage of the biggest story in Minnesota in recent years, and…
• …are going to be somewhere near the convention, or, alternatively
• …you are going to be nowhere near the convention at all.

Here’s the deal: if you have a video cam, a still cam, or even just a cell phone, we want you to keep your eyes open. While some of them strenuously deny it, others among the protesters, out of adolescent posturing or out of malice, plan on trying to disrupt the convention and making life that week a very difficult for Twin Citians; “we want to make poeple in the Twin Cities understand what life’s like in Baghdad”, said my co-panelist on MPR’s “In The Loop” past year. We want to keep an eye on our city, so it looks the same as it did before they turned up. Which, if you live and pay taxes and send your kids to school here, should be a non-partisan thing.

So if you’re in the Twin Cities the week of the convention, here’s what we’d like you to do: Watch for:

• People gathering on off ramps or overpasses. Word has it that, since the venue itself is going to be pretty secure, they’re going to be aiming to shut down traffic to keep delegates from getting to the convention.
• People walking away from cars.
• People wearing green hats [they’re part of the ACLU legal team, and they can be expected at all protester “events”, looking for lawsuit fodder]
• Guys with purple armbands who have videos cameras.
• Piles of bikes. Bike thefts in the Twin Cities are way up in recent weeks; there’s evidence that “protest” groups are gathering bikes to use as cheap, traffic-proof transportation.
• Groups of people away from parade routes.
• Piles of stuff that could be used to block traffic.

With that in mind – as we get closer to the convention, we at True North will be publishing some contact information; if you see any of the above (and, in a perfect world, if you get pictures), we’ll be looking for your input.

Think about it.

More later.

Emily at X Perspective notes:

The New York Times reports a new movement of Barack Obama supporters who are “expressing solidarity with him” by adopting the middle name “Hussein” on Facebook pages and in daily life.

A cursory look at the results for a search of “Hussein” on Facebook today netted: Tonya Hussein Van Tol, John Hussein Hartman, Dustin Hussein Hamari, and Kyle Hussein Randall, all in the first 2 pages.

I have a hunch a lot of people are going to look back on this campaign in about 20 years the same way people just a couple years older than me look back on feathered perms, The Village People and parachute jumpsuits.

ASIDE:  Other than policies and proposals and personality cultism and peek-a-boo/ is-or-isnt’-he playing of the race card, y’know what really bugs me about the Obama campaign?

How his supporters fans call him “Barack”.

He’s a Senator, and a potential President of the United States.  He should be “Mr. Obama”, “Senator Obama”, or even just “Obama”.

Call me old-fashioned; the word, I guess, is “conservative”.

The Carpenters Union has endorsed…

…Norm Coleman?

Rachel Stassen-Berger notes:

The backing is a switch — the 13,000-members union endorsed Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone in 2002 and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2006.

How bad are things going for Franken when even labor unions are shunning him?

UPDATE:  Ed is right:  the Carpenters Union did advertise on the Twin Cities’ Air America affiliate.

The convention is almost here.

For four days, this is where most of this nation’s news is going to be.

And if you read this blog, you know that the mainstream media isn’t going to be covering the real news. They’ll be in the XCel center, or hitting the odd reception, or trotting around to where one protest group or another has told them to be in their press releases, filming pretty much what they’re expected to film.

We don’t expect them to film the real news; everything from “fops blocking freeway ramps” to “Code Pinkos leaving lousy tips”.

Some of us are working to fix all that.

One of True North‘s stated missions, when it started almost a year ago, was to provide real coverage of what happens at and around the convention.

True North is going to be soliciting your input during the convention. If you’re going about your business – not just at the convention, but anywhere around the metro – and see something – we’ll be setting up a “Tipline” for stories, pictures and video.

So if you see…:

• “Street theater” breaking out
• “Code Pink” wackjobs screaming their heads off at recalcitrant waiters…
• “Demonstrators” shrieking their nonsense
• People blocking freeway ramps
• …and, especially, anything illegal, stupid, or (let’s face it) embarassing…

…or pretty much anything else – take a picture. Shoot some cell phone video. And then contact us. We’d love to post what you have (with credit, if you want it).
And if you’re a convention volunteer – well, we’ll be asking you more of the same!

More details in the coming week.

Stay tuned.

Andy Birkey, writing at the Minnesoros “Independent”  and the TC Daily Planet, carries water for the “anarchists”.  In a piece that came out last night, Birkey participates – wittingly or not – in misdirection, obfuscation and building enough strawmen to fill the Excel Center:

With the Twin Cities set to host massive protests, an influx of media and thousands of Republicans and supporters, local corporate media [Hahahahahahahaha! Birkey, an employee of a full-time propaganda organization, is sniffing down his nose about “corporate media”! – Ed.] are looking to fuel fears that things could get out of control.

Really?

They’re “looking” to fuel fears?

Like it’s an agenda item?

Birkey states that as if it’s a documentable fact, rather than an editorial position.

More on that in a bit.

One activist group being targeted — they say, unfairly — is anarchists. They state that their plans do not include violence and that both their message and tactics are willfully misunderstood.

Well, if they say so.

Except that “their” “message” flip flops about wildly.  I asked one of the planners of the “Militant” September 4 march if they renounced violence – vandalism, blockading freeways, attacks on delegates.  She/they refused to commit; I’d be willing to chalk it up to a thick-headed juvenile game of self-aggrandizement…

…but we know better than that.

While local anarchists organizing actions at the RNC are loathe to speak to the news media, they have done extensive interviews with local community-based media.

Hm.  Why would that be?

Because at best, the local “community-based” leftymedia are active shills for all things left, and reliable conduits of propaganda?

Just a suggestion.

Their message and clarifications have fallen on very few ears. Here’s what they have to say about the media, their plans and anarchism as a philosophy. None of the members of the RNC Welcoming Committee use their real names in media appearances.

“We are not as scary”

“We’ve been painted in that bad light, being compared to terrorist attacks on the Xcel Energy Center, or chemical weapons or other forms of violence that we are criticized for,” RNC Welcoming Committee member Bara Cade told Eric Angell on Our World in Depth a program on the local cable access network MTN. “It’s important for people to know we are not as scary as people make us out to be.”

Well, “Ms. Cade” is right at that.  Individually, “anarchists” are a pretty pathetic lot.  Or at least they were when I knew them.  Back when I was the only conservative pundit in the Twin Cities punk rock circuit, I knew a bunch of people from the “Backroom Anarchist Center”; indeed, I interviewed a few of them on the old “Mitch Berg Show”.  They were, individually, feeble little twerps; and behind all their “working-class” bravado, each and every one that I ever met, after a little research, turned out to be a rich little brat from posh suburb, victim of an expensive Macalester or St. Thomas or (in some hard-luck cases) U of M education, who apparently got some rebellious kick out of wearing a “Che” t-shirt around their insurance executive daddy and housewife mommy.  I’ve seen les

Barry Cade, another member of the Welcoming Committee, said, “Our tactics are not terroristic. If anything I would call them empowering.”

They do intend to prevent delegates from reaching the convention by blockading transportation routes — often with street theater, including a planned dance party by queer group Bash Back!, and even the possibility of piling stuffed teddy bears at an intersection.

So in other words, they don’t want violence; but if some angry person running late for work jumps out of their car and gets pounded flat for their efforts, they’ll have been “attacked by the injustice in the system”.

I’m not even going to bother fisking the rest of Birkey’s cowardly piece of tripe.

But we’re not done with this topic.

 One of the things I’m most looking forward to at the convention is going to be mocking the living bejeebers out of “True Blue Minnesota”‘s “huge” jumbotron, “overlooking” downtown Saint Paul.

Tom Swift writing at True North  engages “True Blue Minnesota”:

Taking a cue from the cautionary work of George Orwell, Hine and Ballou have succeeded in assembling an authentic representation of a key piece of Orwell’s magnum opus; 1984….no, they are not providing Victory Gin.

Through a front group known as “TrueBlueMinnesota” Hine and Ballou, with help from Ministry of Love perennial favorite Dave Thune, will be whipping up leftist fervor with everyone’s favorite brainwashing technique, yes….”The two minutes hate” is in da house, and in your synapse.

Technology has progressed since 1984.

Today’s leftist pinheads no longer have to endure tedious eye strain while intently peering into a fuzzy image of Goldstein…no indeed. Today’s moonbat demands the finest high quality digital images of the objects of their hatred, flashed before them at the recommended 50 images a second, mind you…and with True Blue’s Jumbotrons, they’ll get what they came for.

Preview of “True Blue’s” activity starts at :25 seconds into this bit here.

I’ve talked with people who’ve seen some of the videos they plan to show.  Lame, amateurish, so bad it’s good – all terms I’ve heard so far.  We’ll add  more at the convention, I’m sure.

I’m so looking forward to going all MST3K on them.

…who has not the faintest clue about driving trucks or navigating Saint Paul, take a look at the route.

How many times can you say “Oh, My Gawd”.

• Squeezing semis around the corner of Annapolis and Smith? I don’t know if they’re pulling trailers or not, but even without a trailer…
• Squeezing hundreds of trucks across 7th at Smith? It’ll be like The Who at Riverfront Colisseum. And then…
• Up Summit Hill? Straight up the steepest road grade in the Twin Cities? Sure, the semis’ll make it, but it’s gonna sound like the Russians finally charged through the Fulda Gap with a thousand T72s! And then…
• A turn onto Dale at Summit? That is one narrow street, especially if they’re talking about hauling trailers.

Of course, I suppose anyone who could plan that could plan what Minnesoros Independent reporter Paul Schmelzer says they’re going to do (emphases added):

The drive will begin at 11 and make its way north through West St. Paul, crossing the Mississippi on the High Bridge at Smith Street. It’ll continue down Summit Avenue, north on Dale, east on University and then past the Capitol, before leaving on Robert Street — the closest the convoy will get to the RNC venue itself. By 4 pm, the truckers will join the “March for Our Lives” with the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign, which starts at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at the United Nations, 45th Street and 1st Avenue.

Three hours to get to New York?

Formidable.

Obama: ‘I will win’

“I will win. Don’t worry about that,” he said to the crowd of about 1,300.

He May Not Be Trailing McCain, But He’s Trailing Kerry (from Power Line)

(Currently) Obama (has a) projected 275 (electoral) votes to McCain’s 250, with 13 up for grabs. Four years ago — Kerry 317, Bush 202, and 19 tied.

Glenn Reynolds adds:

Of course, Kerry was hurt by an overly grandiose performance at the Convention, and by media bias that backfired. Obama should be safe from that, right?

The Audacity of Nope?

“John McCain, all he wants to do is talk about me. They know they can’t win on the issues. So what they’ll do is they’ll try to scare people. He’s risky. He’s risky. We’re not sure.”

Which might make a good argument, if it weren’t actually true. And it may actually be Democratic voters weighing in to that effect as they find issue after issue wearing through the veneer that is Obama’s campaign, leaving his followers with a general malaise.

One might advise Barack to worry more about his constituents and what they are saying and less about McCain.

Will McCain knock Obama off his post or will Hillary and the rest of the Democrats? Does McCain offer a safer choice to likely voters in the middle or will they just stay home?

From an Obama supporter:

Obama And Closing The Deal (from Althouse)

I keep digging into his biography, and finding places where what he says doesn’t line up with what he did. That’s not striking – welcome to politics – but since he’s selling us in no small part his own beliefs rather than his accomplishments, it would be nice to see those beliefs more deeply in the context of his biography.

Allow me to paraphrase: “He’s risky. He’s risky. We’re not sure.”

For the women, the animosity over Hillary is not at the top, but simmers somewhere underneath. For the men, a feeling that Obama is a brilliant man, but a distrust – of what, no one could completely say.

A non-specific malaise then.

A large number of mainstream Democrats simply confess a disquiet. The Howard Wolfson story – that Hillary would have won Iowa and hence the election if Edwards’ affair had come out – has been repeated enough that it got my attention. I can only call it buyer’s remorse.

A non-specific remorseful malaise.

I’m feeling it as well. I’m still a solid vote for Obama, but when I sit down and write checks, somehow I just never bring myself to write one for him.

Obama’s Credibility Gap –Large and Growing: Obama also had on display yesterday a very troubling slipperiness that is increasingly defining him.

He has also managed to slip into a “reformer” shtick that has zero connection to his hyper-partisan voting record.

But yesterday he tried to slip past at least two issues on which such obfuscation shouldn’t work –same sex marriage and Senate ethics reform.

My point here is not to argue the policy positions Obama takes, but to point out his firm denial of his real positions on both issues.  He flat out distorted his positions, and did so without even an arched eye-brow from the MSM.

A slippery non-specific remorseful malaise.

How might that manifest itself come November?

Bob Collins on the DFL’s potemkin DNC delegation.

It’s very, very “diverse” (in terms of color and orientation, anyway; ideology, not so much, but then it is a convention delegation.  Although it might be mistaken for a small university’s English department).  Much moreso, indeed, than the state it purports to represent:

You get the picture, but is it a picture of Minnesota? “It’s a good picture of the state of Minnesota,” Gilbert-Pederson said.Several speakers noted the Minnesota stereotype; we’re pretty white and the DFL delegation is meant to explode that stereotype.

But the statistics don’t lie. Minnesota as a state is very white. The DFL delegation is not.

Here’s a comparison of the delegation vs. the latest census data for the state.

Demographic	Minnesota	Metro Area	Outstate	DFL delegation
White	89.4%	85.7%	95.1%	66%
African American	5.1%	7.5%	1.4%	23%
Asian	3.8%	5.5%	1.3%	9.1%
American Indian	1.6%	1.1%	2.4%	5.5%
Hispanic	3.8%	4.4%	2.7%	6.4%

Interesting – although it’s their party, they can do what they want to, and at the end of the day it’s only a convention.  They could send a 100% Laotian Lesbian team to Denver to help annoint The One, for all the difference their individual votes make.

And national delegate slots are usually rewards for long-standing service in the party (at least, they are in the GOP, and am I the only one that wants to pants the seventeen-year-old dweeb in the story just on principle?), and the DFL certainly has its workers-of-color.  More power to ’em.
But it does highlight not only the DFL’s picayune obsession with race and gender, but indeed, what a bunch of cretins some of them are about it:

Stafford took a shot at Republicans during his remarks. He said the appearance of the DFL delegation in Denver will “contrast with what you see a week later” at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

“What do you mean by that?” MPR’s Curtis Gilbert asked.

“White,” he said.

Taxpayers.  Family people.  Veterans who’ve served in combat.  People who’ve spent years stuffing envelopes and knocking on doors.  If you’re a Republican, anyway.

A skin tone trotted out for show and/or ridicule, if you’re a Tic.

I’m happy to belong to a party that doesn’t use skin color as a prop for their facile propaganda.

Obama, in yet another gaffe, fails to realize the irony and the future repercussions of his assessment of another government figure not possessing the experience or credentials to assume his or her post.

The arrogance is palpable.

If he applies his same viewpoint selfward, might he relinquish his presumed nomination?

Obama on Clarence Thomas (emphasis mine)

Pastor Rick Warren asked each Presidential candidate which Justices he would not have nominated…Obama took a lower road, replying first that “that’s a good one,” and then adding that “I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas.

I don’t think that he, I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution.” The Democrat added that he also wouldn’t have appointed Antonin Scalia, and perhaps not John Roberts, though he assured the audience that at least they were smart enough for the job.

So let’s see. By the time he was nominated, Clarence Thomas had worked in the Missouri Attorney General’s office, served as an Assistant Secretary of Education, run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and sat for a year on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s second most prominent court. Since his “elevation” to the High Court in 1991, he has also shown himself to be a principled and scholarly jurist.

Meanwhile, as he bids to be America’s Commander in Chief, Mr. Obama isn’t yet four years out of the Illinois state Senate, has never held a hearing of note of his U.S. Senate subcommittee, and had an unremarkable record as both a “community organizer” and law school lecturer. Justice Thomas’s judicial credentials compare favorably to Mr. Obama’s Presidential résumé by any measure. And when it comes to rising from difficult circumstances, Justice Thomas’s rural Georgian upbringing makes Mr. Obama’s story look like easy street.

Even more troubling is what the Illinois Democrat’s answer betrays about his political habits of mind. Asked a question he didn’t expect at a rare unscripted event, the rookie candidate didn’t merely say he disagreed with Justice Thomas. Instead, he instinctively reverted to the leftwing cliché that the Court’s black conservative isn’t up to the job while his white conservative colleagues are.

So much for civility in politics and bringing people together. And no wonder Mr. Obama’s advisers have refused invitations for more such open forums, preferring to keep him in front of a teleprompter, where he won’t let slip what he really believes.

Anyone that has read of Justice Thomas’ upbringing and lifelong triumphs knows the ignorance that Obama let loose in his rancid commentary. Furthermore, Thomas, unlike many of his African American contemporaries has chosen not to self-victimize himself with his race, and that probably chaps Obama’s hide.

Clearly Barack Obama is hiding his true feelings on a host of issues, a glimpse of which has been revealed by his wife’s caustic commentary, subsequently squelched, and the rare occasion when Obama is caught unrehearsed or without his handlers.

Obama’s arrogance smacks of an adolescent who has just been given the keys to Daddy’s car for the first time.

His overconfidence is just the latest in a growing array of chinks in the armor of his candidacy. More on that later.

In recent months, I’ve complimented the work of Zack and Sean from MNPublius. Sure they’re a couple of breathless DFL fanboys, but they keep their perspective about things, they usually have their facts straight (by DFL standards), and they are generally more into news than mindless snark – which alone puts them in the top 1% of leftyblogs. That is both a compliment and damnation by faint praise.

But there’s a big asterisk on their record; Aaron Landry.

Landry is, by all accounts, Al Franken’s full-time flak on the MNPublius staff. That’s fine – MNPublius can use its precious credibilty any ol’ way it wants to. But Landry combines a writing style reminiscent of a fourteen year old girl reviewing an Orlando Bloom movie with the reportorial chops of Grace Kelly.

For example, in this piece, about the Mark Olson flap:

The seemingly coordinated campaign by Republican operative Michael Brodkorb, Norm Coleman, the Senate Republican Caucus and others to fight against endorsed wife beater Mark Olson apparently didn’t include the people actually involved with the “grassroots” endorsement, the people in the Senate District 16 GOP and the leadership in the CD6 GOP.

So we have three statements, each of which requires a leap of logic:

First: “Seemingly coordinated?” Really, Aaron? Do tell. Do you know something we don’t? You have emails? Photos of people meeting at Keegans? Anything at all? Correlation does not equal causation. You either show the coordination – or at least why it should “seem” coordinated to us – or rewrite accordingly.

Second: “endorsed wife beater?” Olson was convicted of a misdemeanor charge, ““domestic assault by intending to cause bodily harm or death”. In other words, he made a nasty threat, and got busted. He’s never been convicted beating anyone. Did he do something very, very wrong? Yes. Did he “beat” anyone? Nope.

This is the kind of sloppy reporting that’ll get the “d” word – “defamation” – thrown around, sooner or later.

Third: About Brodkorb – what did Lewis say?

Ken [Weiner] recorded audio of Jason Lewis on KTLK talking with Chris and the MN CD6 GOP Chair Mark Swanson who are quite displeased with the “clear campaign to expel” Olson.

So listen and tell me – where does anyone mention Brodkorb?

I have no real opinion about Mark Olson; I haven’t followed his case or his story. I don’t live in his district; I have enough things to work on in my own city.

But could we at least get our actual facts straight?

MNPublius: How long will you keep squandering your hard-earned credibility on this breathless fanboy?

UPDATE:  Jeff Rosenberg brings less fanboy – but I had to react to this:

In polling news, Mark Olson is currently leading Alison Krueger 55% to 45% on the primary election question. Olson supporters appear to be coming out in droves to support the man and his actions.

Supporting his actions?

So if someone is accused of something (and/or convicted of something less serious), then supporting a guy’s politics is the same as supporting his actions?

Is that the story all you pro-perjury Clintonites, dubious-ethics-prone Hatch voters, pr0n-mongering Frankophiles and hostage-tolerant Carter schlubs want to stick with?

Paul Mirengoff from Powerline’s takeaway from Mac and Barry’s go-round at Saddleback – in this case, on the candidates’ answers about their Supreme Court choices:

In any case, what’s most telling here is Obama’s unwillingness or inability to do what McCain did — identify the four (or five) Justices he obviously wouldn’t have nominated, and articulate the simple and obvious reason. Instead, Obama gave an incomplete answer coupled with an irrelevant reference to Thomas’ level of experience, a plug for his status as a “professor,” and (after prompting) a cheap shot at Roberts.

Read the whole thing for the context, obviously.

But this highlights how, via inexperience or (messianic) temperament, Obama’s just not ready for prime time in the “think on your feet” department.

Y’know – like we needed any more evidence.information.

…drop what you’re doing at get out to Eagan.

As this is written, Col. Joe Repya will be starting his big sign giveaway in the parking lot at Stephano’s in Eagan – the corner of Highway 13 and Cliff Road  – starting at noon, and going until 3 or until they run out, whichever comes first. 

And the smart

I say that because they should run out fast – as in, possibly within the first hour or so. 

What to do with them?  From Colonel Joe Repya’s press release (I’ve added emphasis):

At noon on September 1, the anti-war crowd claims they’ll have upwards of 50,000 marching from the Minnesota Capitol Building to the Excel Energy Center where the Republican National Convention, at the Excel Energy Center in Saint Paul.

We are asking everyone who supports our men and women in uniform defending America in the War on Terror to line the streets from the Excel Center with our signs. It is our way of being “Minnesota Nice” and wishing these protesters a “nice day in Minnesota.” We encourage no discussion or verbal exchange with the demonstrators – only a pleasant “smile!

So show up!  I’ll be heading up there in a few minutes.  See you at noon-ish at Stephano’s!

Both Obama and McCain have historically been pro-environment and to a varying degree anti-drilling advocates until they felt the pain among their would-be constituents as gas prices squeezed their budgets and subsequently the economy.

McCain has opposed drilling in ANWR. In the past he’s compared it to drilling in the Grand Canyon. But as energy prices climbed over the past several months, he has been careful to avoid locking himself into an anti-drilling position.

First it was a loosening of the noose on offshore drilling, a move even whatshername Pelosi is now conceding (no doubt with a veritable fur ball of strings attached).

“It bodes well for him as a pragmatic and wise and experienced statesman,” says (Alaska Governor) Palin. “What he’s doing here is he’s calling an audible when conditions on the field are changing.

McCain is moving to beat Obama to the punch as he reconsiders his position on drilling ANWR. One has to wonder if he is actually changing his philosophy or simply executing a tactical adjustment to capture the political high ground before Obama gets back from vacation.

Part of the calculus at work is that, like McCain, Obama has moved to get closer to where voters are on drilling but the Democrat likely couldn’t go as far as flipping on ANWR.

For months, McCain had worked hard to portray Obama as “Dr. No” on energy. With his statement, Obama became Dr. Maybe-Under-the-Right-Circumstances.

McCain advisers are eager to restore a sharp contrast on energy and say they’re skeptical Obama will ever voice support, however qualified, for drilling in ANWR.

The only way McCain can move upmarket on Obama is to shift his thinking on oil from offshore drilling to ANWR, and hope that Obama won’t match him move for move.

(Governor Palin) added: “And I know up here in Alaska, most every Alaskan believes that ANWR should be drilled, and no one cares more about Alaska’s environment–our lands, our wildlife, our fresh air, our clean water–than Alaskans themselves. And we know that this can be allowed safely, cleanly, ethically–this type of exploration and development of an American supply of energy.”

That last point could be significant. When McCain changed his position on offshore drilling earlier this summer, he did so on federalist grounds. If states believe that drilling can be safely done off their shores, and choose to allow it, he argued, the federal government should no longer stand in their way. He could make the same argument on ANWR.

The real question is whether either candidate’s shift will translate in January to future increased domestic crude oil production. In the mean time the American consumer has turned his nose up at the pumps, allowing reduced demand to drain the market for now. But supply is the only solution to the current crisis until viable technology to replace the use of fossil fuels presents itself.

…or was that Jim Belushi?

In any case, I was listening to the radio the other morning and an Al Franken ad came on, telling the listener how hard Al Franken has been working for blue collar workers or some other crapola. How has he been working for anyone? He’s never held public office and looks certain to continue his loser streak.

NY Sun: When Democrats this spring sized up Al Franken’s bid to win a Senate seat in his native Minnesota, they saw plenty of promising signs: an engaging and famously funny candidate familiar to voters, a stockpile of campaign cash, and a vulnerable incumbent Republican.

Less than three months before Election Day, however, the Republican seat held by a former New Yorker, Norm Coleman, looks safer than ever

The Franken campaign has been a comedy of errors from day one. Normally I’d feel bad for the guy…actually that’s a lie. Al Franken is a putz and I couldn’t be happier that his candidacy is looking more and more like a painfully awkward standup comedy act, rehashing material that wasn’t funny in the first place.

Coleman may very well have been vulnerable but the Democrats blundered badly in their endorsement of Al Franken, grossly dismissing his vulgar and easily recalled “work”. Franken’s transparent attempts to disassociate himself with his musings on pornography and rape were ineffective and Minnesotan’s are increasingly dismissing his candidacy.

The Wellstone/Dayton legacy of most embarrassing Minnesota Senators is safe from being superseded for now.

Looking to bounce back, Mr. Franken shook up his campaign staff last month and brought in a group of veteran Washington operatives, including a former aide to Senator Schumer and John Edwards, Eric Schultz, and a top adviser to Senator Clinton, Mandy Grunwald.

But political analysts in Minnesota say the damage may be too great. The race, they say, has become a referendum on Mr. Franken rather than the incumbent — an ominous sign for any challenger.

Franken’s fairly justifiable claims (if you take Coleman’s voting record at face value) that Coleman is a pawn of the Bush administration, has failed miserably to gain traction. Rather, Franken’s now well documented trail of failure, incompetence or fraud, depending on how charitable you are, has taken the wind out of his sails.

Mr. Franken emerged as the star of Air America Radio, hosting a talk show on the liberal start-up network, which struggled to find a foothold.

The Fairness Doctrine wouldn’t have saved it either. And the hits kept not coming…

First came the disclosure that he faced $25,000 in penalties for failing to pay workers’ compensation for the corporation he had set up in his name in New York. Then, following a story broken by a Republican blogger, Mr. Franken in April announced that he was paying $70,000 in back taxes and penalties to 17 states.

All the while, Mr. Franken continued to be dogged by off-color jokes and writings from his career as a satirist. In particular, Republicans pounced on a sexually explicit parody he wrote for Playboy, titled “Porn-O-Rama.” Also unearthed was a 1995 article from New York magazine, which reported that Mr. Franken once proposed a joke for “SNL” about raping the “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl.

News Flash: Failed SNL material apparently doesn’t play well in Minnesota. Yuck it up, Al.

With Mr. Franken’s campaign seemingly sputtering, a little-known St. Paul attorney, Priscilla Lord Faris, announced in July that she would challenge Mr. Franken in the DFL’s September 9 primary. Initially a supporter of Mr. Franken who had contributed to his campaign, Ms. Lord Faris said she concluded he was unelectable.

In an interview, she attributed Mr. Franken’s problems to his long absence from Minnesota. “It’s the total package. We kind of call it the New York City problem,” she said. “The root of it is that he’s been out of touch with Minnesota for so long that he didn’t understand that we don’t talk like that here.”

All may not be lost. Maybe Kathy Griffin is looking for a warm-up act. Don’t let the barn door hitcha on the way out Frankenfreak.