One of the biggest frauds which helped George W. Bush in 2000 was the expectations game. Both candidates had their strengths and faults in debating, but the media played up Al Gore as somehow being a debate genius, and George Bush as being a disaster waiting to happen. Because we Democrats liked to overlook Gore’s speaking style for his substance and greatly enjoyed pillorying Bush for his gaffes, we played along with it. The problem with that was the fact that it set up Bush to win: all he had to do was not pee himself and he would be declared the “winner.” Gore did not help with his exaggerated sighs, but the fact was, as far as oratorical skills went, Bush had the better skill set: where Gore sounded wooden, Bush sounded folksy. So despite having the better argument, Gore lost.

In a perfect world, the debate would be judged purely by the strength of one’s argument. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about that; the media always judges debates on expectations, and there’s no sign they’ll make a change this year. The only thing we can do is try to prevent another case where the Democrat is given far too much credit, allowing the Republican to win by losing.

And in the Obama-McCain calculus in terms of the expectations game, McCain is favored here, though it’s kind of complex. On the one hand, McCain has made lots of really bad gaffes, and we’ve given him grief over it. But on the other hand, the media has played these down somewhat. And yes, McCain does stumble sometimes, but the fact is, when he’s prepared well enough, he can come across as solid. While McCain is not as good an orator as Obama, this doesn’t come across the same way in the debate setting; McCain has tons of experience in town hall settings.

On the Obama side, the thing that will hurt him most is his oratorical skill; the McCain side will play this up to no end, and it won’t hurt them as they’ve already turned it into an attack, borrowed from Hillary (“he’s all about words”). The problem is that debating is not speechmaking. While Obama can soar on the stump, in a debate, he is much less graceful, with lots of pauses and “um”s and “ah”s. While McCain’s platitudes are composed of misrepresentations and panders, they are simple and come across strongly; Obama is more about reason and nuance, qualities that tend to lose the audience.

I think it’ll be necessary to make these points: McCain can sound solid and polished in a practiced setting, his message, while wrong, is simple and strong, and his extensive town-hall experience has groomed him to hit a home run in a debate, while Obama’s rhetorical skills won’t serve him nearly as well in debates as they do in his stump speeches, and his nuance and wonkery in answering policy questions plays far less well to crowds. McCain is a Q&A man, Obama is not.

Get the word of accuracy out, before the right-wingers wake up and again successfully set up the false expectations.

A lot of people have praised Sarah Palin for “standing up to colleagues in the Republican Party over matters of principle.” Let’s examine this. Remember, reputations can be wrong; McCain has a reputation for being a “maverick.” Today, that reputation is completely false; he has turned into a poster boy for the hard right wing, and bucks the party on very little, if anything. Even in 2000, when he was strongest in this area, his maverick-ness was relatively tepid, extending to compromises on only a few issues; he still remained strongly conservative, and mostly made a show of being centrist.

So let’s ask the same question of Sarah Palin. Why does she have a reputation for standing up to her party?

There are two major examples given which, upon even a cursory examination, prove to be false. One is when she “opposed” the “bridge to nowhere,” showing she doesn’t approve of pork, even for her own party. Except for the fact that she opposed it only after it was dead in the water; before then, she actually supported the project, stating that porkbarrel money was too slow in coming to Alaska. Hardly bucking the party.

The other example was the benefits for same-sex couples; she vetoed a ban on such benefits. So, hey, she’s pro-gay! Whaddaya know? Except… she only vetoed the bill when it was made clear to her that the courts had ruled that such a ban was unconstitutional, and was guaranteed to be overturned. Instead of bucking her party, she actually went so far as to suggest amending the state constitution to make the ban legal, and then she’d sign it. So again, she doesn’t really buck the party line… but only makes a show of it when the results won’t be affected by her decision.

But what about her rabid environmentalism? Yes, she does back oil, coal, and the standard conservative energy policy–but hey, she’s an environmentalist! OK, fine: how is she an environmentalist? What measures does she support–actual protection, or fake protection like the Bush administration does? After all, this is a person who thinks global warming is not man-made, opposes protections on endangered species such as the polar bear and the Beluga Whale because their protection might interfere with oil drilling, favors major mining operations in the midst of a salmon fishery, and supports drilling in ANWR. She is for research into renewable energy sources, but that hardly counts because everyone voices support for that, and Palin has said she doesn’t see these as being useful any time soon–in other words, she supports them as a someday-maybe kind of thing. Meanwhile, she heavily supports mining and drilling prospects which are even further off in the future in terms of being viable, and harm the environment much more.

So what are the ground-breaking environmental issues she supports?

Umm… I can’t find any. The only thing I found was that “Palin also chairs the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a multi-state panel ‘that promotes the conservation and efficient recovery of domestic oil and natural gas resources while protecting health, safety and the environment.’” That’s it. So while Palin may have some pro-environmental stances, none have shown up in her actual policies and decisions. In fact, every time there is a conflict between environment and drilling/mining/resource-extraction, the environment loses with Palin. As far as I can tell, Palin’s “environmentalism” is purely for show, and has no substance.

As for “bucking her party”? Hardly.

Now, there is the matter of windfall oil profit taxes; she did approve of them in Alaska, and that does buck the party trend. But this seems to be less because of her maverick ways and more due to the fact that she’s a big spender. In fact, she’s (1) a big spender, (2) a tax-hiker, and (3) a deficit-raiser. When mayor of Wasilla, she mismanaged a sports complex project that ended up paying way too much for the land it was on, and otherwise massively increased city spending–so much so, that when she left office, every citizen of Wasilla was $3000 more in debt than they were when she came in. Similarly, as governor of Alaska, she signed into law the biggest state budget ever.

So, to help pay for the bigger budget she wanted, she went for what is arguably the easiest tax hike imaginable: tax oil companies, but only when they make huge profits.

I’ll give credit for that much, but let’s get real here: as far as being a “maverick” goes, it’s pretty tame, and taken together with the spending and the deficit generation, not the most positive quality you’d want in an executive.

In short, while Palin will cross her party, it is only in one place–and that is to raise taxes on huge profits in order to pay for ballooning expenditures. On every other issue, every other principle, she’s a hard-line conservative who toes the party line, and then some. At best, she’s an opportunistic, for-show-only maverick, only when it doesn’t matter much if at all.

I wouldn’t call that being an actual “maverick.” Not by a long shot.

It’s a little hard to say exactly what McCain is looking at here. But it’s hard to imagine that he’s looking at something else, particularly with his beauty-queen fixation. Even if it’s not what it seems, it’s still funny creepy as hell.

McCain met Palin once, and spoke to her over the phone once.

Palin is involved in a scandal in her office and is under investigation. Apparently she wanted a state trooper who messily divorced her sister fired; when the official in charge would respond to pressure from her and other family members, she fired him. Results of the investigation are due to be released just before the November elections. Video report. Update: she replaced the guy she fired with one who had just been sacked for sexual harassment, and the guy she put in lasted only two weeks. Palin gave him a $10,000 severance package. Way to save taxpayer money.

Palin wants creationism taught in public science classes.

As mayor of Wasilla, she shocked a librarian: “Palin asked her outright if she could live with censorship of library books.”

A few weeks ago, Palin voiced support for Obama’s energy plan, with the only variations being “more oil” and “don’t tax oil companies.” Hmm.

Just what we need: another VP in the pocket of big oil.

Palin one month ago: VP position “doesn’t seem productive,” she had no idea of what a VP does. (video)

Palin doesn’t know “what the plan is to ever end the war that we’re engaged in.”

Palin was a Buchanan supporter when he ran for president. (Irony: Buchanan was gushing so much about how great Obama’s speech was, they had to cut him off for time. Video.)

Palin doesn’t believe that global warming is man-made.

“Palin, who portrays herself as a fiscal conservative, racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla — that amounts to $3,000 per resident. She argues that the debt was needed to fund improvements.” Spiffy.

Her executive experience isn’t much to talk about. She signed into law Alaska’s biggest budget ever, while cutting construction jobs. So she’s a budget exploder and job cutter. Of course, Alaska’s $6.6 billion budget is about on par with some big American cities. It’s less the executive experience of a governor and more the executive experience of the Mayor of Chicago. For one and a half years.

Karl Rove agrees: picking someone who was mayor of a small town and then governor for only 3 years is a bad choice. Rove was talking about Tim Kaine, but everything he says applies much more to Sarah Palin.

She was for it before she was against it: Palin’s getting props for opposing the “bridge to nowhere,” but only took that stand after it was obvious it would never happen. Before then, she approved of the bridge, and even went as far as to say that porkbarrel money was coming to Alaska too slowly. Also in the false props department: she vetoed a ban on gay benefits–but only because it was unconstitutional.

McCain married a former rodeo beauty queen (whom he later suggested would make a great “Miss Buffalo Chip”), and now has nominated another former beauty queen as his VP pick. What’s with McCain and beauty queens?

Resentful-Also-Rans Update: Palin to Hillary supporters: Hillary’s a whiner. Suggestions of female Hillary supporters laughing at McCain for his choice. Some are even scared. Cafferty (one of CNN’s few remaining watchable commentators) suggests that opinion is weighted heavily against Palin. In fact, the choice of Palin may have backlash as supporters of Romney and Pawlenty “feel manipulated.”

Women may also not be impressed that she’s leaving her four-month-old Down’s baby for more than two months so she can campaign. Or that she is alternately dragging him across the country. But maybe not as turned off by that as they would be that Palin is not just pro-life, but opposes exceptions rape, incest, or for the life of the mother. So she thinks that if a 12-year-old girl is raped and impregnated by her father, and then her fetus turns out to be non-viable and will die upon delivery, the girl cannot get an abortion even if she could die in delivery as well. Nice!

Palin’s web site is scrubbed as a Ted Stevens ad is removed–and then her whole site (http://www.palinforgovernor.com/) is quickly changed to redirect to John McCain’s.

“As governor, Palin vetoed wind power and clean coal projects, including a 50-megawatt wind farm on Fire Island and a clean coal facility in Healy that had been mired in a dispute between local and state governments.”

Opposed McCain on drilling in ANWR, and that may be why she didn’t support him in the primaries.

And finally, Republicans are scrambling to find out positive things to say about her. One of them is that Obama won’t be able to make fun of her because she’s a dedicated mom, and won’t be able to criticize her inexperience because of his own. Here’s what they don’t get: Obama doesn’t have to do any of that. Comedians will. And they already are.

This is just after a few hours of oppo research. Yikes.

When asked about Palin’s lack of experience, Obama could say: “Sure, she’s got experience! Just not as much as I do.” They could also make a point about joint experience on the tickets.

But McCain’s claim of “executive experience” won’t fly. One and a half years as governor of Alaska after six years as mayor of a small town? Please.

So McCain, clearly eager to step all over the Democrats’ thunder–and what thunder it is!–declared his VP pick, and it smacks of desperation. The ads McCain ran during the Democratic Convention were mostly aimed at disenchanted Hillary voters, and now we see McCain has chosen to pander to them–and in a huge way.

His choice, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, might seem like a good choice on the surface–a governor, so she has executive experience, right? But–she’s been governor for only two one and a half years, and before that was mayor of Wasilla, a town of maybe 8,000 people, serving for not much longer than she has now been mayor. Zero foreign policy experience, far less than Obama, and infinitely less than Obama’s VP pick. Look forward, at least, to an interesting debate between Palin and Biden.

So McCain’s claims about Obama not having the experience needed instantly fall flat, and the youth and inexperience of his choice highlight McCain’s age and potential to require a vice president to take office. After all, this is supposed to be someone McCain believes is ready to be president. McCain might think he’s gaining youth, but this will accentuate his age, and remove one of his key criticisms of his opponent.

McCain might think he’s just clinched Hillary supporters, but he’s likely in for a disappointment. Whether or not they will approve of the runner-up for Miss Alaska 1984 runner-up is trivial, but less trivial is whether they will stand behind someone who is strongly pro-life, pro-death penalty, pro-gun, pro-oil and coal, pro-ANWR drilling, and anti-gay marriage. Mother of five works for her, but just about everything else doesn’t. And the question remains, how easily will Clinton supporters swoon for nothing that appeals to them save for an extra X-chromosome? How do they feel about McCain presuming that they will switch parties upon the most blatant of shallow panders from McCain?

Because a pander is what it is, clear and simple. McCain didn’t choose her for experience. He didn’t choose her for the electoral votes Alaska promises. He didn’t choose her for her bipartisan credentials. He chose her despite an ongoing scandal in her office, despite the bad electoral math, despite her lack of experience damaging his arguments.

The only thing that stands out about why McCain chose her is that she’s a woman, and McCain desperately wants those angry Hillary voters to come to his side. And that, without any doubt whatsoever, is a pander.

They’re calling it a risk, and they’re right. If Hillary supporters are so focused solely upon gender and don’t give a damn about Hillary’s policies, or if they’re so upset that they will not only ignore Hillary’s own campaigning for Obama, but vote in a president who will betray all of their core principles, then McCain’s gamble will pay off. I have not been too appreciative of the rationality of some of the more stubborn Clinton diehards in the past, but I do believe this: they are not so monumentally stupid as to fall for something like this.

I’ll be interested to see what people like Rush Limbaugh, who claims that Democrats only like Obama because he’s black, will say about a McCain VP pick which is as clearly only about gender as Obama is clearly not only about race.

McCain might get a bit of a bounce from this because of sheer novelty and risk, but it is bound to backfire over time. McCain made a shallow choice for shallow reasons, and he’ll very likely pay a price for that.

The latest inanity from the AP:

John McCain and Barack Obama share common ground on a surprising selection of issues where the age-old Republican-Democratic divide doesn’t cut it anymore.

Both want the United States to join the campaign against global warming in earnest. Both want to cut taxes for the middle class.

Yeah, Obama and McCain are pretty similar… just like Bush and Gore were pretty similar. Does the media ever tire of this old turn-off-the-voters whopper?

Let’s set aside the environmental “earnestness” issue for the moment. As for “cutting taxes for the middle class,” I guess that depends on what the “middle class” is; if you take McCain’s definition, that you’re not rich unless you make $5 million a year, then yeah, I guess you could say that McCain wants to enrich the “middle class.”

However, most views of the middle class are not quite as stratospheric as McCain’s bizarre view suggests. A common range is quoted as $25,000 to $100,000, with the actual middle 20% of the country making between $40,000 and $95,000. The mean annual income for the U.S. in 2005 was $33,000.

By these measures, McCain and Obama are not on the same page. At the $33,000 level, Obama wants to give tax cuts eight times bigger than McCain. McCain’s tax cuts are meager for the poor and only grow as incomes grow, and up to $112,000, McCain still doesn’t give as much as Obama. Only when you go above $112,000–arguably the “upper middle class”–does McCain even begin to out-give Obama. But McCain does not even double what Obama offers until after $250,000, where Obama ends his tax cuts.

If you were able to go through the $25,000 to $100,000 range and compare each plan’s averages, then you’d find that while both “want to cut taxes for the middle class,” one of them wants to do it a lot more than the other one. Painting them as “similar” on this is like saying that they are “similar” on abortion rights because neither likes the ideas of abortion per se. Everyone has “similarities” on just about every issue; what is key is whether the similarities outweigh the differences. Here, they don’t.

Just wanted to say something else about the you-can’t-criticize-McCain issue, but it didn’t fit into the last post.

I think Democrats should stop prefacing every criticism of McCain with glowing remarks about his being a war hero, a patriot, and all-around great guy. First off, it doesn’t help to be constantly be calling your opponent a hero, when just about every person in the country has heard it a zillion times already. Second, Dems don’t get any credit for it–no one feels that Dems are more electable or even necessarily nicer because they respect their opponent more. Third, McCain is not going to return the favor unless specifically questioned about his disrespecting the opposition.

But most importantly, you have to realize that the “you’re-an-ass-if-you-disparage-a-war-hero” meme has been pretty much accepted now. Therefore, when you preface a criticism with “McCain is a war hero, but…” then you are only triggering that meme and instantly making your listener antagonistic to your criticisms.

The fact is, the less you pay homage to your war-hero opponent, the better. You need look no further than Kerry to understand this. Republicans did not preface every criticism of Kerry with “the man’s a great war hero, but….” Instead, they went with a two-pronged approach: tear down his war-hero status with swift-boating, and simply ignore his service otherwise.

I’m not saying we should swift-boat. What I’m saying is that we should simply ignore the war service stuff unless specifically pressed about it.

Is it because they’re terrified of the prospect of reporting anything negative about a man who was a POW?

Don’t laugh or scoff; remember, the media played into the Iraq War because they were terrified of being seen as anything less than 200% patriotic. And we have Tom Brokaw now announcing that Democrats can’t “rough up” John McCain since he was a POW. Even though every major Democrat prefaces their criticism of McCain by stating that he is (a) a good man, (b) a war hero, and (c) a patriot, and the criticism is not of his war record, but of his political policies and actions.

If Brokaw’s statement is a window into the mindset of the media, then that explains a lot. That they perhaps have fallen, hook, line, and sinker, for the McCain suggestion that any criticism of McCain is blasphemy because you are besmirching a man who lived in a prison cell in Hanoi for five and a half years.

Which, of course, is pretty ludicrous. Not just because if it were a Democrat who went through that then Republicans would have no problem swift-boating him as a liar and a traitor, and not just because Democrats already prostate themselves to McCain’s war-herodom every time they make any criticism about him. It’s mostly ludicrous because the idea simply has no logic to it. We’re talking about electing a president who will determine the country’s fate for the next four years here, not choosing a Senator-of-the-Month who just gets his photo on the wall. This is not just about image.

So when a venerated news anchor says that McCain’s POW history makes any difference when criticizing his policies, you become aware of a disturbing mindset: McCain can get away with just about anything and the media won’t report on it.

Wouldn’t that be a cool way of seeing poverty? If you sleep under a bridge, then count that bridge as a home. Same with cardboard boxes, doorways, etc. They are all shelters, therefore homes. Voila! No more homeless people!

We could do the same with joblessness. So what if you got fired and can’t get re-employed? You’re always doing some work, right? You gotta find food–that’s gotta be hard work without a job. And hey, panhandling ain’t easy. So in reality, nobody is really unemployed. So just count it that way. Voila! No more unemployment!

Now, no one has suggested either of the above in earnestness (that I know of). But an advisor to John McCain and author of a health care provision McCain subscribes to has just made an equivalent claim: anyone without insurance can still go to an emergency room, which is in itself insurance. So just count it that way, and Voila! No more uninsured! Think I’m exaggerating? Then read the original:

But the numbers are misleading, said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain’s health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

“So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime,” Mr. Goodman said. “The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

”So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved.“

By the way, that’s not John Goodman the actor, just in case you were in doubt. Though you might at first wonder if it was and that this was from an SNL skit on an episode he was hosting.

Even if you don’t find the emergency care part of it asinine for many reasons, it of course completely ignores every variety of non-emergency care. Plainly put, it’s not just asinine, it’s stunningly stupid. Aside from being incredibly unkind, and blind to the realities of being poor or even middle-class, it’s an expensive, wasteful, and harmful idea. This is the quality we see from the authors of McCain’s policy.

Naturally, the McCain campaign is scrambling to disavow any connection with this guy. But he was an advisor, and though they can make whatever retroactive claims of disassociation they want to, the most important fact is that the McCain campaign’s health care plan does contain policies authored by this guy. So whatever they claim now, their health care policies bear Goodman’s imprint, and just as significant–perhaps more–is that this shows the quality of advisor that John McCain seeks out, listens to, and follows the advice of.

While John McCain might not be overtly suggesting that millions of Americans should be happy with the emergency room serving as their primary health insurance coverage, the facts remain that (a) the policy advisor he sought out does think so, (b) that will be the effective result of McCain’s health care plan, and (c) the philosophy meshes nicely with other McCain health care proposals:

Remember, the McCain campaign would offer tax incentives that favor bare-bones coverage; it would also gut state regulations that mandate all insurers cover certain benefits. Most important, perhaps, it’s likely that the McCain health plan would lead many people with employer-sponsored insurance to give up or lose that coverage. While many people would also get new coverage on their own, through the individual market, the benefits would be skimpier–and they would be available only to relatively healthy people, since insurers screen for pre-existing medical conditions when they sell policies individually.

So, is the media covering this?

No. The LA Times has an article, and a few CBS blogs have covered it, but that’s just about it.

Would the media be covering it if it were an Obama advisor?

Hell, yes.

Someone remind me: when was the last time a political figure actually suggested we solve a problem by failing to count it? I know it has been done in practice a lot–the Bush administration avoids heat for killing Iraqi civilians by having there be no official body counts, for example, and in a longer trend, we stop counting the chronically unemployed. But politicians only do these things, they don’t talk about them. I do seem to recall someone making a stir by suggesting something similar to Goodman, but I may be confusing this with fictional situations, like a ”Ministry of Truth“ official on Babylon 5 announcing that homelessness was solved by simply not recognizing the homeless. Someone help out–is Goodman a ground-breaker, or a tradition-follower?

From Kevin Drum at his new digs:

Was Chuck Todd even watching the same speech as me? Yeah, Biden flubbed a couple of lines in a minor way, but jeez. Even seen through the lens of my political speech autism (hereafter PSA) I thought it was a pretty moving performance. And Marian thought he was great, which counts as my “woman in the street” opinion since she’s not a political junkie like everyone else I know.

And then Brokaw followed up by saying that the convention sagged today compared to Monday and Tuesday? Did I hear that right? He must have been watching a different bunch of speeches too. Between Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and Joe Biden, I thought this was by far the best night so far.

I thought the same thing. Yeah, Biden could have expected a crowd response and worked the crowd’s willingness to chant in response, but in truth, the beginning of his speech almost brought me to tears, it was that moving. Clinton was great, Kerry was great.

I am beginning to think that the anchors and pundits won’t be happy unless they find some way of disapproving or noting something negative about any given day of the Democratic Convention. After Brokaw’s comment the other night about how McCain never re-invented himself, that he panned this very good night for the Dems is unsurprising. According to some, Kerry’s speech wasn’t even broadcast.

Here’s a prediction and a bet: most nights of the Republican Convention, the anchors and pundits will give glowing reviews, about how McCain and his surrogates are revitalizing the party and the race. Any takers?

I don’t think Lieberman will be the Veep choice for McCain. Why not? Too much foreplay in the press, too much noise that seems to come from inside the campaign that Lieberman is seriously being considered. They know full well that choosing Lieberman wouldn’t impress the left- or center-leaning enough (a turncoat is rarely popular to anyone but those they turn to), and it would really tick off their base, turning way too many people away from the polls on election day.

So why the buzz? Because they want to give the image of a centrist maverick, while still being reassuringly hard-right for the base. It’s only because of the Liberal Media’s™ tireless campaigning for McCain that anyone believes that he is a (1) straight-talking (2) centrist (3) maverick who (4) has not reinvented himself (shame, shame, Brokaw). All 180 degrees away from the truth, but the media loves an image, however false. That, and the constant hammering of Obama has allowed an ineffectual, flip-flopping, gaffe-ridden old charlatan even in the polls with a strong, young, charismatic Democratic candidate.

This should be a complete no-brainer. Obama is pro-choice, and like almost all pro-choicers, he does not like the idea of abortion but is not willing to make that decision for others. Expect reasonable, law- and constitution-respecting judges to be appointed.

McCain, however, is flip-flopping from his original stand, which was to outlaw abortion but leave exceptions for rape, incest, or the risk of death of the mother, and now accepts the party’s policy of outlawing abortion with no exceptions. Which means that if a pregnant woman is carrying a non-viable fetus which would surely die a few minutes after birth due to congenital defects, and the mother’s health is such that she has a high risk of dying in any kind of childbirth, then too bad. She’ll have to simply risk death for no reason, even though there is a simple procedure to ensure she will live. Similarly, if a 14-year-old girl is raped by her father and the child is expected to be badly deformed or dead on delivery due to double recessives, she’ll just have to bear down and go through with the emotional terror of bearing her father’s child. Sorry, kid, but you gotta respect the life of a clump of cells–we respect those cells more than we respect you, for sure–so just man up already and quit sniffling.

Expect his judges to be the same as we’ve seen from Bush, too–McCain has vowed (link to 3-minute video clip of McCain babbling about court appointments) to appoint right-wing strict constructionists, which means that one or two of the liberal justices on SCOTUS who are more than likely to retire or pass away in the next four years will be replaced with another Alito or Rehnquist, and choice will sure die soon after.

Add that to the laundry list of reasons not to vote for McCain, if that reason alone is not more than enough.

Is this how rich people do irony?

A nine-car motorcade took him to a nearby Starbucks early in the morning, where he ordered a large cappuccino. McCain otherwise avoided reporters.

Forced into damage-control mode, his campaign aides counterattacked to reinforce their claim that Obama is an elitist.

So, McCain rides in a 9-car motorcade from his $1.65 million estate (where he’s roughing it by avoiding his $5 million condo at Camelback), disrupting local traffic so he could buy a cappuccino… and then went after Obama as an elitist because he vacationed in Hawaii–his home state, where his grandmother lives.

Hey, at least he didn’t get a latte!

Threats and mysterious powder sent to McCain just as McCain is scrambling to escape scrutiny over the latest effective attack by Obama? The stuff was even sent from Denver, where the Democratic convention will be held–nice touch. But I don’t buy much into the whole idea of coincidence.

A closer read of the article, however, calls into question whether there was any “powder” at all:

“Our guys did not find any powder. There were maybe a couple of grains of something inside an envelope and they had to kind of work to get a sample,” [Andy Lyon of Parker South Metro Fire Rescue Authority] said.

Did the McCain camp simply decide to manufacture an anthrax scare by taking one of many threatening letters any campaign gets, choosing one from Denver for effect, and then claim there was powder inside to create the scare? They would certainly know what it would do to the news cycle, and how much it would help them.

Ever wonder how McCain gets the press on his side? Apparently it’s not too hard–just barbecue some ribs and let them all cavort at your luxury residence in Sedona. Watch this video narrated by McCain’s daughter and tell me if you agree that it’s appropriate for journalists to be partying with a candidate they also happen to be giving huge breaks to in their reporting.

Isn’t it just precious that they gave Cindy flowers? How sweet.

By the way, the Sedona property has five houses on it. Does that Mean McCain owns eleven homes instead of just seven? Apparently, McCain’s trying to push the “four houses” count by claiming that four of them are ones “that actually could be considered houses they could use.” Yeah, that sounds a lot better–they own so many homes that seven go unused. That’s not elitist at all.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of Obama hitting his stride. His message today seems to have been that John McCain is so rich that he’s completely clueless as to what troubles Americans are going through economically. He touched on McCain’s saying that the economy is “fundamentally sound,” that things have been OK under Bush, and on Phil Gramm’s “Nation of Whiners” and “Mental Recession” quotes. Then he quoted McCain from the Rick Warren event, where he said that “rich” is when you make $5 million, and wound it up with the punch line that McCain, when asked, said he couldn’t remember how many homes he owns.

Obama on the trail:

And his new ad:

The message: Obama’s not the elitist, John McCain is. And the punch was delivered with power, not to mention McCain’s own words. This is where Obama needs to go. This is the track Obama needs to get on and stay on until the election.

I mean, really, imagine that–you have to check with your staff to find out how many homes you own,and you think that anyone making less than $5 million a year is middle class. I mean, wow.

However, I think I’m going to have to give McCain a break here. I don’t believe that McCain was really ignorant of how many homes he owns. I think he was simply lying. Why? Because he knows what the answer is, and that is at least seven homes (what Obama’s ad claims), maybe more. And if a reporter asks him how many homes he owns, he doesn’t want to say “Seven, and that’s why Obama’s an elitist.” So he used the normal dodge when politicians (usually under investigation for something) want to avoid answering something self-incriminating, namely that he couldn’t remember and would have to check, hoping that (a) people would forget, or (b) at least his staff, and not he himself, would have to answer the question. Unfortunately, that instinct led him to say something that sounded even worse, that he had so many homes that he lost count.

His staff, reportedly, came back with the classic weasel answer: “at least four.” They know full well it’s at least seven, but by saying “at least” they can claim they weren’t lying. They also undoubtedly had a conference to figure out what number they could pitch which sounds high enough to be credible but low enough so he doesn’t sound too outrageously rich and elitist.

I think that McCain was also lying about the $5 million-being-rich thing too. I think he knows full well that, at the very least, a million minimum is actually rich–I don’t think he’s that stupid and out of touch–but he also knew that if he answered with a lower number, then he’d be hit with questions about how he wants to give so many of his tax cuts to the rich. $5 million is probably beyond a cutoff point his staff made him remember where he can say that the majority of his tax cuts, counted in some arcane fashion, go to people below that number, or something along those lines.

So, in order not to look elitist, John McCain instead comes across looking even more elitist, and a fool to boot. And that’s what Obama took advantage of today.

McCain’s counter-attack continued: Obama makes four mill a year, loves Arugula, and vacations in Hawaii! Yeah, except that this is old hat from McCain, a retread that people have heard a million times before–so it’s lost its impact.

Also, McCain undercut his own attacks: by noting that Obama makes $4 million a year, he makes the point that Obama isn’t an elitist–because $4 million, according to McCain, is not “rich”! You see, you have to make $5 million to be rich–so Obama’s just a regular guy!

Obama definitely wins today’s round–and if he keeps on this tack, he’ll win a lot more down the road.

One problem with the Obama campaign is that they’re not cutting enough. That’s McCain’s strength–he’s become as vicious and unconscionable as Bush was to him in 2000, even more so in fact. Obama doesn’t need to become more nasty–in fact, he should do his best not to appear negative at all–but he does need to become far more effective on the attack. He probably got along in the primaries rolling on his organization and his rock-star image and Clinton’s lack of same. But with McCain, he’s going to need to take on a new tactic if his Kumbaya unity message and popular appeal won’t do the trick.

Take for example his statement about it being time for McCain to acknowledge that Obama’s patriotism is not in question. Had the roles been reversed, the Democrat would have withered under that attack (which is why they bend over backwards lauding McCain as a “hero” and not questioning his patriotism), in large part because Democrats would take the criticism seriously, the media would glom onto it and portray Obama as an underhanded liar, and pretty much everyone involved would say, “yeah, that’s below the belt.”

But with the roles being the way they are now, the attack doesn’t work–because McCain knows he can get away with such nasty attacks and nobody will question him on it. So instead of McCain withering under the admonition, he instead twisted it into an attack, jabbing at Obama by saying “I don’t question his patriotism, I question his judgment”–when in clear point of fact, McCain was absolutely questioning Obama’s patriotism. And as I just pointed out, he is getting away with it and nobody, especially in the media, is questioning him on it.

What Obama needs to do is formulate a strategy that will make McCain wither. But he has to do in a light fashion, one that will send McCain running without seeming nasty. And to me, the best way seems obvious: use McCain’s own words against him. One way to do that is to take McCain at his word; McCain is saying so much stuff which he doesn’t mean, the pickings should be easy.

Take, for example, a recent town hall where a woman said we need to bring back the draft, and McCain said he “didn’t disagree.” (A story, by the way, that the media completely ignored–and again, had it been Obama, the reverse would have been true.) Obama should run with stuff like that: make announcements that McCain is going to institute the draft, using that very clip. McCain won’t be able to say Obama is twisting his position, because McCain is on video agreeing with the idea; instead, he’ll have to waste time denying he’s for the draft, which will bring up a lot of other questions in its wake. If the media, predictably, makes McCain’s case for him, pointing out that McCain didn’t really mean that, the counter would be easy: he said it, and if he didn’t really mean it, was he confused or was he being untruthful? [Edit: here’s another one: McCain loudly proclaimed on CNN that he had a secret plan that would catch bin Laden–no way he could equivocate his assuredness that he has a plan and it will, by god, work. What Blitzer didn’t ask was, “why haven’t you given the plan to Bush so we can catch bin Laden now?” Obama should play McCain saying he has a secret plan, then smack him for not thinking it’s important enough to get bin Laden now.]

Along those lines, Obama should present a series of “McCain vs. McCain” ads, because there is so much video and audio of McCain saying stuff he now has turned 180 degrees on. He should begin with McCain vs. McCain on Energy, showing McCain now saying drilling is immediately vital, then showing McCain a few months ago saying it would not help, followed by definitive expert statements on how drilling is ineffective. These ads would show up McCain’s two-faced flip-flops, and at best could put McCain on the defensive.

This would also lead into making his own another Republican strength: ridicule. Going from the “McCain vs. McCain” ads, Obama could then lead into a series of ads based upon Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ads, where you have two guys introducing themselves, first a cool, hip, young guy saying, “I’m an Obama supporter,” and an uptight, older business guy saying “And I’m a McCain supporter.” They could mirror the Apple ads almost entirely (would they have to get Apple’s OK on that? As parody, maybe not), and run with that angle. No, it’s not original, but it could be just as effective as Apple’s ads are against Windows, and could be entertaining as well as deeply cutting.

These campaigns could run side by side with positive ads which did an even better job of laying out Obama’s policies and ideas.

Not that I think Obama will do this. It’s just that i think it’d be his best shot: go negative, but n a light-hearted fashion. Because, as Tim has pointed out, whatever it is Obama thinks he’s doing now, it’s not working.

McCain, like Bush, is reactive when it comes to foreign policy, and reacts in a way that is bellicose and ultimately impotent. You get the clear feeling that McCain, like Bush, if he does anything at all, will push a foreign policy agenda which goes no further than the immediate interests of his patrons, whether they be the energy industry or other lobbyists. Otherwise, he will simply be surprised when various problems like Georgia come along, and deal with them clumsily with braggadocio.

It looks like Russia is going to stay lodged in Georgia after all, and all of McCain’s chest-thumping did nothing to help, and probably only hurt. If Russia in Georgia is still a problem in a month’s time, Obama has a great opening: for all of McCain’s foreign policy “genius,” he is impotent here. What’s the benefit of having McCain in office if all he’ll do is spew impotent bluster? Then there are McCain’s lobbyist issues with Georgia, which, frankly, should be taken advantage of immediately.

I tried watching it again today, this time podcasts, two or three different shows, and I just couldn’t take it. It was just one hit job on Obama after another, one set of headlines giving better coverage to McCain after another. When it got to the point where the reporters on Cooper’s 360 show were trying to show Obama as a corrupt, cutthroat Chicago ballbuster and they used his line of “nobody questions my patriotism” as an example of “nothing illegal,” but showcasing his “brass knuckles politics”… I just got ill listening to it. The tissue-thin connections and blatantly politicized innuendo could easily have been written by the McCain campaign.

The more I watch the U.S. political news media, the less I wonder why John McCain is keeping up or even gaining in the polls.