election_2008
The more I see of John McCain's campaign, the more impressive I find him. You really can tell a lot, from a long, long cmpaign, about a candidate's abilities to govern by what sort of campaign he runs. In Big Mac's case, he has proven to be steady, articulate and precise, and at ease with himself. He demonstrates every minute how seriously he takes the office that he aspires to. He surrounds himself with many different kinds of voices but remains his own voice, with an even handedness that I had not expected.
By hammering home, day after day, the observation that BHO is NOT ready to be president, he forces himself to be all the readier for the job. His You Tube ads, humorous or serious, illustrate the point almost irrefutably. His speeches have vision, clarity and pragmatic purpose: which is not to say that Big Mac does not also have strong priorities: curbing the defense appropriators, cutting down federal spendin waste, restoring our nation's foreign policy credibility and extendig our military morale and effetiveness.
I say PRIORITIES, because John McCain is indeed a pragmatist, not an ideological man. He has principles, but he understands that American government seeks solutions first and chiefly, not intelleectual agends.
Constantly at various blog sites (Red State, Hedgehog Report) I find myself surrounded by folks with strong ideological callings, especiall of a pro-life bent. I call these folks "madrassa militants." Though they are not suicide bombers, or terrorists, thank goodness, as are so many Muslim madrassa students, they exhibit, albeit in milder form, that same insistence on ideological purity that makes Islamic militancy so alien; oh yes -- these low-voltage Ayatollahs know the True Way! AND YOU BETTAH BEHAVE!!! Hmmm.... Fact is, the True Way, if there is one, is something that NO human being knows, or at least I haven't yet found one who knows it. Especially no POLITICAL person.
John McCain is not of that sort. His beliefs are basic, fundamental, simple, shared by almost all Americans. He has a political program -- not an intllectual agenda. He also has character and presence. Indeed, he looks,speaks, and acts very VERY presidential: that, and nothing more. He is strong, yet comfortable. A winning hand if you ask me.
UPDATE: Easily 90 % of the blog posts that I read at Joh McCain webpages are about pro-life. Yet pro-lif zealots don't even like John McCain. Where are blog posts by those who are TRUE McCAIN SUPPORTERS ? Military folks ? Small-government advocates ? Defense budget reformrs ? Foreign policy people ? Those I don't see posting here or elsewhere. Yet they -- WE -- are the overwhelming majority of voters who wil be electing John McCain. If all that hehs re the pro-life insisters, he'll get abou 8 % of the vote. If that. Hmmm.......
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Today's Gallup Poll gives John McCain 46 % to BHO's 44 % -- Big Mac's first Gallup Poll LEAD since the Spring. Often the Gallup has had him and BHO tied, but never since Spring has Big Mac acually LED.
Call it McCain's "Obama Bounce" ?
The meatier question is WHY ?
Could it be disappointed Hillary voters moving definitely to Big Mac ? In part, probably. But 2 % of 120,000,000 looks larger than just disappointed Hillary voters. I'm thinking it's simply that Big Mac's August momentum continues; that slowly but surely a crucial number of voters is, bit by bit, deciding that Mac's a safer choice at this time than the New Kid on the Block - whom they like, mostly, but just not ready to be voted for YET. In 2012, maybe.
Menwhile I'm looking to see CO, VA, and OH solidify for Big Mac as NV, IN, NC, and FL already seem to have. I'm also looking to see MN, MI, NM, and even PA and OR come ino play...
William Kristol, one of this election's most thoughtful commentators, posted this column in today's New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/opinion/25kristol.html?_r=1&ref=opinio...
It deserves a full read. I too, as readers of my blog know, support Joe Lieberman for John McCain's VP. Kristol says it better than I've done.
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Bill Kristol, friend of John McCain and one of the more accomodating consevatives in the commentariat, has an interesting if disingenuous blog available at
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/08/kristol_the_democrat...
...on the subject of Hillary Clinton not even being considered for VP on BHO's ticket.
In his blog, Kristol shows that Hillary has every capability & credential that Joe Biden has and then some, on his way to suggesting that her name should be placed in nomination at Denver not for President but for VICE president.
Nice thought -- but Bill Krstol knows very well why Hillary wasn't even considered for BHO's VP:
1. it would magnify BHO's WEAKNESS(ES).
2. It would put him in a minority in his own house, as with Hillary comes Bill.
Clearly, as I have already blogged here, BHO decided that he would rather lose the election than win the presidency weakly. He decided that if he is going to be President, it is going to be HIS presidency and not somebody else's. For this, I respect him.
His decision also forces the Democratic party -- HIS Democratic party, not the Clintons' -- to get off its duff and start working as hard as it can to elect him. Picking Joe Biden has made it more difficult for BHO to win and thus more vital for HIS party operatives to work their butts off.
I suspect that that, too, is a message that BHO is sending about what he will expect of HIS Democratic party if he is elected. Because otherwise, it will revert very quickly to being Hillary & Bill's Democratic party. In which lies both opportunity and threat...
Big Mac will surely benefit, significantly, from this decision -- IF he handles the opportunity carefully thus handed to him.
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The 2008 election is definitely acquiring shape. It will be close-run. It will NOT be about change. Electorally, it looks VERY much like the past two elections.
This is a surprise. Given that both candidates, Big Mac and BHO, are insurgents within their respective political parties, one might have expected the 2008 electoral map to look very unlike those of recent Presidential elections. That the 2008 map does NOT look much different, given who is running, sends us a VERY important message: THE PARTIES HAVE THEIR OWN, WELL DEFINED CONSTITUENCIES NO MATTER WHO IS RUNNING.
If this message is a true one, and not just a coincidence, then John McCain really hs no choice but to WORK HIS BASE. Yet to work the Republican base this year is to lose. Thus, the BASE must be worked FOR John Mcain, by someone else, while he himself goes out in Maverick Mode and works the very small remaining, Maverick portion of the entire electorate -- maybe 2 % of the electorate.
WHO, then, is going to work the base for him ? Probably not his VP choice. His VP choice can be only one of two types. Either it will be Mitt Romney, who is skilled in debate and aggressive, and who likely brings MI and also helps in CO and NV, or it will be one of three VP possbilities who have Washington knowledge and can help Big Mac govern. the three Washington-knowledge choices are none of them, very much help ramping up the BASE. Joe Lieberman isn't a Republican; David Petraeus is a military man; Rob Portman is too unknown except in Ohio. As for Mitt Romney, he is distrusted -- rightly -- by much of the base, and that part of the base that DOES like him -- economic conservatives -- don't need working; they are aboard already.
The Base will thus depend on others. Mike Huckabee; Sam Brownback; Kay Baley Hutchinson; Tom Coburn; Eric Cantor; John Kasich; Carly Fiorina; Newt Gingrich; Fred Thompson George Allen; Michael Steele; J.C. Watts. But HOW ? None of these has the clout of a VP Or Presidential nominee. There is, however, one way in which these BASE BUILDERS can make their influence felt strongly. THEY CAN DO IT AS A TEAM. Travelling as a TEAM, they can impress by HAVING NUMBERS and BY BEING DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES ADVOCATING ONE THEME: That John McCain is RIGHT for America.
And there you have it, as I see it. In an election that, despite the insurgent character of the nominees, will be very much a replay of 2000 and 2004 -- the Dems are already trying to make it a referendum on "Bush-McCain" despite the unlikeliness of the connection -- John McCain can win by being even just SLIGHTLY Not George Bush as long as the campaigbn can do TWO things simultaneouly: keep the Base involved, and nudge the Maverick Lovers into our camp just a teensy weensy bit more than usual.
Easy to say, not so easy to do. Watch Colorado. Watch Minnesota. Watch New Hampshire and Oregon. Watch Michigan especially.
The selection of Joe Biden says a lot about BHO's good sense. Clearly he has developed -- learning the hard way -- a willingness to make the hard choices, as any potential President must. To pick Joe Biden, he had to ignore the following "conventional wisdom":
1.that a VP running mate should help the candidate carry a state that he needs
2.that he needs Hillary in order to win.
3.That his VP cabdidate should "do no harm."
Joe Biden adds not one electoral vote to BHO's total.
Joe Biden is not Hillary.
Joe Biden has said a lot of things that will definitely embarrass BHO on the campaign trail -- not the least of which things is posted at this very website as a video blog.
BUT..... Joe Biden does help BHO to govern, were he to win. Biden is an accomplished Washington veteran. He connects to working-class voters. He has substantial foreign policy credentials.
To get to the pick of Joe Biden, BHO had to say that he is willing to take his chance that he might not win with a running mate who adds so little, election-wise, to the ticket. He had to say that he prefers to win the right way, or not at all. He had to say that he was willing to chance the displeasure of the Clintons -- and to do so because he cannot, CANNOT, govern the nation if he owes, or is perceived as owing, his election to Bill and Hillary and their commanding presence.
Frankly, I think much better of BHO today, for having made this choice, than I did before.
I still disagree completely with BHO's isues and I cannot abide the prospect of the country's hate-America left-roots being inside in the power. Yet if BHO could make the choice of Joe Biden, who is in NO way a left-root, I see no reason why he could not gofvern on his own authority, with the left-roots left waiting, were he to win. After all, Ronald Reagan was a master at giving our right-roots tons of lip service: and not much more.
Now it's up to Big Mac to make a BIG decision. I KNOW that he will do it and do it the RIGHT way.
Here is the audio from the McCain campaign conference call today hosted by Carly fiorina. The call highlights the contrast between John McCain and Barack Obama
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AN exclusive report from Matt Drudge:
EXCLUSIVE: MCCAIN SPEECH TONIGHT: THE GENERAL ELECTION BEGINS
Tue Jun 03 2008 17:04:27 ETJohn McCain will launch his general election campaign against Barack Obama tonight at 9:00 in New Orleans, Louisiana. In a speech that will praise Senator Clinton for her "tenacity and courage," McCain will recognize Obama as the Democratic party's presumptive nominee.
EXCERPT:
You will hear from my opponent’s campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I’m running for President Bush’s third term. You will hear every policy of the President described as the Bush-McCain policy. Why does Senator Obama believe it’s so important to repeat that idea over and over again? Because he knows it’s very difficult to get Americans to believe something they know is false. So he tries to drum it into your minds by constantly repeating it rather than debate honestly the very different directions he and I would take the country. But the American people didn’t get to know me yesterday, as they are just getting to know Senator Obama. They know I have a long record of bipartisan problem solving. They’ve seen me put our country before any President -- before any party -- before any special interest -- before my own interest. They might think me an imperfect servant of our country, which I surely am. But I am her servant first, last and always. ….
I disagreed strongly with the Bush administration’s mismanagement of the war in Iraq. I called for the change in strategy that is now, at last, succeeding where the previous strategy had failed miserably. I was criticized for doing so by Republicans. I was criticized by Democrats. I was criticized by the press. But I don’t answer to them. I answer to you. And I would be ashamed to admit I knew what had to be done in Iraq to spare us from a defeat that would endanger us for years, but I kept quiet because it was too politically hard for me to do. No ambition is more important to me than the security of the country I have defended all my adult life.
Senator Obama opposed the new strategy, and, after promising not to, voted to deny funds to the soldiers who have done a brilliant and brave job of carrying it out. Yet in the last year we have seen the success of that plan as violence has fallen to a four year low; Sunni insurgents have joined us in the fight against al Qaeda; the Iraqi Army has taken the lead in places once lost to Sunni and Shia extremists; and the Iraqi Government has begun to make progress toward political reconciliation.
None of this progress would have happened had we not changed course over a year ago. And all of this progress would be lost if Senator Obama had his way and began to withdraw our forces from Iraq without concern for conditions on the ground and the advice of commanders in the field. Americans ought to be concerned about the judgment of a presidential candidate who says he’s ready to talk, in person and without conditions, with tyrants from Havana to Pyongyang, but hasn’t traveled to Iraq to meet with General Petraeus, and see for himself the progress he threatens to reverse.
Developing...
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I operate on the premise, that: 'All things work together for good for those of us who love God, for those of us who are called according to his purpose.'
What is important and critical to the success or failure in Iraq or for a John McCain candidacy is in finding the right Vice Presidential candidate to accommodate him.
Someone that has proven spiritual attributes.
I am not talking about someone who thinks he is 'blessed' by name, but of someone who has demonstrated in his life some positive prophetic characteristics.
I am not talking about someone who has been blessed with a million dollars, won a national lottery or 20 elections.
This is the challenge: Find the reverse of what the 'children of mammon' look for in a political candidate, and the country will have found the right person or persons to compliment the candidacy of John McCain. read more »
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A lot of discussion has arisen about whom John McCain will choose as his Vice President. Though interesting, as it concerns someone being raised into the Presidential Picture, the topic is a distraction. John McCain is not going to be elected President by selecting a good Vice President. A Vice President can maybe bring his or her own state into the President candidate's win column, or he or she can add strength in a policy area, true; but that isn't a major addition to the entire picture. So let's get back to the big picture, OK ?
This election will be won by John McCain, maybe, IF he succeeds in doing the following things:
1.convincing Americans that he is the strongest, most knowledgeable candidate with respct to freign policy issues including (but not limited to) War on Terror matters.
Here I feel very confident. read more »
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