The Midnight Hour

One missed point: constantly throughout the campaign John McCain has been attacking Obama and his celebrity status. He has a point, the media crawl all over Obama and McCain is increasingly elbowed to the sidelines. By choosing Palin (rather than an expected pick - Romney, Pawlenty, Christ) he has launched his campaign back into the limelight and is getting all sorts of attention and generating interest (at least his running mate is). I don’t believe it is enough to win him the election but it is a shrewd move. Obama ‘08!

“I wish interest rates were zero” -McCain on the economy.

Insightful commentary as usual, though I’m surprised that you find her qualified for the position. Perhaps you can flesh this out a bit in a subsequent post.

Ben, I don’t subscribe to the theory that you have to be 60 years old and have served in Washington for 20 years to be qualified for president. You won’t hear me criticize Obama for lack of experience either.

I think principled decision-making and leadership skills are all that is required for a president. The president will always have tons of advisors and subject matter experts to give him/her the necessary information for a decision. Parsing that information and making a principled and timely decision is what a president must be capable of.

Personally, I’d like to have a president that hasn’t been in DC for decades. That person would be much more likely to question long-held assumptions than a dyed in wool bureaucrat. I once blogged about this topic on Homefires for the New York Times. Liberal commenters ripped me a new one. Now their presidential candidate is the epitome of what I suggested, just with different principles.

First of, I don’t see Palin as presidential material, yet, maybe she’ll prove herself in the debates.

As for Palin picking up Clinton supporters, I think your dreaming. Palin is very conservative, pro-life with no exceptions even for rape and incest, pro-gun NRA member, global warming skeptic, and according to Wired is for creationism being taught in public schools. Which basically runs the gambit of all the wedge issues held highly by Hillary supporters.

Jason, as you suggest, she won’t pick up any Clinton supporters that care deeply about those issues. She will pick up the votes of many (tens of thousands?) of women who like many men remain uninformed about the election until they see a debate on TV in October.

As I said, she’s not turning any traditional democrats. She’s turning the idiots who don’t care about politics but will vote for a woman for the sake of voting for a woman.

I know someone that voted for Hillary simply because Hillary has female genitalia (allegedly).

Hillary is one of the most popular political figures of all time…especially among American voters. A lot of her supporters are very aware of Hillary’s platform. However, I think that because she is so popular that she’s also got a small percentage of uneducated voters who can’t wait for the chance to put a female in the White House. I think that percentage is very small.

However, in my limited Presidental election experiences I’ve never seen a party so divided as Obama camp and the Hillary camp. They were going at during the elections. Last week at the DNC we saw Hillary supports protesting Obama. Surely McCain will now get some of those votes. In fact, some of them got on camera and said they are voting for McCain. The addition of Palin will bring even more.

Will it be a significant amount? Who knows? But, I think McCain has done something that has shocked the Dems (and Republicans) while making his ticket different than the status quo (another old white guy as VP).

As Jeff says, she’s over the age of 35 and a natural born citizen of the US so she’s able to be Prez or VP.

But, in today’s modern times of instant communication, transparent lifestyles, and accountability, the American people are more comfortable with someone who has proven executive leadership that someone who doesn’t. I claim that this is why Governors get elected for Prez more often than Senators. While Palin is a Governor, she’s a no name with little prior attention or press.

Who really votes a ticket based on a VP’s lack of experience? I think the mass voting public doesn’t. But I think a female VP gets a second look from everyone. I think Palin will have more name recognition than Biden on election day. She’ll make the conservatives happy. Because she is so conservative, I think of Hillary supports won’t get on board. However, I think she will draw a small group of voters that just want to see a female in the White House.

Eric, well put. Especially concur with

“Who really votes a ticket based on a VP’s lack of experience? I think the mass voting public doesn’t. But I think a female VP gets a second look from everyone.”

Palin is a very risky choice. It may shore up the base; but tell you the truth, those people weren’t going to vote for Obama anyways.

Election are all about narratives; and going into last week, I felt this elections narrative was going to be change, McCain votes with Bush, McCain is wrong vs. Obama is inexperienced and doesn’t know what the hell he is doing. With Palin as a VP pick, this throws McCain’s inexperienced argument out the window. If experience is so important; why have Palin one heartbeat away from the Presidency, an important question considering McCain’s age.

With Palin you also run the risk of feeding into Obama’s “McCain is wrong” narrative. As it will only take one or two gaffe’s for the media to start hounding Palin on her inexperience, making McCain look like he made the wrong decision again.

You think McBush’s, I mean McCain’s, strategy will work! Fine! Your reasoning is that “stupid” and moronic women will be attracted to Palin because the are angry about Clinton not getting the nomination. Typical repub reasoning. Very much like repubs southern strategy: Let’t go after the racist peckerwood vote. We don’t like them, respect them, but we can use the thest stupid peckerwoods by throwing them some red meat.
Mr. Barnett, perhaps I am being to optimistic, giving women to much credit, or toofaithful, but I would like to think that this cynical decision on McCain’s part will not work. It is obvious pandering and an act of desperation. Think about it. Attack you opponent for being inexperienced and then pick someone with less experience. Look, Obama served eight years in the Illinois legislature and 4 years as U.S. Senator. Palin was the mayor of a town with 9,000 and Governor of a state with barely a half a million people. Chicago alone, just one city in Illinois, has five times as many people as the entire state of Alaska and Palin has been Gov. only two years. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff you are better than that. At any rate, how convinced are you it will work. Interested in a wager?

Neuville,

1. I won’t bet on anything that can’t be concretely determined. I don’t think anyone will ever be able to prove whether McCain’s strategy worked on a large scale.

2. It’s hard to justify spending much time replying to your post when it’s filled with ad hominem, stereotypes, and condescension.

3. I am not typical. I am not a Republican. I am sure as hell not a typical Republican.

Jeff,

You charge my post is “filled with ad hominem, stereotypes, and condescension”? You were the one who labeled large groups of women “stupid and morons” base upon what evidence? What they watch on TV and the cars they drive? If you notice more carefully, I was recounting the right wing southern strategy. I was laying out the thinking involved in wooing the white working class vote nation wide in general and in the south more specifically. The Repubs rely on the racist vote to win national and swing state elections. Without it they would never elect a president. Honest republicans admit this publicly and have no qualms about exploiting this part of the electorate. In fact, look at the Sept. 4 USA Today on page 8A. Dick Armey admits that the racist “Bubba” vote will most likely defeat Obama. I agree. Obama will most likely be defeated because of the white racist vote. This is a well know phenomena. It is commonly accepted at the reason Tom Bradley lost the governors race in the 80’s and Bobby Jindal lost his first run for governor in Louisiana. I live in Louisiana at the time and a political scientists did a study and found that a sizable segment of the northern Louisiana white electorate thought Jindal was a negro and didn’t vote for him for that reason. Since they have come to realize he is Indian. At any rate, as a white man married to an African American woman and with two African American sons who lived in Mississippi and Louisiana for three years, I found racism alive and well in the South. I could tell you stories. Like the father who didn’t want my 8 year old son coming over to his house because he didn’t want the neighbors to see black people coming to his house. Or the brothers of the white woman my son is engaged to who wanted to beat him up because he was black. She threatened to kill them and they back down. I am not saying you are racist or that all southerner are racist or that northerners are not racist. I am just saying that there is a fairly large group of racist, working class whites who the republicans exploit, tolerate and even encourage merely to get their candidates elected. You may not fall into this category. I do not know you. However, as I have shown, well respected people like Armey are honest and open about this. You, you say, are not a Repub, but you appear to the a right winger of some sort. I have not detected any notes of progressive thought in your posts.

Touche on the stereotypes.

I am definitely not a progressive liberal, but I am a classical liberal. I believe in limited government, free markets, individual responsibility, individual liberty, inherent human dignity, low taxes, and fiscal discipline. Republicans sometimes espouse those ideas, but in recent history they have turned their backs on several of those principles. I judge people by their actions, therefore, Republicans do not believe as I do, and I am not a Republican.

Wow, Neuville, just wow.

Jeff, excellent posts as usual.

These campaigns have always been about pandering, and marketing. Is it any different to chase the southern white (racist?) vote than it is for another group to chase the inner city black (racist?) vote?

My thoughts on the process are similar to what Jeff states, but in a slightly different approach, in that there are 40% (approx) of the voters who will vote Democrat no matter what, 40% (approx) who will vote Republican no matter what. Of the remaining 20 percent, somewhere from 10-15% (equally distributed Dem-Rep) are very unlikely to change their vote regardless. Its the remaining 5-10% that truly are undecided and whose votes can be won. These are the ones that millions are spent on the mind numbing drivel of disinformation better known as commercials. I do believe there is a “undecided” portion of this group who do indeed have skulls full of mush, and would vote purely based on gender or race. I do believe there is a portion of this group who can be categorized as having an attention span of less than 30 seconds on the average. I do believe there is a portion of this group that will base their vote on a media reported gaffe rather than anything to do with the issues. That is the sad state of things in our country that we are depending on these folks to lead our country into the next presidential rotation.

Neuville you do us all proud.

I am one of those Hillary supporters and I will not pander to McCain’s weak choice as a replacement woman on any ticket. Someone said it well earlier. Pallin’s views are so ridicously conservative it’s pathetic. What woman would vote for someone who does not beleve in abortion in rape and incest cases? She will show her true colors before election and McCain will drop in the polls as time goes by. This does not mean I support everything Obama says and believes. I know I want to vote, I just wish I had a decent choice. You have a great website and I enjoy reading your comments but to suggest that stupid women will vote just because there’s a woman on the republican ticket is mad. There are just as many male idiots who won’t vote the ticket just because she is on there.

Interesting to see an informed voter as a counter-example. However, you give stupid people much more credit than I do.

Is it really that hard to believe that some female voters will vote for a woman just because she’s female? I’ve heard that sentiment before in reference to Hillary’s camp, and heard little refute from Democrats. They seemed content when the “uninformed emotional vote” was on their side. But now that the tables are turned, American women are above that type of behavior? Really?! Every last one of them, just like that, huh? Amazing…

I, like Jeff, don’t give stupid people that much credit. Don’t get me wrong. If all previous Presidents had been female, and there was a man on the ticket for Prez/Vice Prez, I think he’d get just as many “stupid votes” as Hillary would have received, and Palin [i]will receive[/i]. In other words, I’m not discrediting women. Just being realistic about the fickle, ignorant nature of some of today’s U.S. population.

On the same token, I think there are *some* black people that will vote for Obama just because he’s black. Call me crazy… And while you’re at it, define “sexism” and “racism”, and let me know when they cease to exist, so I can wake up from this God-forsaken nightmare. Because that’s what it feels like sometimes, when I have to face the fact that while most of us have moved beyond sex and race, some of us are still stuck in the past, ignorant of any good they may find in those they pre-judge.

Let us hope Jeff is wrong. Let us hope no one votes for McCain/Palin, just because they want a woman in the White House. Let us hope no one votes for Obama, just so he can be the first black president. Let us hope they vote for whom they think would do the best job, whose morals, principals, and stance on issues most closely matches their own. We can only hope…

Really enjoyed the read! Thank you for service. I added you to the “Blogs of Our Heros” on our blog. Can’t wait to see what else you come up with.
Semper Fi!

Sarah is not the only “Barracuda”

Last night I was watching “This Week in Washington” on PBS with Gwen Ifil.
I was shocked at the smug and inappropriate comments especially from the female reporters about Sarah Palin.
I totally agree that with Sarah Palin’s remark that she is not going to Washington to please you the media, she is going to do thing to please me, the American voter. So get over it, Media! Get over your attitudes! Going on a TV show to get even does not look good in my eyes!
One reporter said she was insulted by Ms. Palin’s comments. I thought that the comments were fabulous, and the media needs to keep out of her family affairs. I can give some advice - “Those who live in glass houses, should not throw stones!”
Another reporter said that she needs to know everything about the VP nominee. No problem! However, her family life is private and should stay that way! The male candidates are never questioned about their families and whether they are able to work and take care of a family, so keep the focus where the focus should be.

Here are some examples if you are lost for ideas -Her experience, leadership, confidence, youth, vitality, fresh new attitude, role model for women, history making female, hard worker for the American citizen, political work, experience, communicator, and listener to what we need in Washington. I should also remind the reporters that women have been doing this for years, taking care of a family, working and going to school and in quite a few cases doing it alone!
These reporters were also talking about how small the town was where she was a mayor.
Hey, she ran a city, she ran a state, and she ran a business. Whether the town is small or the state is the largest in the union, the residents have the same needs, have the same concerns, have the same dreams and the problems that a leader faces can be sometimes more even challenging than running a larger city.
This Baracuda is proud to have Sarah Palin run as my Vice Presidential nominee.
Check out my blog at:
izatrinie.wordpress.com

Interesting thing about experience - Palin is derided for her lack of foreign policy experience, but what’s less clear to me is the relative importance of foreign policy experience to executive experience. From being a mayor and a governor, it seems to me that Palin may have more experience running an organization than does McCain . . . or Biden or Obama.

How important this is, frankly, is not that clear to me. I’m not trying to say that, if we’re comparing VP experience levels, that Palin is more qualified than Biden. What I am saying is that it’s two different levels of experience, and it’s not clear how much either one helps what.

On a much smaller scale I feel comfortable giving the opinion that “executive” experience is far different from staff or advisor experience, and that it is very important in running an organization.

Granted, I was never in charge of more than ~30 people at a time as a Marine officer, but even at that level it is far different to be the one in command and simply the advisor to the one in command. Your name is on the line for results, but you almost have to take a step back from the details and empower your subordinates while simultaneously supervising in a way that will not degrade trust but also keep you informed. I think that learning experience is important for any commanding officer, including the commander-in-chief.

Granted, it’s not 100% necessary for a leader, but I think executive experience does help prepare one for the presidency.

It surprises me how much you attacked the ignorance of modern American society and enforced your statement that people will vote for a president because of stupid backwards reasons. That being said, I believe you’re right. Complaining however doesn’t solve the problem. We need a way to educate the average voter at least in the minimal sense so that he or she make make a sensible opinion. Mind you I really couldn’t care what opinion they make as long as they have a reason for it. Give it an ‘all things considered’ sort of approach, and educate to engage a solution.