Archive for the ‘2008 Elections’ Category

Mistakes Were Made

Posted: November 3, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Humor, Joe Biden, John McCain, Quotes, Sarah Palin
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Earlier, I posted a link to Politico’s list of the biggest gaffes of the campaign, while adding my own to the list. TIME Magazine has put together a much more thorough version of that list, which is well worth reading.

I had forgotten so many of these gaffes, and how they dominated the campaign cycle at one point or another. My revised list of big gaffes, based on political fallout or humor:

John McCain’s “Fundamentals of our economy” comment
Hillary Clinton ducking sniper fire in Bosnia
Phil Gramm’s “Nation of whiners” comment
Barack Obama’s 57 states comment
Mark Penn’s Colombian deal
Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric
Barack Obama’s “Bitter” comment
Sarah Palin’s wardrobe
Joe Biden’s international test
Sarah Palin’s prank call
Mitt Romney: “Who Let the Dogs Out”
Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth” comment

Palin Prank Call Aftermath

Posted: November 3, 2008 in 2008 Elections, John McCain, Sarah Palin
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Newsweek has a look at what went on behind the scenes before and after Palin got the infamous phone call.

The most shocking thing to me was that neither the campaign’s senior leadership (Steve Schmidt, Mark Salter, Rick Davis, et. al.) nor the candidate himself was brought into the loop when the preliminary calls came in. Given how carefully stage-managed Palin’s rollout was, especially when she was meeting foreign heads of state at the United Nations several weeks ago, I would have guessed that a call from the French president would have been run up the flagpole immediately. But as an unidentified senior McCain aide said, it should have raised red flags immediately.

According to one participant, who declined to be named, aides went back and forth venting their frustration. “Does anyone not think it’s strange that the French president would want to talk to a candidate in the final 72 hours of the campaign,” one senior McCain aide demanded, noting that the White House and the National Security Council would likely be involved in any such phone calls. “It’s appalling.” Bigger picture, the episode provides a glimpse at what have been increased tensions between the McCain plane and the Palin plane in the final weeks of the campaign. Aides have pushed back in recent days against stories that all is not well between the two camps, but it appears that may not be exactly true.

As MSNBC political analyst Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out, after taking into account the $150,000 shopping spree and now the prank call on top of that, Palin may well have the worst campaign staff in history.

Sarah Palin, Constitutional Scholar

Posted: November 2, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Media, Sarah Palin
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Palin’s not a fan of the press.

In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by “attacks” from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

But she may want to brush up on constitutional law first.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

One-Liners and Gaffes

Posted: November 2, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Humor, Joe Biden, John McCain, Sarah Palin
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Politico compiles the best of the 2008 cycle. They focused on the two presidential nominees, but I would expand the list to include some of the other characters we’ve seen in the 2008 race.

ONE-LINERS
Joe Biden hits Rudy Giuliani: “A noun, a verb and 9/11”
Sarah Palin on the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull.
Bob Casey at the DNC: “That’s not a maverick, that’s a sidekick.”
Mike Huckabee: “Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office.”
John McCain on following Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell.

GAFFES
Sarah Palin’s entire interview with Katie Couric
Hillary Clinton invoking the assassination of Bobby Kennedy during the primaries
Barack Obama’s “bitter” comments at a fundraiser
Carly Fiorina saying John McCain and Sarah Palin couldn’t run Hewlett Packard
John McCain: “Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran”

Circular Firing Squad

Posted: November 2, 2008 in 2008 Elections, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Senate
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John Ensign, chairman of the NRSC gets in on the Palin-bashing.

Something Missing at Palin Event in Florida

Posted: November 2, 2008 in 2008 Elections, John McCain, Sarah Palin
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CNN noticed something curious at a recent Palin rally in Florida:

POLK CITY, Florida (CNN) — At a boisterous Sarah Palin rally in Polk City, Florida on Saturday afternoon, one name was surprisingly absent from the campaign décor — John McCain’s.

Looking around the Fantasy of Flight aircraft hangar where the rally took place, one could see all the usual reminders that it was a pro-McCain event. There were two large “Country First” banners hung on the walls along with four enormous American flags meant to conjure the campaign’s underlying patriotic theme. Many of the men and women in the audience wore McCain hats and t-shirts.

But on closer inspection, the GOP nominee’s name was literally nowhere to be found on any of the official campaign signage distributed to supporters at the event.

Members of the audience proudly waved “Country First” placards as Palin delivered her stump speech. Those signs were paid for by the Republican National Committee.

The other sign handed out to supporters read “Florida is Palin Country,” but those signs were neither paid for by the Republican National Committee nor the McCain campaign. In small print, the signs were stamped with the line “Paid for and authorized by Putnam for Congress” — as in, the re-election campaign of Florida congressman Adam Putnam, whose district skirts Polk City.

In fact, Putnam’s name was considerably more prominent than was McCain’s — his campaign had placed a number of large “Putnam for Congress” banners around the event site.

Schedules for the Final Days

Posted: November 2, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, Sarah Palin
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TPM’s Greg Sargent has the schedules. This speaks volumes about the morale in the two campaigns and who’s got momentum.

McCain/Palin:
Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia

Obama/Biden:
Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia

The final days of the campaign are going to be fought out by the candidates on the ground in Bush states, with the exception of Pennsylvania – which McCain needs to reach 270 votes, and the four states (Alaska, Arizona, Delaware and Illinois) where the candidates go to cast their ballot and watch the results come in. This has been the dynamic of the campaign for much of the final weeks. If somebody had told me four years ago that this year would come down to a handful of what were reliably Republican states for years, in some cases decades, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Sarah Palin Gets Punk’d

Posted: November 2, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Humor, Sarah Palin
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A Canadian radio host/comedian manages to crank call Sarah Palin while impersonating French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

The Obama campaign’s response:

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Asked by ABC News if he’d heard the prank call played on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Robert Gibbs, a senior adviser to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told reporters that he’d heard parts of it.

His response?

“I’m glad we check out our calls before we hand the phone to Barack Obama,” Gibbs said.

Thanks But No Thanks

Posted: November 2, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, John McCain
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The Times of London puts together this list of political endorsements that the candidates didn’t really want.

Cheney Endorses McCain

Posted: November 2, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, John McCain
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With George W. Bush on the sidelines during the final days of the election, the Obama campaign got the next best thing (or arguably, something better from their perspective): Dick Cheney’s public endorsement of John McCain.

It probably wasn’t his intention, but Cheney just handed the Obama campaign a whole new case of ammunition to use against McCain during the final days. Cheney’s approval ratings are lower than President Bush’s, 18 percent in a Harris poll taken last June, in part because he genuinely did not care about his personal poll numbers during his entire vice presidency because he was never going to run for the top job this year.

There is something liberating about having an attitude or mindset like that in any politician, but I wonder whether or not it affected his political antenna. Nobody but the most die-hard Republicans is excited about Cheney, and he is not the most effective messenger for undecided voters especially when the ballot is by extension a referendum on the eight years the administration he served was in power.

And to absolutely no one’s surprise, Obama pounced on the endorsement.

I doubt any voters are going to make their decision in the booth based on Dick Cheney’s endorsement. The flap here from the Republican perspective is that it’s a last-minute reinforcement of Obama’s “McCain=Bush” message which has been very effective as an attack strategy.

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