Posts Tagged ‘2008 Elections’

I Am Joe

Posted: October 18, 2008 in 2008 Elections, John McCain, Media
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Republicans have organized an online petition and movement to defend Joe the Plumber. They argue that Joe has been treated unfairly by the Democrats and, by extension, the media who put his life under the microscope.

Let me make one thing clear – the Joe the Plumber story would have been a one-day story if McCain had not pounced on him and made nearly two dozen references to him during the last presidential debate. But according to this account in the Politico, the McCain people simply didn’t do their homework on Joe before they embraced him.

NEW YORK – John McCain hung his final presidential debate performance on an Ohio plumber who campaign aides never vetted.

A day after making Joseph Wurzelbacher famous, referencing him in the debate almost two dozen times as someone who would pay higher taxes under Barack Obama, McCain learned the fine print Thursday on the plumber’s not-so-tidy personal story: He owes back taxes. He is not a licensed plumber. And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president.

McCain likes to say that he isn’t George W. Bush – and in this case of bungled public relations, it is clear he is not. The famously disciplined Bush campaign operation would likely have found the perfect anonymous citizen to illustrate a policy proposal, rather than spontaneously wrap itself around an unknown entity with so many asterisks.

While the arc of Wurzelbacher’s breakneck trip through the news cycle – from private citizen to insta-celebrity to political target – offers a curious insight into the political media culture, it also appears to offer a glimpse into the McCain campaign’s on-the-fly decision-making style.

A McCain source said Thursday that the campaign read about Wurzelbacher on the Drudge Report, while another campaign aide confirmed that he was not vetted. Senior McCain adviser Matt McDonald told Politico after the debate that Wurzelbacher was not aware that he would become central to the candidates’ third and final showdown, although Wurzelbacher told reporters Thursday that the McCain campaign contacted him earlier in the week to ask him to appear with the candidate at a Toledo rally scheduled for Sunday. (He may not make it, now that he’s scheduled to be in New York for TV interviews.)

By doing so, they brought the intense interest and scrutiny of the press and Democratic opposition researchers on Joe, who clearly had no idea what was about to hit him. They found out that he wasn’t a licensed plumber and that he hadn’t paid more than $1,000 in taxes, all from public records.

Was Joe asking Obama a legitimate question? Yes. Has the media coverage of him been obsessive to the point of ridicule? Yes. But the sad reality is that by drawing attention to him, the McCain campaign put him in this situation. If the situation were reversed and it were the Obama campaign embracing Joe, it would be Republican operatives and the media who would be vetting him after the fact.

A Tattoo for Your Votes

Posted: October 18, 2008 in 2008 Elections, John McCain
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Meghan McCain, stumping for her dad in New Hampshire:

NASHUA – If Sen. John McCain wins the presidency in a little more than three weeks, his daughter said she’ll tattoo “Live Free or Die” somewhere on her body.

Of course, he would have to win in New Hampshire, too, said Meghan McCain, who was in Nashua yesterday thanking volunteers at the McCain-Palin campaign office.

The tattoo, which would probably go on her wrist, would be her way of commemorating her father’s run for the presidency, she said. It was in New Hampshire that McCain revived his faltering presidential bid during the presidential primary in January.

“New Hampshire is so important to me and my family,” she said.

Earlier, McCain told a supporter that she would be “extremely depressed” if her dad loses in New Hampshire.

“More so than any other state,” she said.

Chicago Tribune Endorses Obama

Posted: October 18, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Media
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Why is this significant? Because Barack Obama is the first Democrat the paper has ever endorsed for president in its 161-year history.

NRSC Gives Up on Colorado Senate Race

Posted: October 17, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Senate
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Hello, Senator Udall…

Republican sources in Colorado and Washington say that the National Republican Senatorial Committee plans to pull out of the state by next week, an acknowledgment that its independent expenditure resources would be better spent on defense elsewhere.

Earlier this week, the NRSC withdrew its advertising from the Louisiana Senate race.

The NRSC is still helping Roger Wicker in Mississippi and incumbents Norm Coleman in Minnesota, John Sununu in New Hampshire.

Update: TPM Election Central says Colorado is still in the game.

NRSC: We Are Not Pulling Out Of Colorado
The NRSC is denying reports that they are pulling out of the Colorado Senate race, a story that has been circulating on the blogs today. “Reports that we are pulling out of Colorado are false,” NRSC spokesman John Randall told Election Central, adding that another ad is going up on the air.

A Short Election Night in 2008

Posted: October 17, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, John McCain
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Politico has this article on how the election might be over fairly early this year. The central argument is that the election could be decided by the time the first polls close on the East coast and while polls may still be open in the rest of the country.

I’ll agree to that but have to expand it to two states that could decide the whole thing: Virginia and North Carolina. Both have been solidly in the GOP column for decades. If Barack Obama takes one or both of them (worth a combined 28 electoral votes, one more than Florida), that would make John McCain’s life very difficult as the night goes on unless he is able to pick off a Kerry state like Wisconsin or Pennsylvania to make up the difference. He might be able to afford losing one if he can get another big state or set of small states to keep it competitive. If he loses both, the night becomes more bleak and he may as well start practicing his concession speech.

Needless to say, if more Eastern states break for Obama early in the evening than originally expected (West Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky), then it’s going to be a 300-plus vote blowout in the Electoral Colllege.

The Tell

Posted: October 17, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Sarah Palin
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The headline does not reflect the lead of the story, a rare mistake for my alma mater.

(CNN) – Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told supporters at a North Carolina fundraiser that her aides discouraged her from watching campaign news because they thought she would get “depressed.”

“At those times on the campaign trail when sometimes it’s easy to get a little bit discouraged, when you know, when you happen to turn on the news when your campaign staffers will let you turn on the news,” she said Thursday night, to laughter from the crowd. “Usually they’re like ‘Oh my gosh, don’t watch, you’re going to, you know, you’re going to get depressed.’

“But yeah, sometimes you do get depressed watching what it is that they’re reporting and the spin and some of the distortion of what our message is and what we stand for, sometimes that, that gets draining,” she added. “But it’s at events like these and our rallies that we are so energized and inspired and we know that we are not alone. We feel your strength and we feel the power of prayer, so many of you tell us that you are praying for us and praying for our country, and that’s why we so appreciate you being here.”

The view isn’t all glum from the trail. “We even saw today, thank the Lord, we saw some movement,” looking upwards and making a fist. Another bright note for her, she said later, was visiting “pro-America” areas of the country.

My next question is what are the “anti-America” areas of the country, according to Sarah Palin?

Update: As expected, Joe Biden pounces on Palin’s “pro-America” comment.

Bobby Jindal in Iowa

Posted: October 17, 2008 in 2008 Elections
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Gentlemen, start your engines…

Quote of the Day

Posted: October 17, 2008 in 2008 Elections
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“Look, I’ve been in their position. I know what it’s like when the world comes crashing down around you in a presidential race.  I used to have a saying in 1996 that is absolutely applicable to these guys in 2008: Denial is not a river in Africa.”
– Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio

Ouch

Posted: October 16, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Sarah Palin
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Andrew Sullivan: Joe the Plumber has now had more press conferences than Sarah Palin.

Circular Firing Squad

Posted: October 16, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Beltway Drama, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Talking Heads
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A few days ago, I made note of the back and forth sniping going on between the McCain campaign and conservative pundit Bill Kristol. It’s gotten a bit personal lately, with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis personally taking Kristol out to the woodshed on national television. The key soundbite:

DAVIS: Yes, well, you know, it’s a good thing Bill Kristol has never run a political campaign because he’d probably have to fire himself at least two or three times.

This may be beyond standard political sniping. Scott Horton of Harper’s has written extensively about Bill Kristol’s role in promoting Sarah Palin for the VP slot. But in a recent interview with Glenn Greenwald, Horton reveals evidence of discontent behind closed doors at the McCain campaign.

SH: I’d say, of course the McCain campaign isn’t doing too well right now, and one of the consequences of that is we’ve got a lot of finger-pointing going on within the camp, and I’d say there’s a pretty broad agreement amongst a number of the senior-most advisors to McCain that the Palin pick is worse than disappointing. It’s a total disaster, as one describes to me. And there is a sort of blame game going on there.

Now, one of them described to me quite recently in some detail, who it was who introduced and pushed the Palin nomination, and he says it really boils down – there were a number of people behind the nomination, but there’s one person who was essentially the person who introduced her as a candidate and pushed her consistently and firmly all through the summer primary she was elected – and that person is Bill Kristol. And the interesting thing is of course, if we look across the whole horizon of conservative columnists, prominent conservative columnists, pretty much all of them are expressing reservations or concerns or they’re outright opposing Palin as a pick, with one really striking exception, and that’s Bill Kristol. And Bill Kristol, in none of his columns has acknowledged that he in a sense is the author of Sarah Palin. He discovered her, he promoted her, and he pushed her through to the vice-presidential nomination.

If this is true, that makes Kristol’s recent criticism of Palin much more self-serving. It’s become full-on cover your ass mode. When the post-mortem of this campaign is written, there will be a lot of people pointing fingers at each other, and I think quite a few of them will be pointed at Bill Kristol.

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