The Pit of My Stomach
| Wed Aug. 27, 2008 5:53 PM PDT
THE PIT OF MY STOMACH....Democrats sure are a bunch of nervous nellies, aren't they? And hey — I admit that I've gotten up a couple of times this week with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach too. Obama's poll lead is shrinking. The convention has been sort of a fizzle so far. The media is obsessed with the hundred or so PUMA dead enders screaming in the streets of Denver. And John McCain's campaign of junior high school character assassination seems to be working pretty well.
But look. There's a reason I blog with my fingers, not with the pit of my stomach, and the fundamentals of the race really haven't changed that much. After four weeks of nonstop attacks from the McCain machine Obama is still a couple of points ahead in the polls with plenty of time left until election day. He hasn't raised as much money as he'd hoped, but he's still outraising McCain by a sizeable margin. Over the course of the campaign I think Joe Biden is going to be a surprisingly strong asset. In order to avoid a complete implosion in Congress the GOP is going to be forced to spend a ton of money it doesn't have on Senate and House races. I continue to believe that Obama will start running a much tougher and more focused campaign after Labor Day. His ground operation is going to be superlative (something that doesn't show up in the polls). And Obama is still, regardless of how McCain's troupe of gleeful attack poodles spins it, a charismatic and appealing candidate almost oozing with good sense and good judgment.
And call me a goggle-eyed optimist (no, really, go ahead), but I still think that at some point the press is going to tire of McCain's schtick. His slime is so patent, his pandering is so obvious, his lack of seriousness is so palpable, and his attacks are so transparent, that it just has to eventually get through to them. I'm well aware that history isn't on my side here, but still I hope. These folks have to have a little pride, don't they?
Continues Below
Continued From Above
Comments
I have the same sentiments. Polls have been out in left field for years now, have any of them been remotely accurate? Add in that only those who actually own home telephones and will answer poll calls are being tallied. How many sane people actually answer their phone when they see political pollster calling? I know I don't.
Second - don't forget that the media has a dog in this fight. They want a close race right up to the finish line because that ratchets up viewership. The more the race looks like a cliff hanger, the better for the MSM. Bottom line: who the hell knows what is actually going on out there, when there is money on the table, all bets are off for honest answers.
Submitted by TangoMan (not verified) on Wed Aug. 27, 2008 6:22 PM PDT.
And Obama is still . . . a charismatic and appealing candidate almost oozing with good sense and good judgment.
Charismatic = evidence is overwhelming.
Appealing = every candidate is appealing. The real question is whether the candidate appeals to a sufficient number of voters to win the election. Look, Huckabee and Al Sharpton were appealing too.
Oozing with good sense and good judgment = you've got to be kidding me. Anyone with good sense and good judgment would exercise that good sense and good judgment in forming their personal relationships and wouldn't walk out on a gang-plank, all alone, on the issue of killing babies delivered through botched abortions.
i realize that the plural of anecdote (and especially personal anecdote!) isn't data, but i'd like to suggest that a part of why obama's fundraising hasn't quite met expectations is because of people like me: once obama sold out on FISA, i was so aggravated that i said "i'm not giving any money."
well, with 2 months to go, i may be on the verge of having to rethink that (i suppose it's my own little puma moment), but i can't help but think that that awkward and obvious stab for the center was a big mistake.
life goes on, though: letting mccain win would be a much bigger mistake....
Why should the press criticize McCain's ads? I sure don't remember them correcting the myth of Gore as a liar or the swiftboaters.
And are the Dems putting pressure on McCain? No, they are going out of their way to talk about how McCain is so honorable. They should be telling the truth, that McCain is a ruthless politician, with a sleazy personal life and questionable ethics.
Kevin,
You may type with your fingers, but at the end of the day you're just a political pundit (a wonkish one at that) who has no idea which way the electorate will go on this. There's no doubt in my mind that Obama is much more qualified to lead than McCain, but logic and reason have little to do with winning elections, unfortunately. If you ask me to have faith in the American people, then I will simply point you to the last two presidential elections.
A second (or 3rd or 4th) from me. That's exactly why the Obama envelope is sitting here unsent next to me on my bedside table. Well, that and the fact that when they called me I said I wouldn't donate b/c of FISA, but if they wanted to send me a form I'd think about it. And also exactly why I'll probably end up sending it in in the next day or so. But not as big of one as I might have sent.
And as a web designer/developer and something of a user-interface maven, can I point out again what a wretched one this is, especially when each thread post has an exceedingly misleading "respond" link that does NOT mean--as any rational person would think--"make a response to this person's post"???? Sheesh. Mine, above, was meant as a response to Howard.
I wonder if Obama will do some hedging this fall if he feels that he may fall short of winning the election. That is, he starts campaigning more for other Senate and House candidates which could net a few extra seats for the party next year.
I don't see this for McCain. He probably can't help House or Senate Republican and therefore he is the GOP's only hope (at least in his mind), he doesn't have the money, and I'm not sure he would want that role.
Durable goods #s were surprisingly good today. "The fundamentals of the race" are that the economy is lousy (Has anyone noticed that Iraq has moved almost entirely into the backround?), and people are sick of Republicans. But McCain has been somewhat immune to the general "sick of Republicans" disease, while the Democratic brand name on the presidential level seems to be almost permanently sullied. To top it off, Obama has been a very mediocre campaigner to date (and that's being charitable). If attitudes about the economy show signs of perking up in the next two months, this race becomes, at best, a tossup. That isn't likely, but it isn't a crazy longshot, either.
While I agree there has been a little too much handwringing lately, it's a natural result of nominating an unknown with no experience but with obvious handicaps, like Obama, for the presidency, after a really fevered and bizarre primary. I remember when Dukakis was nominated in '88, how confident everyone (myself included) was that he would win. Given the choice, I'd rather people were worrying and paranoid, because along with worry and paranoia comes alertness. Of course, given the choice, I'd rather Obama were not the nominee, but some choices aren't given....
Submitted by Mark Adams (not verified) on Wed Aug. 27, 2008 7:27 PM PDT.
Dude, you had me until the last paragraph. I swear you or Ezra or Atrios or maybe Kos wrote something almost identical last election.
And that put a lump in the pit of my stomach.
[btw, nice diggs. Long way from the old calipundit, eh?]
Kevin, I hope you're right, but recent history is anything but encouraging. When it comes to our mainstream media, no matter how cynical I get, I just can't seem to keep up. Look at Brokaw on Monday night, kissing McCain's ass. Just preposterous. So we can't leave anything to chance. That said, I think things are going much better than the MSN would have had us believe. And the choice of Biden wears better and better.
"These folks have to have a little pride, don't they?"
Ditto the "No" comment from above. Instead of careful analysis all we tend to get is self-referential meme regurgitation - with the memes lazily being recast from the past (e.g., McCain is a straight talking maverick) or injected by the McCain campaign and circulated as though the assertions validate themselves. Oh, the more "thoughtful" media people don't just simply restate the Obama character assassination assertions verbatim; no, instead they use them to frame questions that get asked again and again without hardly ever examining the validity of the assertions themselves, with the net affect being essentially to create doubts exactly as the McCain campaign wants.
Democrats sure are a bunch of nervous nellies, aren't they?
PBBTH. Having the campaign act like losers makes me nervous, as it should.
After four weeks of nonstop attacks from the McCain machine Obama is still a couple of points ahead in the polls with plenty of time left until election day.
Check. However, there have been no non-stop responses so far.
He hasn't raised as much money as he'd hoped, but he's still outraising McCain by a sizeable margin.
Good.
Over the course of the campaign I think Joe Biden is going to be a surprisingly strong asset.
I REALLY FUCKING HOPE SO.
In order to avoid a complete implosion in Congress the GOP is going to be forced to spend a ton of money it doesn't have on Senate and House races.
Perhaps. They are maybe thinking if they just keep turnout down they can hold where they are. In any event, yes, the D majority is likely to be much larger even if we get stuck with President Maniac.
I continue to believe that Obama will start running a much tougher and more focused campaign after Labor Day.
No evidence. It would be nice if it happened.
His ground operation is going to be superlative (something that doesn't show up in the polls).
This is actually what bothers me. The Obama strategic braintrust is confident. Really confident. Too damn confident for its own good. Over-confidence makes you lazy. I want them to be worried while they're ahead, not for them to finally start worrying when they're way behind.
Concentrating solely on the ground race smacks of trying to win the last election. This election the R's have no ground game because they got no money, but they don't care, because they're going to try to win this one by pretending their candidate is named McObama (D - Honky). It shouldn't work, but it will if Obama (D - Actual) just sits there.
And Obama is still, regardless of how McCain's troupe of gleeful attack poodles spins it, a charismatic and appealing candidate
Sure.
almost oozing with good sense and good judgment.
Show, don't tell.
And call me a goggle-eyed optimist (no, really, go ahead), but I still think that at some point the press is going to tire of McCain's schtick.
That's not optimistic, that's evidence of crack-smoking. They didn't tire of it with Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, or Kerry. Or Carter, come to think of it. As long as the herd is moo-cowing trying to stay 'balanced', balance is whatever the herd thinks it is, and currently, balance is that it's ok if McCain lies like a rug. Part of the game is to get the cows to moo along with you at least a large part of the time. Right now, all I'm hearing is 'MOOOO-cain'. Not good.
I'm well aware that history isn't on my side here, but still I hope. These folks have to have a little pride, don't they?
"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, maybe you just don't understand the situation."
This rather reeks of 2004 when I emailed you in early August to ask if anybody was gonna bother to respond to this crap, and you told me to be patient. Three weeks later was when you and the D blogcrowd started to blog about how horrific the swiftboating was, which was more than a bit late.
Obviously, the word has been passed downon high to calm everybody down. And my response is that Obama is a smart, charismatic guy, but part of having good judgment is to find the fire and put it out before it goes wildfire. (See! For instance! George Bush and Katrina!) Obviously, Obama wants to concentrate on the convention and the Clintonites, but no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
So he should know, (and you, as an observer who isn't in the bubble and who has seen this before, should know this very well) that we have a problem here, Houston, so it's time to stop Mickey-Mousing around with this shit and get on the goddamn stick. It ain't beanbag, badmitton, or beach volleyball, and it ain't goddamn rocket science either.
max
['Now you can lecture me on how wrong I am and how unreasonable I am being to expect a presidential campaign to campaign against the other guy.']
Hopefully the debates will end McCain's bid.
Remember what Novak said how it was good that McCain not get to much media exposure.
So hopefully Obama is on top of his game and does his damn homework before the debates. Obama should knock McCain completely out of the game after the debates show American just how Bushified McSame is.
But it is kind of strange because their are more registered Dems now that Republican - of people who left the Republican Party. So Obama is losing members of his own party. And largely this is BECAUSE of Joe Biden and the FISA Bill. Obama wouls still be 15 points ahead if he had voted for that FISA Bill.
The media will tire of worshipping The Mc Cain? Let's look at recent history:
Over the past couple weeks, Mc Cain has created several attack ads they never intended to run on the air. The media knew this because their accounting departments had zero receipts for ad buys. So the pundits ran their ads as part of their mild commentary against them. They gave free ad time under the guise of reporting the news. This USED to be illegal.
Now the Mc Cain camp is paying for ad time, & the networks are finally talking about how maybe they shouldn't comment about & replay the ads because it "might give Mc Cain an unfair advantage to display the ads again." By making this excuse to not comment, the they don't have to point out that many of the ads are outright lies - like the most recent one, for example.
Don't you think it might be about time, Kevin, to call the networks the liars they are, rather than to express the "hope" they will see the light & do the right thing? We all know they are in the tank for Mc Cain. It is way past time for the blogs to call them out on it. That is the only way they might clean up their act.
But I wouldn't hold my breath while waiting for this miracle to happen...
Hey, Kevin, weren't you predicting the nomination win for Hillary about this far out from the numbers being in?
Anyway, I hope you're right, but damn, I guess I'm afeart of the g'damned republican illuminati (you know, the military-industrial complex) and the smirking, self-bullshitting press will put our heads in the toilet again.
"And call me a goggle-eyed optimist (no, really, go ahead), but I still think that at some point the press is going to tire of McCain's schtick"
This is like some junior in the Pepsi marketing department wondering when Coca-cola will tire of claiming that Coke is the better product.
After all these years Kevin still doesn't get who these people work for.
Please Dems, stop saying merely "More of the same." Start saying "Worse than the last 8 years!" Bush II inherited a decent economy and budget surplus. If McCain continues his 'Bushinomics 101' with the economy as it stands, it will be worse than the last 8 years! Much worse!
His slime is so patent, his pandering is so obvious, his lack of seriousness is so palpable, and his attacks are so transparent, that it just has to eventually get through to them. I'm well aware that history isn't on my side here, but still I hope. These folks have to have a little pride, don't they?
No.
This is your edition of simple answers to simple questions.
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.
