This poll could be an outlier but wow if it’s duplicated elsewhere. (Could it be that the appearance of “Biden” on a ticket is not a plus at all?)
Gustav preparations pronounced “good” by The One. Naturally, there is a competent Governor (Jindal) in charge this time. The Republican team goes off to Mississippi to observes preparations while the Democrats continue to campaign through the Rust Belt. We’ll see if the latter is another “on the beach while the Russians invade” episode — an instance which highlights The One’s obtuseness and lack of crisis management skills and knowledge.
Reality seeps out into the MSM: one reason why John McCain isn’t trailing badly in the polls is that “the economy is not actually all that bad.” Heresy! It’s the Great Depression, lights are flickering, and everyone is getting knocked down –isn’t that what Joe Biden told us?
Like his contemporary David Broder, William Safire doesn’t think much of Barack Obama’s Denver speech. For one thing it was “personal and mean.” But the setting doomed it from the start: “The pretension of the fake Grecian temple setting clashed with the high-decibel, rock-star format and overwhelmed the history implicit in the event. Ancient Greeks had a word for it: hubris.”
There is a lesson to be learned about a candidate who continually blames the little people. Who can forget John Kerry’s “I don’t fall down!” More than anything, it shows the Obama team is stymied each time the McCain crew throws something new their way.
Rich Lowry is right — the McCain campaign isn’t a Bob Dole redux. Not by a long shot.
You can joke all you like about 10 a.m./3 a.m. calls, but it seems the Obama team never quite gets the first reaction right (e.g. Georgia). That’s not a good quality in a chief executive.
The Democrats can never resist the urge to overreach. And they never learn that people are always listening.
And if the Convention was shortened a day or two it might be a blessing in disguise. How many of those speakers at the Democratic Convention were unwatchable? And how much of the dead time was filled with negative and “off message” media chatter? Two nights packed with Sarah Palin, John McCain and some bio films might be punchier and more effective. Others agree.
So funny it could be a McCain ad.
Jonathan Martin is right — the GOP base is juiced. Doing that while simultaneously making a play for the Hillary voters is, if nothing else, a political coup. But she has to swim past the sharks. (She probably hunts sharks for a hobby, right? Well, she does have a grizzly bear hide on her couch.)
This headline is right, but before you win them over you have to get their attention.
Palin brought in a ton of dough after her pick. She clearly has multiple uses: fundraising, reaching out to the base, securing the western and mountain states and grabbing the undecided women voters. Was the McCain this smart or did they get lucky? We’ll see how lucky after she performs under pressure for a few weeks.
One benefit of a surprise pick is that you catch your opposition flat-footed. Think of all that wasted Romney and Pawlenty oppo research!
What’s left is a triumph for Obama and his liberal agenda. Sorry bud.
The left are hallucinating that Messiah has the answer for these econominc woes. All they got are more wet dreams of corruption and patronage.
I’ll wager Republicans will take this butt-whupin and learn to be more accommodating. The DCCC is already running spots against the GOP freshmen who voted against the bill. It’s going to be a painful, expensive lesson.
If Obama truly gives up on bipartisanship, then you need to worry. Wehner and his buddies will be lawyering up when the war crimes trials start. Leahy is alreadly pushing the administration in that direction.
Franglo, we could hope. But lets look at triumph for his liberal agenda in the political sense only. The economy loses here, and the economy doesn’t care about your political persuasion. So when this so called stimulus bill extends the current recession, and then follows it with massive inflation due to all the borrowing with this bill (and TARP II – The Son of TARP) we will find ourselves back into a possible stagflation mode. So glad the One is letting that one happen.
If you find that a triumph, I pity you. There are very few economists of any worth who thinks this will help. And the NYT former economist turned opinion columnist doesn’t count – whatever he used to know about economics he seems to have forgotten.
Bill: Why do you care if they support the stimulus bill? The Dems already control the House, and don’t need Republican support. You clearly don’t care about the political fate of Republicans, so you should be thrilled that they reject what you consider a good bill, thus harming their future electoral chances. Why on earth would you want them to be more “accomodating” in the future?
And Bill – show me the bipartisanship? Where was it? That I will have a meeting with you? Bipartisanship always seems to be make nice while you do everything I want. I hope they do target GOP freshmen, because it will secure their re-election. If it wouldn’t the whole bill would be passed already without the need for any cover from the GOP. Yes Mr. Bill, your political overlords are already studying the tea leaves – the majority doesn’t like the “stimulus” – and Obama’s favorable ratings are shrinking with amazing speed. If this is a political football fumble to oppose this pork laden spending bill, the polls sure don’t seem to agree with you.
#5 – it’s not about the actual effect on the economy or even about politics as conventionally undestood. For the Franglos and Bills of the world it’s about continually receiving emotional validation. Politics is more like being a sports fan or like a compulsive addiction. They’re glad that their team just won the Super Bowl, but the high doesn’t last. They need another fix, and so they look around for anything that will work. They’re like the pigeons in the famous experiments on non-predictable schedules of reinforcement – and will keep on pecking at the bar in hopes of receiving a pellet until their beaks break off. For them, this isn’t a Stimulus Package we’ve been debating. It’s a Stimulus-Response Package, one in (they desperately hope) a series.
The sad thing is we “still” don’t know what Obama would do in regards to foreign policy. I don’t recall in any recent memory of a President having so tough a time in the first three weeks of coming into office.
CK, makes you wonder how all the Lefties will discover meaning to their lives now that the hated George Bush is out office.
Their dream is to push people around with the support of some nominal Republicans as window dressing.
what’s left?
why obama is…
Evidently the political and economic Stalinists that post on this site, while more overjoyed by the destruction of the Republican party than the triumph of the utopians, seem to have a sadistic streak that requires an ineffective remnant of the GOP to deride and taunt. Why? According to the “polls”, except for a dirty-faced band of troglodytes, the entire population of the country is on your side. The Republicans are helpless before the Democrat electoral explosion. The Republicans are irrelevant now. It’s all up to you guys. Move on. The Republicans are so over, like the Whigs. You’re not into kicking the Whigs any more, you’ve moved on from them, forget the Republicans, too. Those of us who love you, but don’t kiss you, will stand and watch for awhile, just to see what happens.
I’m afraid that’s not good enough, chuck. You must be assimilated!
When fueled by post-election euphoria, one or another troll would drop the snarl, and offer an earnest invitation to join the happy mega-family and support their awesome neo-Daddy. Even then the mood would rarely last for longer than a single post, and any expressed reluctance brought forth punishment. Nowadays, it’s pretty much 100% “Resistance is futile” joined to demands for self-abasement and unconditional surrender.
#13: Nowadays, it’s pretty much 100% “Resistance is futile” joined to demands for self-abasement and unconditional surrender.
That sums up the content perfectly, but what’s the motivation?
Maybe this triumphalism is a form of whistling Dixie, what with
Babyface aura faded, his honeymoon abridged
to a week, his “stimulus” unpopular, his initial tests in office
all failed, his new persona snarling and unattractive, his
horizon darkening.
Alas for the utopians, we live in a bi-polar world, yin and yang, up and down, black and white, left and right. The Republicans are an absolute necessity for the left, just as the “wreckers” were for the soviets. Some one has to take the blame for failure and it can’t be the utopians. As is obvious, the Bush destruction of the economy will take years and massive amounts of money and government expansion to repair. Any setbacks in the rehab will be blamed on the incredible perfidy of the predecessors and the continuing obstructionism of their pathetic descendants. The Democrats will keep their own party unified by maintaining the the life of the opposition.
#15: “The Republicans are an absolute necessity for the left, just as the “wreckers” were for the soviets. ”
Well, the Republicans really exist, but the “wreckers” were an invention of the OGPU/NKVD.
A hateful enemy is necessary for a certain kind of regime, but he may
be imaginary, like Emmanuel Goldstein in1984…