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!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 10:05 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.