2008 USP(G)ET pt. II: counting the days to 2012 primary thread 1

Gotta start somewhere:

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will meet with foreign leaders next week at the United Nations, a move to boost her foreign-policy credentials, a Republican strategist said.

Republican candidate John McCain plans to introduce the Alaska governor to heads of state at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, although specific names weren’t yet firmed up. “The meetings will give her some exposure and experience with foreign leaders,” the strategist said. “It’s a great idea.”

McCain and Palin are expected to visit the U.N. on Tuesday, when President George W. Bush will address the international body.

Since her nomination, Palin has energized the Republican base, drawn huge crowds and propelled fund-raising. However, Democrats have attacked her as weak on foreign policy experience. Even on last week’s “Saturday Night Live,” actress Tina Fey spoofed Palin’s assertion that she is familiar with issues involving Russia, noting that Alaska is nearby. “I can see Russia from my house!” Fey-as-Palin said.

But McCain advisers hope her U.N. visit will show how quickly Palin can make key connections and become well-versed in foreign-policy issues.

Yes, I think I'm going to visit the UN and put it on my CV: http://www.un.org/tours/pages/atg.htm

This would be a good time for everyone in the media to stop talking about Sarah Palin, just go dead silent on that whole stupid thing. Report instead on bank failures, and banks near failure, and losses in financial institutions, and losses in the stock market, and falling home prices, and rising bankruptcies, and report what McCain and Obama say in regard to these.

Seems certain to me that WaMu flames out in October, along with several other lesser names. The whole Palin issue will sink to insignificance in comparison.

When do the head-to-head debates start?

I've been telling myself that when the debates get going Obama will slaughter McCain then I have to remind myself how convinced I was that Kerry would make mincemeat out of Bush.

When do the head-to-head debates start?

A week from Friday. Plenty of things to amuse one until then, I suspect.

obama's not such a great debater, but mccain is a little bit worse. my guess is the debates will not change anything dramatically except to remind people recently enamored of john mccain exactly what he looks like.

i remember kerry making mincemeat out of bush, in the first debate in particular, and i also remember no one actually caring

obama is a better debater than kerry. obama wasn't very strong against Clinton, I thought, but he still won the primary. McCain is a fucking terrible speaker and debater.

in fact, wasn't the consensus that Kerry won every debate?

I just read Obama's speech on the Wall Street meltdown. Since I know relatively little about regulation or the invisible hand, almost every proposal made some kind of practical sense.

obama looked so-so against clinton--i dont think hes a fantastic off-the-cuff speaker, and not a great debater, but i dont think his campaign is depending on the debates in particular as part of the strategy

I'm waiting for the usual quadrennial special on presidential debates where they show that JFK won because Nixon was sweaty, Carter won because Ford didn't know Poland was occupied by Communists, Reagan won because there Carter goes again, Dukakis had no reaction to a question about his wife being raped and murdered, Bush I looked at his wristwatch, and Gore wore too much rouge.

because the 2004 debates proved that the worst performer can still win.

Even better than the actual debate would be getting to watch the pre-debate negotiations. I'm not sure how you even the playing field when one candidate is 6'1", mid-40s, and handsome and the other is 5'7", 103, and looks like a squash.

Ain't enough phone books in the world for that man to stand on.

in fact, wasn't the consensus that Kerry won every debate?

Yes, but the wins weren't accompanied by big gains in the polls.

My point was that I think I built it up into something significant - that Kerry would expose Bush as the imbecile 50% of the country already knew he was, and that the other 50% would slap their heads and wonder why the fuck they ever voted for him in the first place.

yeah the first Kerry/Bush debate was one of the worst performances I've ever seen by Bush. I thought Kerry won the election right then and there :/

the consensus was that kerry won every debate, but also that regular people don't care and maybe actively resent and distrust a good debater who knows stuff more than a good man who stands up and bumbles through etc etc

i mean, the cw responses to any debate outcome are predetermined

xps

bush was hella shorter than kerry btw and they seemed to manage

the filmed them so their heads were at the same level which meant that podium took up like 50% of the kerry shot and 80% of the bush shot

i remember kerry making mincemeat out of bush, in the first debate in particular, and i also remember no one actually caring

I remember thinking the same thing (re: Kerry handily beating Bush about the head, fuck you "wanna buy some wood?"), and losing my shit when all the post-debate coverage bent over backwards to give Bush AT WORST a draw.

loooool I forgot about wanna buy some wood

also the debates gave us perhaps GW's greatest contribution: "the internets"

http://www.bettybowers.com/graphics/but_poland.gif

but yeah I think press expectations are gonna be for Obama to beat McCain and for Biden to absolutely leave Palin in tatters so if either one of the Repubs even remotely holds their own it'll be "ooooh strong performance"

dmr sadly otm

David Brooks:

Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman.

http://terminerd.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/linda-hamilton_as_sc.jpg

I keep reading this thread title as GET UPSET but i will not be drawn in

More Troopergate funnies.

Palin supports OTHER bridge to nowhere

lmao that's almost too perfect

Palin still supports the second bridge, officially named Don Young's Way in honor of the congressman.

I remember thinking the same thing (re: Kerry handily beating Bush about the head, fuck you "wanna buy some wood?"), and losing my shit when all the post-debate coverage bent over backwards to give Bush AT WORST a draw.

It's sometimes hard to remember now, but the media was licking Bush's ass pretty unquestioningly until the sight of dead bodies floating in New Orleans shocked them outta their fawning ways.

(It's also sometimes hard to remember that Kerry did fuck-all to distinguish himself from Bush)

Looks like McCain wears lifts:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/09/16/us/16mccain-531.jpg

btw, replace "debates" in posts above with "corporate duopoly-sponsored joint press conferences."

shouldn't that go in mod req?

i feel pretty good about things atm -- we need to get resigned to the fact that there's going to be no knockout blow against mccain, millions of people are going to vote for him for one reason or another and their minds aren't changing. but his crazy shitstorm assault/palin effect/convention bump is now petering out and it didn't get him above the margin of error above obama. that kind of movement is unsustainable. i'm worried about an newly excited GOP base but I still don't think it compares to the excitement on the dem side.

plus, his one golden asset was the complete psychic inability of prestige media to say a single bad thing about him, and now, look at them teeing off on the man for being a liar and a disappointment. his running mate, ditto x10. there's no way the obama campaign, a month ago, could have successfully launched the meme that mccain is untrustworthy, and now he's done it to himself. he's going to need every advantage to win and trading one of his oldest and surest away for sarah palin still looks like a dumb deal to me.

When they look back on it, people will surely see this election as one of the larger missed opportunities in the nation's history for scrutiny and shake-up of our economic and imperial arrangements: an unpopular war abroad, brazen thievery by the rich and powerful at home, widespread discontent of huge slabs of the electorate, beleaguered by debt, low wages and joblessness. How easy it should have been for a politician as eloquent and intelligent as Obama to create an irresistible popular constituency challenging business as usual. But what's positively eerie is the cautious sensitivity of his political antennas, alerting him time and again to the risks of actually saying or pledging anything substantive by way of challenge to present arrangements. Small wonder it's hard to remember much that he says, because so little that he does say is ever substantively memorable or surprising or exciting; no wonder that Sarah Palin is proving so successful a distraction.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/cockburn

The entire superstructure of everything Cockburn loathes could collapse overnight and he would still say that there wasn't enough substantive work done.

When they look back on it, people will surely see this election as one of the larger missed opportunities in the nation's history for scrutiny and shake-up of our economic and imperial arrangements

^^ "people" will do nothing of the sort, are you kidding?

How easy it should have been for a politician as eloquent and intelligent as Obama to create an irresistible popular constituency challenging business as usual

"everything would be fixed overnight if someone would just say something!!" = left delusion #1. "how easy" haha if only

cockburn otmfm

"if someone would just say something!!" /= create an irresistible popular constituency challenging business as usual

"hey, barack, you know what i think we should do? ok: let's create an create an irresistible popular constituency challenging business as usual!"

"my god, dave, that's it!"

We all know how easy that is!

Cockburn 2012

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/budget_hero/

he says "ideological policies" later on, fwiw

That's a little better, though I'd prefer "right-wing economic policies".

Um...I think what Cockburn is saying (and I'm not sure how much of the point-missing is sarcastic hilarity...or how much of the sarcastic hilarity is point-missing) is that, if only someone that a large chunk of the left is putting their hopes in -- you know, like Obama -- would actually verbalize what the left is fighting for when they're not throwing their lot in with a corporate-sponsored candidate, it might give them the confidence to fight for something beyond voting for Kang or Kodos.

I'd like to see someone on the left successfully verbalize what it is they're fighting for first.

dan otm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/wall-street-delivers_b_126516.html

just look at the unified front they present at anti-war protests lolz

x-post

I mean, this is part of the problem, right? The right has successfully laid claim to divisive soundbite positions that allow them to steer people into supporting actions that are in direct opposition to their stated goals. How is the left combating this?

By creating their own ideologically opaque positions?

"people" will do nothing of the sort, are you kidding?

He obv did not mean robotic, blinkered mainstream Democrats like goole.

Shakey & Dan, you gotta be fuckin' kidding me. I think you know what the part of "left" that would even bother voting for a Democrat stands for. Something like this:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/open_letter