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

yglesias has a line over the past few days that an obama win will mean an increase of crazy racism from base conservatives and probably more GOP campaigns using it overtly, not the reverse. it seems obviously true to me, but there is a lingering idea out there that it will be the final climactic victory for civil rights or something...

Meantime, while all this is going on:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/images/2008/10/06/bush_2.jpg

who's that

Wavy Gravy should not rock the red shorts / black shoes combo.

on left: http://l.yimg.com/img.tv.yahoo.com/tv/us/img/site/50/21/0000035021_20061021050341.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/06/opinion/06opchart.950.gif

link

I thought W. would be around 5'8" not 6'0"!! dude looks small on telly

http://media.tumblr.com/hLyH2DZIneqremijVWCdNu44o1_500.jpg

http://media.tumblr.com/ipTHaxTAYeqp6vdakWoI6PRKo1_500.jpg

Ha Carter's teeth are showing.

bush is 5'10.5" at best gtfo

During the Presidential campaign, much has been made of Barack Obama’s slender physique, with some commentators going so far as to argue that he is too black thin for most Americans to relate to him. Does candidate height and weight play a role in electoral success? With Mr. Obama and John McCain set to square off in the second of three presidential debates tomorrow, it seemed worth taking a look through recent history.

I'd like to see what that paragraph would read like if there were a Taft fatty in the mix.

Palin: Cutting Taxes Obama’s “Phoniest” Claim Yet

Associated Press

The Alaska Governor keeps up her rough attacks against Obama at a fundraiser in Florida’s Naples Beach Hotel Monday, pushing him on taxes.

Tells donors: “I think that the phoniest claim yet, in a campaign that has been full of phony claims, is that Barack Obama is going to cut your taxes.”

infuriating

It's all she's got.

in other news, if up was down, down would be up:

New on Free Will: Polluting the Polls with Jason Brennan

by Will Wilkinson on October 5, 2008

The election’s coming up! So all public-minded folk should register to vote and get ready to hit the polls, right? Well, maybe not.

In this week’s Free Will, I chat with my friend, Brown philosopher Jason Brennan, about his forthcoming paper, “Polluting the Polls: When Citizens Should Not Vote” [rtf]. His argument is simple and compelling. (This is my indelicate reconstruction, mind you.) People should be public-spirited, and act with the common good in mind. When enough people vote badly–from ignorance or bias, for example–the result is often bad policy. The quality of policy matters to the public good. Higher-quality democratic decisions, and better policy, can be secured if bad voters choose to abstain. Because the personal cost of not voting badly is so low, a public-spirited person shouldn’t do it. And it seems that a lot of people are quite likely to vote badly. So there are many people who, if they care about the common good, ought to choose not to vote.

I completely agree with Jason. (He may not agree with where I’d go from there, however.) I think that many voter participation initiatives promote pretty straightforwardly immoral behavior. That’s not because I think that the state or democracy is illegitimate. It’s just that people shouldn’t do things that help make the world worse when the cost of not doing it is practically zero.

Here’s how I explain the intensity of media propaganda about voter participation in cynical political economy terms. There are more Americans inclined to vote Democrat than Republican. But the poorer and younger Democratic-leaning voters are also least likely to show up at the polls. Therefore, promoting the idea that it is a civic/moral imperative to vote disproportionately benefits the Democratic party by getting higher levels of participation from the poorer and younger voters, at whom much of the marketing blitz is focused. And, of course, the American media establishment overwhelmingly favors the Democratic Party. However, higher levels of voting from these groups pretty much ensures greater electoral pollution. Were most Americans Republican-leaning instead of Democratic-leaning, but the media was exactly the same, I predict we’d see an outpouring of sympathy for positions like Brennan’s from intellectuals and media elites. But, as it is, it’s in the electoral interests of Democrats to scream “disenfranchisement!” any time someone correctly notes that, far from delegitimizing an election, very low voter turnout can improve the quality of democratic choice.

luckily, he's not an 'intellectual' so he doesnt have to think about things before he writes them

I went to shool w/ a Will Wilkinson... interesting...

nope, different people. he looks retarded whereas the will i knew looked like tombot

she was born with a silver foot in her mouth

xpost
whoah that 'essay' openly alleges that when poor people vote they tend to "pollute" our democracy.

Just, wow. Breathtaking.

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."

Thomas Jefferson

^^commie

Is the Keating Five thing really going to make any impact on the McCain campaign?

Only if Obama can persuade the other four to join forces and destroy McCain with their Keating of Power.

Wavy Gravy should not rock the red shorts / black shoes combo.

lol

the important thing about the Keating 5 thing is how McCain's campaign reacts to it. And they already made a major misstep. McCain has apologized and admitted this was a black mark on him in the past; today, they were all "the Keating thing was a smear campaign". Uh, WTF?

This was the obama counteroffensive to the Ayers/Wright baloney; all it needs to do is keep McCain from gaining any traction off those, he's already in the shithole.

plus, it's a well timed attack, since it parallels the current economic situation so well. It calls McCain's character and judgement into question on situations that are completely relevant. So yeah I think it will work.

Is the Keating Five thing really going to make any impact on the McCain campaign?

It depends. If they bring back the video of the old people who lost all their money in the courtroom trying to literally strangle Keating in the court, then that might bring back painful memories and resonate.

I think this is aimed toward the older and/or baby boomer crowd though.

its just noise to counter the Wright/Ayers noise (which also isn't gonna gain any traction)

what the Keating thing did was knock down the Ayers nonsense. IE, it was a prepared attack for when McCain pulled that stuff back out.

or what shakey said

the renewed offensive by surrogates on Fox today has been especially hilarious. One of them even had the brain damage to point out that while Hillary did exactly the same things, when she did it, it was "too little, too late."

^^^^genius!

it's quite a lol in the big picture, but talking points and debate "fact checking" is now trendy in mass media (for now), so Palin's lies and McCain's lie about saying Obama's lying, etc., is just for rallying the converted. It's all they can do now. And yeah yeah it could backfire, but probably not enough to make a difference. Although the backfiring upon the GOP is more just the added election stress from the Liar Liar thing moreso than people actually trying to followup on the statements, i.e. the thing that has probably rotted away at McCain's numbers slowly.

i don't even think it's just that they're lying, it's that they're getting called on it too regularly and it's giving the impression of their tactics as tactics, as negative campaigning. they obviously are dishonest, but they look dishonest. in the vp debate, palin would say obama had voted to tax families earning $42000, biden would respond that mccain had voted the same way, and palin would say nothing: it comes across as an admission of error.

i think the problem for the gop is that too much of the wright/ayers stuff occurred while obama was still a fledgling figure, to some - in the primaries, it was dragged out, and done with. he's since crafted his narrative, so rewinding to "what about reverend wright!" seems passé.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27053000/

Republican lawmakers: Stop Palin ethics probe
GOP state legislators say investigation is too political

updated 11:55 a.m. PT, Mon., Oct. 6, 2008
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska Republicans are asking the state's highest court to block an abuse-of-power investigation into vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's firing of a state commissioner before a potentially embarrassing report on the matter is released.

Five GOP state lawmakers, in a brief filed Monday, say the inquiry has exceeded its authority and is too political.

Palin is the focus of a legislative investigation into allegations she abused her power by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner says he was pressured to dismiss a state trooper who was involved in a messy divorce with Palin's sister.

it could backfire easily too w/palin's vp debate insistence on looking forward and not talking about the past suddenly becoming "obama went to this dude's party 14 years ago!"

xpost yeah and palin is opening herself up to more direct hits about that too.

i'm a little depressed about the keating 5 shit now, because the prospect of another solid month of negative bullshit really depresses me. and it is kind of unpredictable -- who knows a turn to negativity might work for john mccain. a month is a long time.

but rly tho, they said BHO didn't know how to fight, and look, here he is, fighting. the ayers/wright stuff has been fully aired out in the primaries, and is part of a whole pile of nonsense brewing sub-rosa constantly. it's shit that, i think, has been fully digested by the public and hasn't made much of a difference since. the keating shit has been completely ignored the entire cycle and slots in perfectly next to the issue of the day: a financial scandal. mccain may have jabbed below the belt only to get walloped across the jaw.

heaven forbid we should know if a potential VP abused her power when she was governor. isn't it almost like admitting guilt? wouldn't they want her to be vetted if they knew she was innocent?

Joe, but it's TOO POLITICAL

but in a larger sense there's only so many turns an individual campaign can take. you can only rebrand on the fly so many times before the public gets sick of being asked to believe the changes, and mccain has worn out his welcome there i think. they already went negative once! and then it was mavericky reform, and then this, and then that, and then another thing...

if the cool headed vs. erratic meme has taken hold enough (put forward by none other than charles krauthammer! that's gotta hurt), it won't matter much what mccain says -- just more crazy bs from the angry loser.

the keating shit has been completely ignored the entire cycle

by the MSM, yes, but Obama's camp has definitely been biding their time and until October to drop it, which was a great move. The juxtaposition of it with the current financial turmoil couldn't have been more favorable to Obama. If there's any justice, a substantive scandal a la Keating Five should grip voters much more than Obama spending five minutes with a criminal.

he spends time with TERRORISTS is a very 2004 thing to say, but nobody believes a thing the republicans say about national security anymore anyway.

he spends time with DEREGULATORS is a little more au courant...

really they just have to play it up like "they have no answers, so they're resorting to pathetic attacks on issues that have been debunked months ago and oh by the way keating scandal" which seems to be what they're doing.

haha holy shit

someone paraphrase that clip?

god McCain is so stiff and awkward and painful to watch

he's losing his fucking shit