2008 Presidential Campaign

First, I'm happy to see that my first instincts were the same as the McCain campaign's first instincts about last night's debate:

When I was working in Alaska, I volunteered as a debate coach at a local high school. (And just to brag, we won the state debate championship and sent four people to the national tournament.) I taught my students that in any debate of any format, great substance always has to come before great style. Great style should never make bad substance good, but it can greatly enhance good substance.

Much of the MSM and the blogosphere, especially the fact-checkers, have saturated us with important information. Right now, though, I'll share with you some of the things I taught my students back in Alaska, and using those principles, show you why McCain wins the style competition over Obama.

Here is a photo of signs post all around downtown Harrisburg, advertising for "Community Organizers": 

That's right, working as a "community organizer" is essentially the same as working to elect Obama. Here is the job description, from a Marxist group called Citizens for a Progressive Future.
 

Of course, this should surprise no one.  Despite the faux outrage from liberals that Republicans have mocked Barack Obama's background as a "community organizer," this is the kind of thing community organizers - at least the variety that Obama worked for and with in Chicago - actually do.

Steven Malanga writes how these community organizers rely on taxpayer fund to essentially advocate for more taxpayer funding:

Meanwhile, groups like the radical ACORN have used government funding to run voter-registration drives that are supposed to be nonpartisan efforts but that have concentrated in signing up voters in heavily Democratic districts to elect politicians who advance ACORN's political goals and protect funding for community activists.

Michelle Malkin notes the same reliance on taxpayer funding of political activity, as well as the voter fraud and illegal activity frequently done by groups like ACORN:

Last week, Milwaukee's top election official announced plans to seek criminal investigations of 37 ACORN employees accused of offering gifts to sign up voters (including prepaid gas cards and restaurant cards) or falsifying driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers or other information on voter registration cards. 

Last month, a New Mexico TV station reported on the child rapists, drug offenders and forgery convicts on ACORN's payroll. In July, Pennsylvania investigators asked the public for help in locating a fugitive named Luis R. Torres-Serrano, who is accused "of submitting more than 100 fraudulent voter registration forms he collected on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now to county election officials." Also in July, a massive, nearly $1 million embezzlement scheme by top ACORN officials was exposed.

ACORN's political arm endorsed Obama in February and has ramped up efforts to register voters across the country. In the meantime, completely ignored by the mainstream commentariat and clean-election crusaders, the Obama campaign admitted failing to report $800,000 in campaign payments to ACORN. They were disguised as payments to a front group called "Citizen Services, Inc." for "advance work."

 And Capital Research Center has a good discussion of the background of Obama/Alinsky community organizing, and its background in Marxist ideology.

The Wall Street Journal has a great article about Sarah Palin's accomplishments. In particularly, they look at how she took on corruption in the culture of Alaska politics, including among the establishment Republicans.

Palin, in fact, has a record of the type of change Barack Obama merely talks about - though in fact he relies on the Chicago and Cook County Democratic machine, worked to get his challengers thrown of the ballot to win his first election, has close ties to lots of corrupt figures who rely in government handouts (including Rezco), has lots of lobbyists working for him, and is tied to the ethanol lobby.

Sounds like "change we can believe in" vs. change we have actually seen.

In contrast, Democratic party hack New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd quotes Palin saying,  "I wish they’d stick with the issues instead of discussing my black go-go boots." So Dowd ... ignores the issues, and discusses Palin's clothing and appearances, claiming she is only a beauty pageant contestant, "Miss Congengiality".  What horrible drivel.

 And you wonder why the Times keeps losing readers.

Here are my first impressions from Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency. (I admit I was switching back and forth between that and the Olympics. Fortunately, I only missed some track and the women's marathon and just saw Phelps win his 8th gold medal.)

Speaking of marathons, Barack Obama fared about as well as he did in some of the marathon-like primary debates he had with Hillary Clinton. To put it best, I'll leave it to John Kerry's former online fundraising guy who has become an evangelical since then:

"OK - I take back some of my initial over-enthusiasm for Obama’s performance. I think he did not meet the high expectations of evangelical leaders who are secretly plugging for him. Too many of his answers were vague. He just didn’t seem fully prepared. On a lot of those questions, he had wide open doors. He could have nailed them. But he just kind of went around in circles. A little John Kerryesque, I fear to say."

What exactly is Obama's problem when it comes to forums, town halls, debates vs. rallies and speeches? I take it back to a point I've made earlier about the junior senator from Illinois being, at his heart of hearts, an academic. On the abortion issue, Obama didn't come out strong on being pro-choice while supporting other issues related to "life." Instead, he bloviated on a line that Democrats (and moderate Republicans) have been saying since 2006: "let's find a way to reduce the amount of abortions in America" by encouraging adoptions, etc. It's a good point, but one that many Americans really don't care about.

The excessive audacity of the junior Senator from Illinois (as well as its symols) have been well documented by now. Whether it's the mock presidential seal, the replacement of the American flag with a campaign logo on the tail of his plane, or his announcement of becoming a "symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions," it's become clear that Barack Obama is treating this summer more like a victory tour than a time to campaign, as Dana Millbank explains in the Washington Post today:

"Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee ... Some say the supremely confident Obama -- nearly 100 days from the election, he pronounces that "the odds of us winning are very good" -- has become a president-in-waiting. But in truth, he doesn't need to wait: He has already amassed the trappings of the office, without those pesky decisions."

Jodi Kantor of the New York Times has been writing a series of pieces detailing segments of the presidential candidates' biographies. Today, she published a story about Barack Obama's days as a law school professor in Chicago, his third profession at the time along with being a civil rights attorney and State Senator. Kantor expounds on the Obama dichotomy as an academic:

"As his reputation for frank, exciting discussion spread, enrollment in his classes swelled. Most scores on his teaching evaluations were positive to superlative. Some students started referring to themselves as his groupies ...

"While students appreciated Mr. Obama’s evenhandedness, colleagues sometimes wanted him to take a stand. When two fellow faculty members asked him to support a controversial antigang measure, allowing the Chicago police to disperse and eventually arrest loiterers who had no clear reason to gather, Mr. Obama discussed the issue with unusual thoughtfulness, they say, but gave little sign of who should prevail — the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposed the measure, or the community groups that supported it out of concern about crime."

This description of Professor Obama is exactly the description of Democratic presidential nominee Obama: someone who likes the sound of his own voice and basks in his own popularity, while also being uncommitted to anything substantive. This lack of committment on taking strong stands has been shown throughout the campaign, including his multiple reactions to Jeremiah Wright and shifting positions on the future of Iraq.

Candidate Barack Obama isn't what concerns me; what I'm actually afraid of is Professor Obama, and how this academic mindset along with his university friends that make up his policy team might actually govern. The reason he has one of the most liberal voting records in the United States Senate is not because of his impulsive need to be popular; it is because academia takes a much higher priority than sound decision-making. Let's take a look at why having an Oval Office filled with professors would be detrimental for America.

This is an important question. -Patrick

Steven Stark of The Boston Phoenix wrote an op-ed today on "Why TV Ads Are a Waste of Money".

The article was all over the place and failed to make a coherent point. He begins by saying that the "era of TV advertising in presidential general elections is over" because it is a "victim of a new media age," and yet, those ads have never been important in general elections "as opposed to the primary process." This left me with several questions:

Are ads in presidential primaries really more effective and more important than ads in a general election matchup? There are obvious differences between the two processes, and one might think that TV ads are tailored to both the state with an upcoming primary along with what the controversy of the week seems to be that needs to be responded to. But TV ads in the general can be tailored for specific states as well. Stark never explained why there is a difference in importance.

(Assuming there is a diminishing effectiveness), is the diminishing effectiveness of TV ads really a result of the rise of new media? The problems that Stark points out with presidential TV ads (lack of creativitiy, lack of "product to sell", etc.) seem to be problems associated with TV ads themselves and the medium that they are on. Sure, the Internet and TiVo have changed the way advertisers think, but Stark provides no real cogent explanation of whether new media is a cause or catalyst of the downfall of TV ads (if there is a downfall).

Are TV ads still important for down-ticket races or have they become a victim of new media as well? I guess one can answer this question by saying it matters where the race is. A Congressional race for an at-large seat from Alaska is obviously different from a Congressional race for a district in Manhattan. But using Stark's logic, the era of TV ads might be over for statewide and local races as well. Are they?

Answers? Thoughts?

- MM

In an interview with NBC's Brian Williams, McCain said Obama seems to be running for a second Carter term:

Williams: Is it going to be tough to run with an incumbent party for the White House, given this economic backdrop?

McCain: I-- I think it's-- it's tough. But I think the American didn't, people didn't get to know me yesterday. They know me. They know that I have fought for restraining spending, which Senator Obama has been a big part of, with earmarking (UNINTEL) projects. They know that I have been a strong fiscal conservative, and they know I understand the challenges that they face.

They need a little break from-- from their gasoline taxes, and they -- and they know that -- we've got to get spending under control. And we've got to become independent of foreign oil. Sen. Obama says that I'm running for a Bush's third terms. It seems to me he's running for Jimmy Carter's second. (LAUGHTER)

It's an apt comparison. On July 15, 1979, Carter went on national television and gave what became known as his malaise speech. Among other things said this:

I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel.

In Roseburg, Oregon recently, Obama sounded a lot like Jimmy Carter did when the former president gave that infamous speech:

We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not leadership. [Transcript courtesy of CNN's Ballot Bowl]

Next thing you know, Obama will be talking about killer rabbits.