With a demeanor that would go on to launch a thousand Saturday Night Live moments, Sarah Palin was cast upon the shores of the great ocean of national politics. The world gazed in awe as this unknown force sailed into the crowded harbor, aghast at the brilliance of the silk sails and gleaming gold fittings.
This morning Barack Obama received what may prove to be the second most important endorsement of his presidential campaign. For the sake of party unity, obtaining Senator Clinton’s support was quintessential, but in terms of reaching out to Independents and Republicans, this is perhaps the ultimate endorsement. Despite having donated $2,300 to longtime friend Senator John McCain’s campaign during the primaries, General Colin Powell endorsed Senator Barack Obama for the presidency today on Meet the Press.
We hear a lot about John McCain’s military record. Most often we are hearing about it from John McCain, unless Sarah Palin is telling us how much he doesn’t like to talk about it.
Apparently there is one part he doesn’t like to talk about, and that’s how he was saved from drowning and being beaten to death by Mr. Mai Van On.
So stock markets around the world are bouncing back this morning, mainly because Europe and the US are combining in a united effort to solve the liquidity crisis by buying equity in the banking system.
Unlike the US Treasury’s original bailout plan (which merely involved purchasing the toxic debt) this is a part emergency nationalisation of the banks. There are upsides and downsides. The main upside so far? The markets seem to believe it will work...
Quick diary to alert everyone that McCain might well take another impetuous maverick move before the debate on Wednesday.
The balloon has been hoisted up by Bill Kristol in today’s New York Times:
It’s time for John McCain to fire his campaign.
He has nothing to lose. His campaign is totally overmatched by Obama’s. The Obama team is well organized, flush with resources, and the candidate and the campaign are in sync. The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic. If the race continues over the next three weeks to be a conventional one, McCain is doomed.
Over at Fivethirtyeight Nate Silver has been reading the runes…
Straight talk.
Apparently it’s a dying art.
John McCain was never a maverick. He was a staunch Republican whose positions deviated from those of his party only on occasion. But the one thing he had going for him was honesty and sincerity. He told the country what he believed and why he believed it, firmly and unapologetically. He stood up for his beliefs even if they were unpopular. He defended his principles. But somewhere along the line John McCain gave up. He sacrificed his principles, he surrendered to the sordid tactics of his party, the tactics he once despised and vocally denounced. To fully understand the magnitude of his fall, one must look back — a glance at the McCain of a month ago, really, is sufficient to understand the duplicity of his statements and positions, but the differences between the McCain of 2000 and the McCain of 2008 are staggering. A brief list compiled by blogger Alex Valentine shows the stark contrast between the two McCains:
That’s right, the GOP is terrified. They’re skittish, they’re nervous, they’re running scared. Not from Obama, of course.
No.
They’re afraid of Sarah Palin.
Honestly, can we blame them? Her record is sad enough, but her performance in interviews is abysmal. Anything unscripted, and she’s in trouble. Here we have Ms. Palin seeming none too sure about what that mysterious “Bush Doctrine” might be:
You almost have to laugh watching this much outrage coming out of Hollywood. I’ve never been one to pay much attention to the sleazy tabloids or the innumerable useless factoids about celebrities, but I have to admit, I’m enjoying the smackdown they’re giving Sarah Palin. Since the primaries ended, Hollywood has remained relatively quiet about the presidential race — until, of course, John McCain decided to put Palin in the spotlight. She is anathema to everything our liberal stars hold dear: her political ideology is positively prehistoric, the sort of positions born of nightmares. So naturally, our stars are reacting accordingly.
Here we have Gina Gershon toting a gun and wearing some kind of bathing suit. Clearly a devastating blow to the McCain campaign.
There’s been a lot of noise this cycle about Senator Barack Obama’s purported “problem with women,” a talking point which gained popularity during his historic battle for the nomination against Senator Hillary Clinton. Though Obama’s numbers dipped slightly after the GOP convention, polls indicate he is trending upward again. Conventional wisdom among the talking heads and doomsday prophets is that Senator John McCain’s vice presidential pick Sarah Palin might prove capable of pulling Clinton’s female supporters away from Obama, but unfortunately for the McCain campaign, his choice of an unvetted, little-known woman governor for vice president was woefully transparent.
Let’s be serious for a moment.
(Crossposted at MyDD)
What is John McCain’s path to victory? Does he even have one? If you look at Pollster.com’s state of the race, you’ll see that the numbers currently stand at 260 EVs for Obama, 179 for McCain, and 99 tossup. In order to win the election, a candidate must have at least 270 electoral votes. In other words, out of the 99 tossup EVs, Obama needs 10, while McCain needs 91.
It isn’t completely hopeless for John McCain, though. Let’s examine how he might win this election.