As the Obama team does spin control on the latest defections, I personally see it as an indication of a wave that is going to build to November. Both John Coale and Lynn Forester de Rothschild are serious Democrats. Fundraising over 100,000.00 each for the lost cause of Hillary Clinton.
It is not that these defections in themselves are going to bring thousands of people along with them, as much as they must be sending a ominous message to the DNC. If these prominent party members are flipping, the individual thought process is likely the same with hundreds of thousands of other DNC members.
47 days to go and a virtual tie in key states, someone tell me how the Democrats are going to recover ?Obamania is last years fashion and Palin Power is all the political hipsters are talking about. I would hate to be a Democratic strategist because they just had a political tactical meltdown equivalent to Waterloo and seem paralyzed and unsure of even how to conduct the rest of the campaign…
The bottom of the barrel, for me, far worse than Dembots or Republicanbots is the person who doesn’t vote. The person who has given up on politics altogether. And about 40% of Americans didn’t even bother to do just that, only about 55% voted in Election 2004.
It upsets me because millions died for the Democracy we have, millions of not only Americans but soldiers from all over the world. To me voting is about respect for them, acknowledging the political system that they died for, although far from perfect, it is still better than any other political structure in the world. Voting is a duty, a responsibility and an acknowledgment of the cause of Democracy itself. If there is only one time to vote each 4 years it is the Presidential election.
Those who have given up in frustration over the Democrats and Republicans have third party candidates to choose from. There is always a choice. It is a small amount of time taken on election day to pull a lever, to cast a ballot and it should be out of respect for the millions who have died for you to have the freedom to do just that.
“But it doesn’t matter!” the cynic responds, “nothing changes, there are no real choices.”
Why should I vote when right behind me is someone who is going to cancel my vote by voting for Sarah Palin because they like her eye glasses!” How ridiculous is that in canceling my vote which is a result of hundreds of hours of my own time carefully reading the policies of each side, analyzing them and making an informed vote on what I think is best for America. Why should I vote when this happens ?
The answer is that voting is not about you. When I vote it is not about me, in fact it has very little to do with me. I make the decision of course but I long ago realized like many others that who the President of the United States is or is not will have very little impact on my life. Maybe a little tiny bit but certainly not a lot. I will get up in the morning on Nov 5, 2008 no matter who is President, and I will still work, I will pay my bills, I will pray my family has good health, I will pursue my dream, I will pursue my happiness and every once in awhile I may stop and even realize that I am happy for a brief moment.
I do not vote to pick someone to change my life or improve it dramatically, no ultimately, I think that is up to me and always has been but I do vote out of respect of those who have died for me to do so. To me election day is about freedom to pick our leaders who in my view are not much more than the personification of our nation to the rest of the world. I also do not think the American people have ever gotten it wrong. Even election 2000.
Many people forget how hollowed out and stiff Al Gore was compared to George Bush in Election 2000. This is of course long before his famous film. Many people forget that George Bush with all his numerous flaws and gaffes won votes largely because he listened to certain groups of Americans and spoke for them. Now we may not like those groups or be a part of them, Christians, the NRA, Pro-Life advocates but what did Gore do ? He essentially ran a safe campaign free of any blatant gaffes, aside from that claim to invent the internet. He didn’t take risks and I think he rightly lost for running such a bland campaign and America rightly decided that George Bush, although flawed, was still more of a representative of our nation than Al Gore because he was not as bland. America is a lot of things but it is not a bland nation.
Who you vote for and why is your business and you have the freedom to not even vote but that to me is the only wrong decision. Millions of young men fought and died for our right to vote along with our other freedoms.
Those who are cynical of our democracy do nothing but dishonor them. Democracy requires the participation of the people and again the more cynical you are, the more I think you are obligated to get involved and to make a difference. Sarah Palin may say a lot of things in this election but the one message that should ressonate loudest to everyone is her political story of entering politics in 1992 at the PTA level and rising to national VP Candidate in 16 years and she is no ivy league graduate.
That can only happen in America and it could happen to you as well. So before you become cynical about politics and say you won’t even vote, take a look at this and ask yourself why you couldn’t do the same thing as her ?
OK, sometimes you have to turn off the politics for a moment and realize it is just a spoof, just for a laugh. Usually a politician will be around for years and years before they earn themselves a spoof spot in Saturay Night Live. But like everything else with Sarah Palin she is on Fast Forward and with an almost uncanny look-alike with Tina Fey in the bullpen, how could the SNL crew not jump on it.
I think this spoof actually will hurt Obama more than Palin. He is not mentioned but Clinton’s frustration sure is, that is a reflection on his decision not to have her on the ticket. There is nothing that can be done about that now. The Skit speaks for itself, it is funny, there is no need to deconstruct it. It works and in my view it was the highlight of the whole show. Phelps certainly looked like a Fish out of water for the rest of it.
What is more interesting to me though is the comparison between Palin / Fey. They are incredibly similar in appearance as this image shows.
If McCain / Palin win, Tina Fey will be signing onto steady employment for the next 4 years with SNL no matter what happens with 30 Rock. But these spoofs work for Palin not against her in classic political looking glass style.
Despite the superficial similarity in appearance, Fey is rightfully off the mark for humor and spoofing in other aspects which ,makes the humor work. This highlights what people like about the real Palin through the looking glass. Tina Fey is the apex of the smart geek chic, the hot girl who doesn’t get her own sexuality because she can’t see herself through her own glasses. Inherently awkward around men and overtly supicous of them all. She illuminates the opposite of the daddy’s girl and the intelligent modern woman who just never got her father’s approval. Despite massive success in life this shadow comes out of Fey and it is a big part of her success as a comedian.
Palin in stark contrast radiates confidence so brightly that she is the princess, the daddy’s girl who daddy told could do anything in the world and no matter what would always be proud of her. Her confidence on stage, her basking in the light, speaking strongly and with confidence as the boys stare at her in the hall, it is like a scene from Tina Fey’s Mean Girls Film.
If we were in high school, how could these two twins not be a modern day Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain with Fey as the Pauper getting her brief moment to be Prince last night on SNL. It is the cheerleader, valedictorian and most popular girl in school compared to her invisible twin sister in the back of the class, in the math elite and going to band camp while a single boy does not even notice her.
Although these two women are almost twins externally, they could not be more opposite in what their personalities radiate. A media looking glass feature that will certainly serve Palin’s political purposes long into the future as well as SNL’s ratings…
I am ideologically neutral but I had to take note of this. I picked it up on another blog under the title “Tale of Two Roses”. Watch and judge for yourself. Is there an issue of disrespect here ?
Comparing Obama’s tossing of the rose to McCain’s laying it carefully on the site speaks volumes. These are not third party attacks. This is something that people picked up on and I am afraid I agree in this case.
This is just another in what is becoming a long list of gaffes for Obama. This one is hardly going to hit the radar but with the two men beside each other the contrast stands out. Is Obama throwing the election along with the rose now ? You can’t rehearse everything and on somethings you just have to have a political instinct on. Obama is not impressing me…
I find celebrities amusing, I find the ability in which they play into the media’s hands also amusing. I find their attempts to be political in some ways curious in other ways frustrating.
Now Pam Anderson may become an advisor to the White House and she may not but I sure hope this isn’t the advice she gives. Although maybe that is how Palin should diffuse a potential nuclear war with Putin.
In all fairness to Pam Anderson, she is a big PETA activist loves animals and probably knows something about sucking in not only acting but in reality. She was baited by the interviewer who of course knew she would have a tough time not saying something about a bear pelt in Palin’s home.
But why oh why can celebrities not keep it zipped during an election. Count 25,000 votes for McCain / Palin for every celebrity that attacks them, and Pam, Matt Damon go rent Team America by the South Park guys, watch it and learn. If you “really” like Obama “zip it”, if you actually like McCain/Palin, well keep it up. It may end up as a landslide…
In an earlier post I presented a view point that the media gaffes coming out of the Obama camp were so blatant post-Palin, that I wondered aloud if his camp had been infiltrated by Republicans. It is clear that attack ads are going to be getting fired up here and are going to start coming faster and more furious but I sat on my couch and my mouth dropped open when I saw this one on TV recently.
To an untrained political eye this may seem to be a good attack ad on McCain. In reality it is moronic. It essentially insults every person over the age of 50. One of the demographics that comes out and votes in the highest percentage in every election.
My own mother still has trouble with a computer and sending e-mail. It is a source of frustration for her. This ad is a disaster, it speaks only to young converted Obama voters. It brings up images of positive nostalgia to older voters who loved turn table record players and the Rubiks cube. This ad, although approved for and paid by the Obama team, will in effect push senior voters to McCain with a subliminal appeal to a comfortable nostalgia of their past.
If you have to keep this ad, keep it on the internet. I have seen it several times here on TV and again I want to question what is going on with Obama’s media team and his handlers, have they no sense of political tactics ? Are these the famous groups that sprung up two years ago, “Republicans for Obama” that still exist today on facebook. Are they in Obama’s tent now giggling to themselves as they put these ads together for him ?
My pet peeve is political bots. Like many things in politics they are a paradox. On one hand you know they are a critical part of a democracy in the two party system. Sometimes they are more affectionately known as “the base”. The bottom line though is that they are “never’ going to flip their vote, no matter what. Despite the up to date hipster term of political bot, they are not really new. You will find old people who proudly announce that their family is Republican or Democrat and no one in their entire family has ever voted for the other party.
They are the grass roots, they are the organizers, if you get a real phone call soliciting support, it’s from them, they make those funny you-tube videos today and they knock on your door. If you encounter one on a forum you will know who they are pretty quick. They cheer blindly at conventions and clap proudly at the stump speechs and town halls; no matter what is said. They are fans for their team and rational discourse, critical thinking and open mindedness long ago left the building of their mind. Although a bot is a critical part of the political process their vote is irrelevant. It is always the swing voter who decides the election, the person who one year votes one way and another year another way.
In the new politics Bots are becoming more and more of a factor. Individuals who go onto forums and rail and rant and just attack other people’s views rabidly are Bots. In the pre-internet days Bots still existed but they were contained by the face to face experience of encountering different political views with someone else. Now it is no holds barred. The insults are fast and furious but the Bot does not seem to appreciate that their passion often undermines their own cause, especially on the internet.
The Democrat Bot
Because a good chunk of Obama’s support is young college voters or people under 35 the Internet largely belongs to Obama for election 2008. The Bots are here in vast numbers but it never fails to amaze me how they irresponsibly lash out at those who question Obama. It is the exact wrong thing to do. Like it or not the Democrat Bot is a representative of the party, of the candidate, and they represent the candidate in the exact opposite manner of how I see him. Obama appears calm, open to new ideas, statesman like and all in all a bridge builder. His Bots though are emotional, close minded, devise keyboard flamers who have likely lost hundreds of thousands of swing voters by simply speaking down to them and calling them stupid for even considering voting Republican.
The Republican Bot
I will admit to admiring Republican political tactics and strategy. Republican Bots in my experience fall into two general categories, Machiavellian brilliant or angry simpletons. Since the Republican Bots at one extreme are so simple minded, they are not capable of making a good you-tube video and they are barely capable of even being literate enough to show up on forums that much, because well, reading and writing is just not that important to them. Fox news via a Jerry Springer format gives them all they need to know about their Politics.
Help, I am under Bot Attack
I received a rude comment, I deleted it, but to sum it up. It was from a Democrat Bot who was basically asking me what the hell I thought I was doing with my blog. How on earth could I be writing some posts that supported the Republicans (I like Sarah Palin at the moment) and others that offered advice to Democrats for political strategy. Given Obama’s policies , he called me moronic, for even talking about Palin and for daring to suggest the Republicans are going to win in Nov (That is my analysis at the moment)
Watching the Watchdog
Sigh, if you read more of my blog, I am polishing my writing skills, building a portfolio of public political articles so I am not freelancing anymore and aspiring to a permanent political column in a major newspaper. My perspective is going to flip back and forth because I am trying to maintain the neutral perspective of a political journalist and also illustrate my ability to take different perspectives. I am not here to cheerlead for the Republicans or the Democrats.
I am here to try and provide those of you who read my blog with a solid political analysis of the day. To illustrate what I believe is a transition to a new politics, that we are beyond old terms like liberal and conservative. I believe that covering politics today as a neutral journalist, neccessarily includes covering the mass media itself.
If the media is the Watchdog of government, I’m trying to be the Watchman of the Watchdog and to be frank, I think that Watchdog has been humping Government for decades…
I was highly critical of Palin’s 1st interview with Gibson. I gave her essentially an F. Take 2 was far improved. She is clearly more comfortable with questions on internal policy as opposed to international policy.
She was speaking slower, she was more measured in her response and also clearly more relaxed. She was less combative and yet still taking positions on controversial issues like Roe v. Wade. This interview was a much greater success, not a home run but still a comfortable B-, a safe single onto first base. Hardly the strike out of last night.
Palin has many strengths as a speaker but those same strengths can hurt her if they are not measured and contained. What is confidence can turn to impatience. What is being decisive can appear to be hasty. She has an achilles heel, the live debates against Biden will be interesting, she will be cramming for the final exam of her life in oratory skills. She has some time to work on it but I find her ability to skillfully deflect a question is lacking.
A politician should never reveal emotional frustration with a journalist, they are doing their job. They are asking questions on behalf of the American people and they may lobe a few floaters but she should be ready for a curve, a fastball or a knuckle ball at any moment.
It will be interesting to watch her evolve over the course of the election.
I want to try and spin a positive out of Palin’s first REAL interview with Charlie Gibson but it is hard. She blew it. The best I can hope for is that she learned something from it. Strategically for the Republicans it isn’t a fatal gaffe, they will massage the media message out and lets face facts. The only thing that will really de-rail the Republicans at this point is if she punches one of her children in the head on stage or shows up on youtube in a Mexican Donkey show.
No, that is not a Democrat donkey show and if you don’t know what a Mexican donkey show is, believe me you don’t want to.
Palin is a political star here and Obama is on the fade to be replaced by the fiesty hockey mom. I read on another blog that he has jumped the shark, I like that cut line because it sums up the Celebritrics of it all and the way many Americans vote for Celebriticians today, not Politicians.
Her strong confident statements to Gibson, may horrify the rest of the civilized world, but are going to resonate with the majority of Americans because we see ourselves as a strong and confident people. She is what the president and vice-president are becoming to many voting Americans. No longer sages of insight and expertise but rather simply physical personifications of the nation. It is Presdiential Prom King and Queen we are voting for here.
We may lament it but at the same time I think we had all best adjust and simply focus on the reality of it and get beyond the spin. When celebrities like Matt Damon weigh in, they reveal in themselves, naively their own lack of understanding of the political reality, and they do even more damage to their own cause. They continue to debase the public political conversation further. If he wants to start a blog like the rest of us, all the power to him. If he wants to stand up in front of the world with millions of people watching and pitch his viewpoint from a celebrity pedestal, I get annoyed. I would debate any celebrity blind folded on anything political from a journalistic perspective.
Oh Matt Damon thank you for those pearls of wisdom but please don’t worry too much, no President can individually launch a nuclear bomb. I know you have watched a lot of movies but the President does not sleep with a big Red button beside his or her bed. They can’t slam down on it anytime they want like a snooze button…
Oh and Matt, I know you are a real celebrity with real complete and sophisticated celebrity political thoughts but your blah, blah speaks only to converted Obamabots. If you were serious about helping Obama you would be quiet. A celebrity who tells me how to vote pretty much ensures the opposite effect. Now if you came out and said you love Sarah Palin and completely endorse her Team America views to take on the world, well that might work for you.
Is Palin ready to be VP, not today she isn’t, is she ready for the media, no way, no how. First off I am a fan of Palin, I like her for a lot of reasons but at the same time I have to put her under the microscope for her first interview and the fact is she blew it. She is clearly on the learning curve for international politics and at the bottom of that curve.
First, what was good about it. She was strong, decisive and feisty. What was bad about it, well she was too strong, too decisive and too feisty. I kept thinking of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous line on international affairs “Walk softly and carry a big stick”, with Palin it is “Stomp loudly and fire your ICBM in the air”.
Lets list the blunders in what is a highly edited interview. God only knows what she said that ABC did not include. I have not seen a political interview so highly edited. I lost count after 7 obvious edits and cuts.
Overall the interview does not start too bad but it deteriorates quickly.
Lets look at how Gibson gets her.
RUSSIA and GEORGIA: He asks her an internationally explosive question on adding Georgia and the Ukraine to NATO, if you know Russia, you should know this is especially touchy to them. She should have immediately diffused it, deflected the question and said that we will consider it WITH our NATO allies and if it serves the mutual self interests of the United States and NATO it may occur and ended on a strong note that she certainly supports Georgia’s right to self-determination etc etc.
INSTEAD: She says yes Georgia and the Ukraine should join NATO. I know at this moment Gibson was orgasmic as a journalist because he had her. He immediately follows up with, well should we go to war with Russia since they invaded Georgia, something you would think would slow her down. Does it, NO, she is ready to go to war. Holy Moley, thank God the Cold War is over because this comment in 1970 could have sent a group of Russian bombers to the edge of Alaska air space just to say hello.
NUCLEAR IRAN and ISREAL: Gibson floats her this one, should have been easy for her, the American perspective is well established and has been around for over a year unlike Georgia which is fresh. But she blows this too, she should have played the mediator and focused on the positive with Iran and Israel. She could have kept the line in about Israel and its self-determination but when you are talking about NUCLEAR weapons you have to become the adult in the conversation between the two children. Take control, diplomacy, we would discuss this with Israel very carefully. It was a perfect opportunity to show sophisticated statesmanship and the United States’s role and responsibility with Nuclear countries and countries who support terrorist groups. A perfect moment to turn the page internationally and step slightly to the centre for a more diplomatic United States under McCain/Palin, instead she came off like a Harpie Hawk ready to eat every Dove in sight.
THE BUSH DOCTRINE: At this point in the highly edited interview, she is visibly upset. That means Gibson who is known to be Republican friendly, has eaten her for breakfast. First she didn’t even know what the Bush doctrine is and Gibson had to explain it to her. Second because she is upset she pushes back in too emotional a manner, the clip is most heavily edited here and God only knows what she really said. Gibson as the journalist is softening, in fact he knows she is in trouble so much, that he is practically handing the correct answer to her on Pakistan and whether the United States should cross its border to get terrorists and she still doesn’t get it.
Gibson reframes the question to her in a yes or no manner in which she should have responded with a basic deflection. Politics 101 for any elected official. “Yes Charlie but we are not here to unilaterally run the world we would expect co-operation with the Pakistani Government and we would expect their support after all it is in their interest and ours to have terrorists rooted out.”
THE BIG QUESTION THAT WASN’T THERE: Nothing on Venezuela, I am positive Gibson put this question to her. There are 2 Russian bombers there right now and Putin was just there. Palin obviously can not comment publicly on this.
Sarah Palin should take a very serious moment to reflect on herself now. Her comments were internationally irresponsible, dangerous, American centric and really have no place in the international community. They may play well on a stump in Iowa but when you have the leaders of the rest of humanity sitting down and listening, how do you think they interpreted them. Flippantly discussing invading Pakistan, allowing Israel to nuke Iran without even a shrug and verbally challenging the second largest nuclear power on earth to war is well, shall we politely put it, not quite up to snuff for the VP position.
Sarah, my love affair with you is starting to feel strange, I have an image of you sitting on a bomb like Slim Pickens in Kubrick’s Dr. Stranglove. Sarah please take a day off and watch this film. Again I am a fan but you’re with big boys now, you might want to give Hillary a call, ask her for advice…
