There are 40 days and 40 nights remaining in the 2008 presidential campaign. And with 40 days remaining, I am projecting that Barack Hussein Obama II will be the next President of the United States. I base this projection on the demise of the John McCain campaign, which occurred this morning at 12:35 AM EDT.
The McCain campaign was done in by its own too-cute-by-half spin on the economic crisis, when it claimed that things were so dire, so urgent, that John Sidney McCain had no choice but to wing his way back to Washington immediately, so he could tell everyone to knock off the bullshit and fix things. As part of his urgent urgency, McCain tried and failed to cancel both Friday’s presidential and October 2nd’s vice presidential debates, and begged off from an appearance on Late Show with David Letterman.
Unfortunately for McCain, he was not, in fact, winging his way back to Washington:
No, McCain was being interviewed by Katie Couric. That is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. Couric is a major network anchor, McCain should be sitting down with network anchors. But in one fell swoop, McCain showed just how phony his “gotta run back to Washington” schtick was. After all, McCain evidently didn’t have to hurry back to Washington that quickly — he had time to sit down with Couric. And if he has time to sit down with Couric on a Wednesday night — and he does — then why can’t he debate Barack Obama on a Friday night? What will be different in two days?
McCain’s ploy was always cynical, all about trying to reposition himself, not about truly fixing anything. But now we see it was a lie — McCain is not needed in Washington immediately, and he evidently can be outside of Washington without the economy imploding.
Tonight, McCain became the subject of ridicule on Letterman. Meanwhile, his vice presidential candidate was unable to name a single attempt McCain has made to regulate Wall Street, which for once is not Sarah Palin’s fault — McCain hasn’t done anything to regulate Wall Street, and he’s been lying about that fact for two weeks. Palin is stuck having to repeat the lie, and under questioning from the aforementioned Katie Couric, Palin did her best to repeat the McCain line that McCain is a mavericky maverick with maverick-like tendencies. The fact that the line doesn’t mean anything isn’t Palin’s fault, it’s McCain’s.
McCain isn’t needed back in Washington, though both he and Obama probably should be there for the meeting with Bush tomorrow. But on Friday night, there’s no reason John McCain shouldn’t be in Mississippi. And if he can’t be there, then in the spirit of bipartisanship, let me endorse Treason-in-Defense-of-Slavery Yankee’s proposal that Palin go in his stead. That’s change we all can believe in.
“McCain hasn’t done anything to regulate Wall Street, and he’s been lying about that fact for two weeks. ”
In fairness to McCain, he did co-sponsor a 2005 bill to put better oversight on Fannie and Freddie. Sure, he was getting on board after it had pretty much died in committee, and he didn’t co-sponsor the 2007 revival of it, but it seems to be more than any Democrats did.
I should add that even some conservative think tanks like AEI thought that the corresponding House bill was much worse than the existing regulatory regime. Still, in 2003, Barney Frank was saying, “These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” I don’t think the Democrats can claim to have been on top of the specific problem of excessive leveraging, insufficient capitalization and repackaging of bad loans into asset-backed securities.
One last Fannie/Freddie thought: although the Open Secrets website combines contributions from companies’ PACs *and* their employees (although it doesn’t include board members’ contributions), this seems inappropriate for determining whether the company itself “supports” a particular politician. Suppose that employees of a company such as Hallmark tend to be conservative and give a lot of money in campaign contributions to Republicans like Sen. Brownback of Kansas. Does that mean that Hallmark as a company (and let’s remember that corporations under the law are legal persons themselves, not amalgamations of the people who work there) supports Brownback?
When you take the Open Secrets numbers and rearrange the ordering by who got the most money from Fannie’s and Freddie’s Political Action Committees, which is the money that the corporations themselves can direct and not money given purely out of an individual employee’s discretion, then a different picture emerges:
The top ten recipients of the FMs’ PAC money, all of whom accumulated at least $50k:
Blunt, Roy; Bennett, Robert F; Bachus, Spencer; Nond, Christopher S ‘Kit’; Reid, Harry; Boehner, John; Kanjorski, Paul E; Reynolds, Tom; Hoyer, Steny H. Those top four are Republicans. Obama got a total of $6k from the FMs’ PACs, but mostly got money from rank-and-file employees of the companies.
Franklin Raines gave Obama $1000, half of what he’s given Sen. Shelby (R-AL), and the same amount he gave Phil Gramm.
McCain absolutely must rush back to Washington to negotiate a bailout bill that no one outside of Wall Street and the White House wants, that has sparked protests around the country planned for today, and that betrays whatever “conservative credentials” he has left. He absolutely must stop campaigning and debating, because 98 other Senators are utterly incapable of negotiating a bill without his leadership – which, as President, he would only exercise from the outside at the bully pulpit while his staffers work the back rooms. He absolutely must convey to the American public the depth of his misunderstanding of politics, process, public opinion, and the economy at large.
Oh, and: Sarah Palin must absolutely continue to flail around with pre-scripted answers that betray the depth of her ignorance. Go, pitbull, go!
Politically speaking, it was a smart gambit. McCain is wise enough to know whan he needs a Hail Mary, such as when he chose Palin just as Obama gave his monumental acceptance speech and looked like he was about to pull away. Boom! Game Changer. The dems, caught by surprise, fall all over themselves insulting women, evangelicals, and working class people thus suddenly giving McCain a huge identity base from which to draw.
This is another game changer. Even if it fails its worth the risk, as Obama is about to pull away again. I notice gallup has it tied again all of a sudden but that may be an outlier.
But Obama must watch his back for the Clintons. Bill is going all out spinning for McCain, saying he did this b/c he’s a patriot and bringing up is wartime heroism. Hillary herself, even when asked directly, will not criticize Palin. I don’t think its a coincidence her powerful fundraiser (Rothschild) as thrown her support behind McCain at this point. They are sending clear signal to their supporters, white working class people who represent the swing voe in PA and OH in particular, to go with McCain. Obama must lose in order for the Clinton’s to regain their power and party. I suspect more race baiting from Clinton supporters like Ferroro, or even Bill himself, will soon follow.
I think Obama has it, but a McCain/Clinton axis is a powerful thing.
Huh. Do you really think the Clintons are going to flip to covert republicans just because they don’t like Obama? I can’t help but think that the Clintons stand a heck of a lot more to gain from a Dem president who wants/needs their advice and help, than from a Republican president who is ideologically far at odds with them.
I see where you are coming from. T just don’t think that it is the right analysis. Hilary might have been asked to lay off Palin, for example, because they want to have someone in Obama’s camp do the heavy hitting (to avoid making it look like they won’t take her on directly.) To me, that seems more likely than a scenario where Hilary is defying the Democratic calls to engage (the “real” ones, not the ones in the press) so she can cozy up to Palin after she wins.
Huh. Do you really think the Clintons are going to flip to covert republicans just because they don’t like Obama?
Bill certainly doesn’t strike me as a moral paragon, and Hillary has been accused of being an opportunist more than once.
I can’t help but think that the Clintons stand a heck of a lot more to gain from a Dem president who wants/needs their advice and help, than from a Republican president who is ideologically far at odds with them.
When Nixon was impeached and convicted, Gerald Ford became President. Somehow he convinced then-Sen. Nelson Rockefeller to become Vice President. A while after Congress voted him up, he was asked how he liked the job. His answer was “I never wanted to be Vice President of anything!” I don’t think Hillary Clinton wants to be an advisor to the President.
While Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller once responded to a heckler during a speech by flipping him the bird. It made all the papers. People had it cut out and up in their cubes. He was a beautiful guy.
If Obama becomes President and lives through his first term (check out the stats on the prospects of a 47-year-old black man who smokes 2 packs a day – did he quit yet?), there’s no way he’s not going to run again. She’d never win against him again, so that puts her out to running in 2016, when she’ll be 69 – not that it’s too old, but then the clock’s really ticking. My guess is that the country will be in the mood for change (because no party will be able to keep this country happy for 12 years in a row). No, she’d much rather run in 2012 than 2016 and run against a Republican incumbent – or a Republican non-incumbent, as McCain by then just might not run again due to age, infirmity, etc.