Monthly Archives: October 2008

The Cat-Bird Seat

I have a room in my house I call my “studio” and it has a large, south-facing window I open when the weather’s nice and let Sinatra come in and out. This is where I’ve lately been blogging, writing, painting, smoking and just about everything else.

On this fine afternoon, Sinatra, as cats will sometimes do, brought in a “trophy” — a small brown bird, a fledgling, unless I miss my guess. Like all cat owners, I was appalled while knowing it’s what cats do. Birds, in case you didn’t know, are not clean creatures (a fact that seems a little counterintuitive to me) and, with thoughts of Avian Flu I went to get a glove to pick up the carcass.

The bird fluttered; it had only been stunned.

I quickly put it outside the window.

Sinatra is now yeowling all through the house looking for his “kill”.

I’m blogging in my newly christened “cat-bird” seat where Sinatra thought he’d granted me his greatest gift.

I’m not the only one in a catbird seat today. It’s Obama’s news cycle today to be sure.

Foremost, I suppose, is the Meet The Press endorsement of Obama by former Sec. of State Collin Powell. This was a big “get” for the Obama campaign and one of the last out there for the election. I have been disappointed (the mildest word I could use) in Gen. Powell since his performance in the U.N. Security Council presenting President Bush’s case for war against Iraq. Even though he’d been a key figure in the Bush administration, I’d kept my respect for the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff up to that moment. Then, I lost a great deal of respect. However, in the endorsement, which I suppose matters to a lot of people more than it does to me, Powell set out a rationale that I think is difficult to rebut for any person still undecided: McCain is dangerous and has lost his way, he’s erratic and now he’s fighting dirty in a shameful way, his pick of Gov. Palin was irresponsible; meanwhile, Sen. Obama is steady, ready and is a “transformational” leader. The blogs are already awash with right wingnut comments about the racial identity of Powell and Obama being the “real” reason. Ugh.

Next, a matter that I think has somewhat more longterm consequence and that is Obama’s fundraising number for September: $150 million! It’s almost inconceivable. 631,000 new donors with the average donation under $100. For the campaign (not just September), the average donor gave $86. McCain says this kind of fundraising will lead to corruption. WTF? Obama’s outspending McCain 3 to 1 nationwide and 4-1 in the “battleground” states.

McCain, meanwhile, has gone “underground” in the “battlegrounds” with so-called robo-calls, automated taped messages delivered by telephone. The McCain calls focus on William Ayers, in the main. On the stump, McCain says Obama’s tax plans are “socialist”. Too bad the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 or he’d be calling Obama a “commie”. In 2000, McCain decried such tactics when used by the Bush campaign against him, but McCain’s hired the whole Bush crew for his campaign and is even using the same robo-call company that slimed him 8 years ago. Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins of Maine has publicly implored McCain to stop this tactic. I don’t know this John McCain. I thought of him as an honorable and independent voice, a man of integrity and good sense. This stuff wouldn’t have surprised me coming from Mitt Romney or especially Rudy Guiliani, but it’s so disappointing coming from John McCain. I guess it works, though, since the polls are showing McCain has reduced Obama’s national polling lead from double digits to about 5-6 points.

It’s hardly received much notice, but yesterday there was a very different kind of campaigning from Sen. Obama: the Democrat went from a rally of 100,000 people in St. Louis to a rally of 75,000 people in Kansas City, Mo. This is an unimaginable amount of people to turn out to see a political figure give a speech. It’s more than the 80,000 that filled Invesco field in Denver to hear his convention acceptance speech. It’s more people than fill OU’s stadium to see a home football game.

(OU beat Kansas in a record breaking performance yesterday, btw, and OSU remains unbeaten through the first 7 games for the first time since 1945; Texas protected its No. 1 ranking by destroying Missouri. Go Big XII!)

Speaking of the lamentable Gov. Palin, she appeared on Saturday Night Live last night and I thought she did a good job. I liked her more personally if not politically after watching how she handled herself, especially during the opening skit. I had a little bit of a problem seeing her react to the “rap” performance of Amy Poehler in the news segment — I’m a little skeptical that Gov. Palin listens to rap and does the “raise the roof” hand motions. After all, how many urban blacks live in Alaska?

Speaking of Republican women, did any of you catch Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachman on Chris Matthews’ show? She claimed there needed to be a journalistic investigation into her fellow members of Congress who are “anti-American”, while declining to name names other than the U.S. Senator from Illinois.

When you go from that to Gov. Palin talking about only wanting to visit parts of the United States that are “pro-America”, you have to wonder. I can only guess that what I took as a snark, that reality has a liberal bias, is actually a statement of fact.

That reminds me of an anecdote that’s making the blog rounds. Obama canvasser in southeast Ohio reports going to a door and being received by a woman who she asks voting preference. Woman at the door says she’ll have to ask her husband, who replies loudly from the television room: “We’re voting for the n***er”. “We’re voting for the n***er,” the woman brightly tells the canvasser. Only in America. Only 16 more days of this, Thank God.

The cat’s back inside with the bird, gotta go.

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Last night's debate

I didn’t watch it. I watched a movie with the Oz couple and The Gary.

MindOverMary watched and thought that McCain looked bumbling and angry and Obama looked cool and collected.

The “snap” polls by CBS, CNN and Fox all showed that those watching also gave the debate to Obama, although pundits said it was McCain’s best performance so far.

The problem for McCain is that we met Joe the Plumber about 26 times but not even Ayers and ACORN and the kitchen sink and the rest of the plumbing didn’t knock Obama off his game. The GOP is left in the misery of defending Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and even North Dakota and Georgia, all reliably Republican states that gave Bush as much as a 20 point victory, and even if they succeed they still lose the presidential election. Hell, there’s a one in three chance of the Democrats winning a filibuster-proof Senate and a better than even chance of having at least 57 Senators. Things don’t look any better for Republicans in the House of Representatives where they are very likely to lose another 15-20 seats over and above the losses they sustained in 2006.

Mom, who is a McCainiac, thinks I write too much about politics, she said in a call today after reading the last post. I bet she isn’t the only one.

So, what else?

The Oz couple, on Mrs. Oz’s fall break, leave Thursday afternoon for beautiful Miami, Fla., to visit the fabulous KW. Bon Voyage!

I had a great time Monday night at the Gold Dome listening to jazz and hearing a variety of young musical artists strut their stuff. About 9:30 p.m., the youngsters from OCU crowd the place and there’s table after table of gorgeous young women gabbling and young men drooling over them, which is fun to watch from the sidelines.

I’ve been “moonlighting” as a figure model quite a bit this month, doing gigs at OCU and Los Milagros Studio and printshop.

I have a party invitation for Oct. 24 that I’m looking forward to, although I’ll be going stag.

My daughter’s blog, Mom-A-Tron, featured my grandchildren being cute as can be lately and it made me just laugh out loud (not LOL, laugh out loud as in really and literally).

Sinatra is totally unconcerned with politics and is putting on fat and a very thick coat, which makes me think this winter could be a cold one. He’s also been sleeping in and waking up grumpy despite me telling him that’s my job and I’ve got it covered.

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Stop the world, I wanna get off!

Go Big Red! Too bad, Sooners. A special teams breakdown and an interception leading to a field goal made the difference in this year’s Red River Rumble. OU’s a good team but not a great one.

Meanwhile, ORANGE POWER!!! The ‘Pokes took on No. 3 Missouri on the road and walked off an upset winner. Ride ‘em, Cowboys, ride ride ride.

While all of us are trying to surf an economic storm wave and digesting the news that Oklahoma City’s newest billionaire, Aubrey McClendon, got wiped out with a margin call on his Chesapeake stock, the world still turns. In this London Sunday Times article, David Owen, Britain’s 70s era foreign minister, talks about the apparent likelihood that Isreal knows that if it’s going to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, it’s got to do so soon. Soon as in before Bush leaves office.

Do you think Isreal’s “unilateral” action might get the presidential campaign off economic hard times, bad for the McCain campaign, and onto supposedly better foreign policy concerns for the former Navy POW hero? What would Karl Rove advise?

Mr. Rove might like this: Karen Tumulty of Time reports on the newest campaign joke by the chairman of the Virginia Republican Party. “What do Osama bin Lauden and Barack Hussein Obama have in common? They both have friends who bombed the Pentagon!” Hardy har har.

It’s a respectful campaign, isn’t it?

I really can’t begrudge the GOP their little bit of fun these days because it must not be such a great time for them behind closed doors. The polling site FiveThirtyEight.com sees McCain behind by 7+ points, the odds for an Obama win at 9 to 1, and losing the election badly in the electoral votes, 349-183; The “conservative” RealClearPolitics.com aggregates polling and has Obama up 7.3%, 49.7 to McCain’s 42.4, shows Obama leading the electoral vote 277 to 158 (O+119) and projects Obama to get 353 electoral votes to McCain’s 185 (O+168) if the election were held today; The “professional” polling aggregator, Pollster.com, has it 50.2% for Obama and 41.9% for McCain with the current electoral vote tally at 158 McCain, 320 Obama, 60 “toss up”.

Part of the problem for the McCain campaign is that Obama isn’t just leading, but that Obama’s numbers are going up while McCain’s numbers are going in the tank. Also, time and tide are running against him in every “battleground” state because Obama is outspending him and out-organizing him. When you’re losing like that, it just isn’t any fun at all to be in a political campaign and I should know because I’ve been there and done that.

Therefore, it must have been a really bad day Friday for the former POW to see Gov. Sarah Palin, his “well-vetted” vice presidential nominee, blow up in smoke in front of his eyes as the so-called “Troopergate” report came out. She appears to have violated Alaskan state ethics laws by heading an orchestrated campaign to get her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, according to the report. Her self-defense response is lame. She says she was acting to protect her family from Mr. Wooten, who she claims made a death threat against her father during the trooper’s divorce proceeding against Gov. Palin’s sister. The report notes this is a load of crap because getting him fired would simply hand him a reason to retaliate and increase the danger, not reduce it. TalkingPointsMemo.com covers the report, the response and the fallout. Maybe if she’d have a press conference she could clear this all up, but she’s the first and only vice presidential nominee to ever refuse to have a press conference. It’s all about transparency, isn’t it?

Politics, sports and economics are all just blahblahblogblah to my friend MCARP, it seems. Over on his blog, 340am, he’s sitting in his newly transformed back yard worried about more important matters. It seems that underneath his six-foot and mustachioed exterior is the heart and mind of a stone-cold bitch, a compassionless girly-man. I’ve known Mike pretty well for a couple of years now and I have to express surprise. I never woulda guessed.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want to give a shout out to the world that’s out of my control for a couple of things. Gasoline has come back down to the $2.50 range and I’ve had both my air conditioning and heating turned off and my windows open for some time now in this great weather we’ve been having. Last Monday, at Prohibition Room’s jazz in the Gold Dome night, they had a xylophone player and a trumpet player and a pretty big jam of guitars and drums, etc., and it was really good to hear live music that doesn’t assault my ears. When Cami Stimpson and another woman I don’t know added their voices, it was even better. I can’t wait for tomorrow night to see what happens after 9:30 p.m. when the OCU music majors show up.

You betcha, doggonnit (wink wink).

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Question

Can you imagine Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meier, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, Olympia Snow, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Liddy Dole, Christine Gregoire, Kathleen Sibelius or Janet Napolitano dropping a Sarah Palin cocktail waitress wink at the camera? Me neither.

And the winner is …

Boredom.

OK, there was more to it than that.

McCain’s plan to buy up distressed mortgages and give homeowners refinancing is a stunning notion with unlimited costs. Not enough detail to know what it means, but it sounds a helluva lot more like a Democratic Party plan than a Republican one. It’ll be interesting to see it fleshed out and, once up the flagpole, who salutes.

When McCain said “that one”, referring to Obama, I suspect a lot of folks flinched.

McCain had one of the best moments of the night when he shook hands with the former petty officer at the last of the debate.

Bottom line: in most ways it was a tie and you really had to search to find a way to say one or the other outright “won” the debate. McCain had to “change the game” and he didn’t. The CBS “insta-poll” indicates uncommitted voters favored Obama 39%-27% with 35% saying a tie. update: CNN says Obama wins 54-30

Now, I’m going to go around the internet and see what the so-called “experts” in the punditry and commentariat have to say.

update:
On ABC’s Nightline, Geo. Stephanopolis gives the debate to Obama, scoring the Dem ahead on accuracy and strategy and the pair even on “style”.

Roger Simon at Politico writes:
So if you had to say somebody lost Tuesday night, it was McCain. Because he had to win and he did not. He is the one who has to change the current trajectory of the campaign, and he did not do that.

Brian Beutler:

Obama breezed right past it and concisely crushed the McCain health care plan. But if “that one!” doesn’t go down as “the moment” of the night, then there really is no use whatsoever for a media that only notices superficial flaws in the candidates’ performances.

Alex Massie:

Instant verdict: a no-score draw. Boring and dull and platitudinous. No heavy punches landed. The format scarcely helped. In fact it helped snuff out any threat of life or spark or conflict or, damn it, interest. And so, because of that, Obama, leading in the polls, won.

Will Wilkinson:

Gut read. Obama owned it. This election’s over unless he murders and eats the flesh of a child on live television.

Fallows:

From a horse-race perspective, John McCain came in behind and losing ground, in the middle of a financial/economic panic that works against him, and therefore needing a big win. This meant either damaging and flummoxing Obama, or so outshining him in audience rapport, mastery of policy, and empathetic connection through the camera, that the debate could be presented as a turning point. None of that happened. (McCain’s best performance was at the end, rejecting a “Yes/No” question on whether Russia is an “evil empire.”) At this stage in the race, a tie goes to leader, and this was not a tie.

Michael Crowley:

I think it’s very much to Obama’s advantage that he and McCain are freed from their podiums, roaming the stage. For one thing, this calls attention to Obama’s height advantage. Obama is also just more fluid.

Ambinder:

The questioners were mostly props, the format, negotiated by both campaigns, was terrible, and there weren’t any memorable moments. CW says that John McCain had a 90 minute window to turn his campaign around – to put into play the McCain Resurgence Strategy, if you will, and if that’s the CW threshold, I don’t think McCain met it. With the exception of “That One,” McCain seemed less irritable, although his jokes seemed hokey and fell flat – they don’t work when no one laughs.

Matt Yglesias:

On some level, it’s not so surprising that we didn’t hear anything incredibly new. On another level, it’s extremely surprising to me, tactically, that McCain didn’t try to do something new. Instead, McCain took the same talking points (earmarks bad, tax cuts good, earmarks very bad) that have seen him fall behind and decided to repeat them with less energy. I would be shocked if this exchange gained any ground for McCain and not at all surprised if he just continues to slip.and graceful. McCain is stiff, awkward, and generally looks much less comfortable on the move.

Conor Friedersdorf:

My guess is that most Americans will pick Senator Obama as the winner of this debate. On substance neither of the candidates said much of anything new. The issues at play still favor the Democrats. And on style John McCain mumbled through his answers a lot more than in past performances. As a viewer this wasn’t a very fun debate to watch. How can I connect with a candidate who doesn’t wink at me?

Peter Suderman:

One thing that’s clear from this debate is how little there is to John McCain and his campaign. He’s running on a few, vague issues – tax cuts, an aggressive response to Russia in specific and terrorism in general, something about energy – and a whole lot of non-policy fluff: America’s inherent strength and goodness, Obama’s inexperience, scorn for Washington insiders. But mostly, he’s running on a platform anchored by a single assumption: that John McCain is inherently, singularly qualified to lead the country, and, subsequently, deserving of the office of president. McCain views the White House as something to which he is unequivocally entitled. Beyond that, nothing else matters. Indeed, if you hold this view, nothing else would.

John Hinderaker:

What’s the bottom line? McCain performed well, I think, subject to some concern that he may have come across as pretty old. Obama showed, in the first debate and again tonight, that he too can come across well under pressure. He’s no longer stammering and indecisive as he once was on the stump. On the whole, he’s a plausible rogue and I suspect that he passed muster with most people who aren’t knowledgeable about the issues. McCain did fine, but I don’t think anything happened that will significantly affect the momentum of the campaign.

James Poulos:

The big story of the night: Obama and McCain both do debates differently than they do public rhetoric. Of course, McCain’s rhetoric is far sleazier than Obama’s. And Obama’s is far more dizzying than McCain’s. Take your pick. Obama’s is more worrying, but McCain’s is more disgusting. Awesome.

Mark Hemingway:

Bill Kristol points out that the reason you have a town hall debate is to introduce an element of unconventionality and shake things up. Nearly every question brokaw selected was political Secconal. He’s right. Fred Barnes is in agreement and notes that so far the questions asked at a church by Rick Warren were more illuminating than any of the journalist moderated debates since then.

Abe Greenwald:

It should be noted that this debate, coming at the height of election mudslinging, was admirable issue- and policy-oriented. Doubtless, that makes for a bunch of “dud” reviews, but it’s also probably a welcome change for a lot of us. And credit where it’s due: Tom Brokaw was excellent.

JPod:

The takeaway from this debate may be that it will prevent Obama from running away with the election; McCain put in a performance strong enough to keep the floor from falling out under him.

Ezra Klein:

Tonight was supposed to be John McCain’s night, but it was the first clear debate win Obama has scored over the course of this campaign — including the primary. McCain, as it turned out, was badly disadvantaged by the format. The debate was more physical than previous encounters. The candidates were mobile, as were the cameras. And McCain, for reasons of age and injuries and height, has a less commanding physical presence than Obama.

Dreher:

Nothing McCain did tonight changed a thing. He’s done. This race is now the 2008 version of Clinton vs. Dole. And you know how well that turned out for the Republicans.

The silver lining: Obama and the Democrats are going to own this godawful mess. And the conservative movement can clear the deadwood out of the way, and start to rebuild itself into a credible force.

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