The Democratic Race Over, the General Election Begins
This video is from the good people at Slate, and it actually does a pretty funny job of summarizing the high and low points of this Democratic primary.
Seriously, though folks, it has been a fun ride for the past several months. I really look forward to the general election, though. This primary was only about personality (which is why I was glad to be supporting Obama) because the two primary contenders agreed almost completely on policy. Now that the general election is beginning, I hope to see some more substantive policy discussions because Obama and McCain offer very different paths for our country to take in the next four years.
Speaking of debates, I am still a fan of the Obama vs. McCain town hall debate tour. Slate (again) has an interesting article that discusses the proposed debate style and why both candidates find it so appealing. How likely is this kind of honest, unmediated policy-centered debate? Probably very unlikely. But we can always hope…
The town hall idea is certainly interesting, but also strikes me as quite dangerous. While it is clear that Obama has the more agile mind, this format would allow McCain to muck up substantive discussion and focus on things like “surrender” and “appeasement”. I honestly think this would have been a better format for Clinton against McCain that for Obama. Her policy knowledge would have made McCain look like a rube.
It seems like the frequency of stupid and trivial mistakes made by Obama has been increasing at an alarming rate recently. Things like the faux scandals involving his VP vetting committee and the seemingly never-ending string of sketchy or weird persons from his Chicago milieu obviously don’t matter in the real world, but they make it much easier for Fox and Co. to pump up the static that distracts people from issues where Obama is strong. He seems to be an oppo research gold mine. I don’t really know what can be done at this point besides much more careful vetting. Who would have thought you would need to carefully vet your vetting committee.
The substantive discussion favors Obama because of the nature of the issues. Perhaps you are right that Clinton would be more used to that type of discussion, but there is no doubt Obama can get to the level necessary to expose the shallow taglines coming from McCain.
The “surrender” and “appeasement” catch phrases are a perfect example of this. They simply do not hold up under any sort of deeper discussion. Even today’s timid media ripped it apart after Bush said it.
McCain doesn’t seem to be able to compete on a real policy level. He is definitely against the catch phrases like surrender, but he doesn’t offer any realistic alternative besides indefinite occupation and more of the same. He is oblivious on the economy, but he is vaguely against too much government help. He waffles on health care, but again is vaguely against too much government help with solving the health care crisis.
I just can’t believe that McCain would come out in favor of the town hall approach.
Speaking of static coming from Fox and Co., have you seen this video of a Fox host suggesting that the Barack-Michelle fist pound could be a “terrorist fist jab?” Whatever that is…
Maybe some day making fun of Fox news will go out of style, but right now they are just making it too easy.
How exactly is McCain against these catch phrases? He includes them in every speech he gives, along with any number of outrageous lies that the media doesn’t note for fear of seeming “liberal”.
This election is 100 percent about Barack Obama. If the people trust him in November, he’ll win the election hands down. If they don’t, Mccain has a serious chance. McCain won’t be able to compete on substance, and the never ending barrage of distractions intended to drag down Obama is his only shot. Don’t be fooled by McCain’s saintly act. He’s totally full of it.
As for the terrorist fist jab, that was nothing compared to Bush’s Islamofascist chest bump with the cadet at the Air Force Academy graduation.
I didn’t mean that McCain is against the catch phrases (that he is intellectual or analytical), but that he is against Obama’s proposals which he represents by straw-man catch phrases which he then opposes.
So McCain is against surrendering and appeasing, but what does that mean?
I agree with you a startling amount here, but I think Obama will win the trust. He already has a great deal of it and the Democratic Party has only begun to unite around him. All the national polls I see put him ahead of McCain in a head-to-head and ahead of McCain in favorability. That is really something considering he is just days out of a fairly brutal primary. It will only get better from here.
I laughed out loud at the Islamofascist chest bump.