This Just in From the McCain Camp of Brilliant Ideas…
Rising gas prices is Obama’s fault. Not OPEC’s, or China’s and India’s. Obama’s fault.
Let me say this for the record. I am not die-hard Obama apologist (unlike some people on this blog). Without going into dissertation mode, let me say that I don’t think Obama has all the answers and solutions to our ailments. What I seem to be getting increasingly frustrated with is the god-awful job of the McCain campaign (on top of how bad a candidate McCain is turning out to be). I’ve got a feeling the harder McCain tries, the worst its going to get. His response to Obama’s tour-de-Europe is a prime example. This election year is going to be pathetic for the RNC. It’s time for a re-alignment election year. Anyone else thinking that?
Perhaps it isn’t going to be the implosion of the Republican party, but there will be purges and summary executions en masse. The post 9-11 Neo-Cons have ruined it for the Pubs and the right-of-center ideologues (of which I often thought I was). The only real way I see Obama losing points is by him shooting himself (which I am sure will happen, see: bittergate — regardless of its truth). Of course, there will always be the bigoted, racists, luddite, ultra-conservative, dogmatic, Fox News worshipping back-farm whitties that will continue to rave against (and obviously not vote for) Obama because he is of color and lived in Indonesia; but these people are lost and should never be found. Of all the possible social sub-groups and voting blocs, the only ones I don’t see either incredibly mobilized (younger Dems and Independents), shifting their support (many centrists, aka Obamacans), or questioning the viability of our political party system (old-guard Reaganites — mostly fiscal conservatives — from the baby boomer generation) are crazies from the group just mentioned.
I don’t even think my Dad is voting Republican this year. I think he’s writing himself in.
I really like the left arrow sign.
Did you do that?
Nope… I assumed you did. You… didn’t?
Despite the hilarious campaign tactics of the McCain folks, they are closing the gap. Obama is underperforming rather badly at this point. A generic Democrat beats a generic Republican by almost ten points, yet Obama leads by something between three and give. McCain is proving to be something of an intellectual midget in the Bush mold, seeming constantly confused with regard to the existence of facts and other things that cannot be dismissed with cries of “Surrender!” and “Extremism!”. Yet it is still close. Obama needs a better answer on the success of the surge and a much better answer on energy (nuclear?). Or he could come out against race based affirmative action (and in favor of a class based version) and win the election right there. He still hasn’t connected on an emotional level with the mass of blissfully ignorant voters that he needs to close the deal. These are simple people, and McCain is offering simple (yet stupid) solutions. I hope they surprise me.
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.CliveStaplesLewisClive Staples Lewis
To the contrary. According to the RCP General Election poll, the gap is slowly, but surely, widening. Not the mention the electoral prediction is staggering (nothing short of a landslide).
I know its early and polls are very speculative. And it is early — which is probably why it is “still close.” However, it seems that there is a negative correlation between time elapsed and McCain’s popularity in Missouri. And as the political adage goes: “as goes Missouri, so goes the rest of the nation.”
I think I resent the allusion to “someone on this blog” being a die-hard Obama “apologist.” Ha… Just because that word makes it sound as if I would defend him no matter what, which is not true, of course.
You said it first, not me. ;)
I am predicting a significant victory for Obama, but I don’t think it will be realigning…
For the most part, Obama’s votes will come from the same places that Gore’s and Kerry’s did, except that Obama will do a better job of mobilizing minorities and young people and he has more independent appeal than either of those two.
Are there really any major groups that are thinking about realigning in this election? I’ve heard people talk about evangelicals, but that is just wishful thinking. Who wouldn’t want a band of lockstep voters who take their voting orders from their spiritual guides? If you could only get rid of the crazies who come along and occasionally make some embarrassing scandalous comments that you have to distance yourself from… they would be a perfect group.
But really, is this going to be a realigning election? My feeling is no…
So, the Republican party isn’t going to change? Are all those who voted for Huckabee going to hand their vote over to McCain?
1. Yes. They are loyal to the Republican base, because they are easily convinced (actually deceived) that their party is Big Red.
2. No. Those who saw their ideal candidate off the ticket are too disenchanted with the current make-up of the Republican party. They feel deceived (which they were), used (which they were), and abandoned (never abandoned if they can be used for election purposes). Many will swallow their anti-Left rhetoric and cross over. Others will go apathetic. In the end, a small number of the Right-crazies will stick to their supposed roots but want be influential enough to keep the Republican glue from drying up and losing its cohesiveness.
The point: the religious and the “moral” Right have enough sway and political power (millions of votes) to precipitate a realignment movement. Will it happen? I think so. Take Harding as a microcosm or point-in-case. There has been a weirdo Left turn on campus, induced by Obamania and the abuse of the Republican Neo-Cons. This could play out at the aggregate level and cause many to realign and the respective parties to adjust their party lines.
Out of the question? Absolutely not. Will it happen? Perhaps. I’m just trying to make myself into a prophet. Don’t stone me if I am wrong, please.
What McCain is trying to say is that Obama and others who are blocking drilling on the OCS are keeping us from about 80 billion barrels of oil—enough to make us energy independent and keep our fuel costs incredibly low. And additionally, dramatically increasing fuel reserves fend will fend off every last speculator, lowering the price of oil even more spectacularly.
When put that way, the ad McCain is running is actually quite logical. It is the fault of everyone who is blocking OCS drilling that oil prices are so high.
Notice how oil prices began falling when Bush announced he was lifting the executive ban on OCS drilling. The day he made the announcement, a sizable amount of paper oil owners began selling their futures contracts. It doesn’t even matter that not one additional barrel of oil was accessible because of the lingering congressional moratorium. All that matters is enough investors were selling their investments that the value of a barrel of oil went down. Nationwide gas has gone down almost fifty cents since he made that announcement. This speculation thing is a big deal.
And another testament to ridiculousness (and down-right lunacy) of the McCain campaign:
New McCain Ad Bashes Obama for Not Visiting Troops Using Footage of Obama Visiting Troops
By the way, that left arrow sign is a little suggestive to me. So much for an ideological roundtable.
The logic is a debatable topic, but it’s all about perception here in campaign land. The campaign is ridiculous — which was my point.
Chris, how long will it take OCS to have an effective on oil prices? Long (even Bush admits that). OCS is itself a long-term investment. It’s by far more of an issue of supply-and-demand. Speculators are given too much credit.
You wouldn’t be insulted if you were one of those soldiers? I would be.
From what I’ve read, ANWR (which I don’t support) would take about 10 years to reach what we would consider full capacity. I can’t imagine OCS drilling taking near that long to become operational. Especially since we are talking about a humongous amount of sea floor which has a far greater operational capacity.
Most economists give speculation most of the credit. And they should. Its the only reason why prices have dropped lately.
I was referring to the points that McCain made up during the first week of Obama’s overseas visit. The general trend during the period prior to that showed Obama widening the lead, but the fact remains that Obama is perhaps the worst performing Democrat in the country. I think he’ll still win, but by a closer margin (at least in terms of the popular vote) than he should.
I have always felt that Republicans were typically alligned as such because they had core conservative beliefs. Recently this has not been the case as many of my party seem ready and willing to accept liberal ideas if it seems politically expedient. I feel like most GOP will vote for McCain regardless of the fact he is too liberal. Obama may end up loosing some of that independent crowd if he keeps blabbering incoherently during interviews and press conferences. Bottom line is that if McCain looses, it will be because he failed to prove himself as a true conservative. Either way i think the next four years are going to resemble the Carter years and we will see a frustrated resurgance of conservatism once the socialist Obama doctines are proven a failure. Trust me…I’m usually right.
Ha!
Well, we all know that I certainly didn’t put up the left arrow sign. I can’t even upload pictures to my own posts.
I don’t see anything happening but an Obama win come November. McCain is coming across as terribly petty right now. If Obama had visited the wounded soldiers against the recommendation of the Pentagon, then McCain would have played that up instead. As it is, McCain is desperately attempting to keep the attention focused on his own campaign whilst Obama is busy speaking to 200,000 people in Berlin and scheduling meetings with the likes of Warren Buffett.
By the way, what effect do you guys think these latest suicide bombings in Baghdad and Kirkuk will have on reports of the surge working/not working? The latest numbers were up to 57 dead.
How is McCain’s comment any different from Obama blaming McCain-Bush for higher energy prices? I’ll expect the post on that tomorrow.
I think this summarizes Obama’s and McCain’s campaigns pretty well.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=177449&title=obama-quest-berlin-speech
To answer Karie’s question, when there’s trouble in Iraq, I actually think it hurts Obama who carries the perception that he will pull out unconditionally.
I want to talk more about this realignment pipe dream…
You can’t be a prophet unless you take equal risk on both sides of the outcome. You have to risk stoning for a chance at the glory.
I agree with your number 1 and part of your number 2, Steve. Sure, there is some resentment, but resentment doesn’t always lead to realignment. And a major defeat doesn’t either. There was no realignment after Mondale got crushed by Reagan or after Dole did by Clinton.
Tell me exactly what the groups of people who might be looking to realign look like? Who are they and why would they leave now? The religious right has been falling for the values issues (smoke and mirrors) since the 80s, so why would they wake up now?
McCain’s Newest Tactic:
John McCain hacked into the Political Cartel’s WordPress account and changed the header image to an arrow pointing to the left.
The arrow pointing to the left, meant to suggest “libruls,” along with the use of the color “Democrat Blue” were meant to be divisive among the authors and commenters of the blog.
What will they think of next!
I knew it was the Chris Berry!
There may not have been a realignment after Reagan/Mondale, but thats because there was one just four years earlier. The governing coalition put into power by that realignment is now cracking up, and I don’t think anyone knows what the coalition that replaces it will look like.
If there is a realignment, my guess is that the group most likely to lead it is the white collar/creative economy married suburban male. That kind of realignment could come at the cost of the blue collar hill people. I can do without their retrograde social and cultural views, but I’m not sure I can do without their votes.
To respond to a view questions posed:
Karie: The ultimate benchmark to determine whether the surge is working or not is not if suicide bombings cease. The level of violence in Iraq has been improperly construed as the surge efficacy determinant. The more important question is the status of political reconciliation: the enforcement of the recent amnesty and de-Ba’athification laws and the participation of the parties of the Tawafiq (the Sunni political blog) — which recently rejoined the central government. Although security is the linchpin of the surge, it isn’t the goal. I’m sure there will be comparable bombings during the upcoming provincial and legislative elections.
So, to answer your question. Unless it destabilizes the current moves towards political reconciliation, not much.
Chris: “Obama who carries the perception that he will pull out unconditionally.”
This is not true. Pull out “unconditionally?” Do you understand what that means? Isn’t it true that Obama is sort of being bashed for apparently “flip-flopping” on his strategy in Iraq? Currently, he’s far from being perceived as the unconditional surrender man.
And, if anything, instability makes departure more palatable to the masses, therefore making what you think Obama’s perception is more politically feasible.
David: Groups that could realign:
The Evangelical (RR), Social Conservatives, and Southern voters, because during the 1980s their movement was still primitive and not yet developed, and during the 1990s they easily found ground against the Clinton Admin, coalescing their greater movement. They felt that with the inauguration of GWB their “time had come” — the culmination of the moral majority. However, it didn’t — far from it, actually. They got instead a war and a bad rap. Many will seek comfort elsewhere, sacrificing the party for an increasingly centrist Obama or simply falling victim to apathy. The political demarcation lines drawn during the 1980 and 1994 realignments are due for another shift.
Your analysis on the RR makes sense to me; so if I belonged to that bloc, I sure would switch. You are right that they found their identity as the anti-Clintons and that they climaxed with two Bush elections. And they have gotten absolutely nothing (except the tokenistic partial-birth abortion ban and a lot of hot air) for their massive mobilization that probably made the difference for Bush both times. Of course they should be angry and the should jump off that sinking ship. So if this were a group of people like you or me, they would realign en masse.
However, I know way too many of these people to think that they are like you or me. They are just different kinds of people, and they are either uninformed, misinformed, or willfully ignorant on the issues above. To many of them, just having a figurehead president who talks about Jesus and a conversion experience and who quotes the Bible is enough. I sure don’t understand that.
So… I hope you’re right, but I don’t think so. Even at Harding, the “weirdo left turn” has been mostly quite limited to the social science departments. The whole campus is still decidedly on the right of the religious right, even though they haven’t gotten jack for their unswerving support over the past 8 years.
It’s a shot in the dark. Can you really predict realignments? Good luck predicting the massive movement of several million people.
However, if you could, 2006 may be a glimpse of coming realignment in 2008 (this is an abstract from the wiki article about it — I wouldn’t typically do this but I’m tired and I think the analysis is fairly legitimate):
1. The bulk of Republican losses in the U.S. House occurred in the northeast, and surrounding states.
2. Several of the senate seats that Democrats won had been held by Republicans throughout much of recent history.
3. Democratic pickups, with regards to both governorships and state legislative chambers, also were concentrated in Democratic leaning states.
4. Several smaller signs also point to a possible realignment. One sign has been a number of Republican-to-Democrat party switching in Midwestern states such as Kansas and Nebraska.
5. Unlike the 1968 and 1980 elections, the 2006 election was indeed marked by a large change in partisan affiliation of the electorate. Both Gallup and the Pew Research Center have conducted polls following the election. The average of Gallup’s 2007 results has thus far yielded an 11-point Democratic affiliation advantage when leaners are included; Pew’s 2007 poll yielded a 15-point advantage for the same measure.
Chris McNeal: I wish I could could take credit for it. That would be a pretty sweet prank to pull of. However, if I had the know how to do it, I think I would have been less subtle and changed it to some sort of communist symbol or propaganda.
What is this new picture of?
I liked the one of Capitol Hill at night.
It’s a local cafe in the Saint Germain district of France: the philosophy capital of the world.
Those look like tourists, not philosophers…
Saint Germain, not the cafe, is the philosophy capital of the world. Sorry, I was a bit unclear.
I think the cafe is legitimate. I’ve done some of my best philosophizing at Midnight Oil.
Waffle House is much better for philosophical discourse, and there you can smoke.
I almost threw up in my mouth when I went back to Searcy to find a nonsmoking porch at midnight oil.
You called it! Really good prognostication.
Steve macGregor