Smugness doesn't win you any points either.


I don't think he did make a mistake. Even Presidential candidates shouldn't have to answer questions by phrasing every individual sentence as if they are the only ones that will be printed. I realize that news outlets will do just this to find a sentence that could be deliberately misconstrued to appear to say the opposite of what it does, but I don't think anyone can prevent that from ever happening.

So you think he meant to say "Muslim" after all?

If so, he's even dumber than I thought for choosing to put those words in that sequence in a sentence.

And yes, I read the longer context of the quote. I also saw saw Steph try to help bail him out. But without that help, then the longer context (which does seem to reveal what Obama must have been thinking) doesn't appear to have been coming & it leaves BHO saying something that really doesn't seem like a wise comment to put on the table.

Trust me, if he's even got two brain cells to bump together, he'd say his choice of words was a mistake. Or maybe even a miscue.

Yes, but that's a different argument regarding the modern media. Abe Lincoln could have made the same mistake and no one would have noticed. Obama makes the same mistake and it spreads like wildfire. It doesn't change the fact that, by definition, it was a miscue. I'm sure that we can start another thread on definitions, but this hair-splitting has probably run its course at this point.

I'm not sure it's a mistake, though. Do you think he really meant to say that John McCain hasn't said anything about his Christian faith?

I think he did mean to say it, leaving "or lack thereof" implied. I think Steph's interruption just highlighted it to the point where, yes, he will have to say his choice of words was a mistake. But if given time to talk about it in detail, he should be able to boil it down to something so boring and semantic that it will look ridiculous.

Latest Rasmussen Poll out with all data being post-convention data. McCain holds a 1 point lead. So after both conventions, we're back to a statistical dead heat...........

Rasmussen Reports™: The most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a presidential election.

Yes he meant to say "Muslim", and Steph may have been trying to bail him out, though I don't see why that was necessary. He was clearly talking about attacks made by bloggers and others calling him a Muslim and saying that McCain hadn't directly taken part in that. McCain hadn't been making comments about his "Muslim faith". He could have changed that to say that McCain wasn't making comments about his "so-called Muslim faith", but the context seemed to make that obvious.

There's no way in hell she get asked the second question and she'd probably be thrilled to be asked the first as she'd hit that fat pitch out of the park. The Obama "question" is so utterly stupid that it needs little comment.

Again, it's two points. One, she won't tell the American public what her views are on foreign and domestic policy. Given her position, that should be unacceptable. Second, the McCain camp believes the media should show proper respect and deference. Have we really had a problem over the last eight years of the press not being deferential enough to our leaders? The outcry from certain folks from Missouri would be deafening if Obama only gave interviews to those that showed enough respect and deference.

Oh so now we don't want to take things out of context for our own profit? Gotcha. Mission Accomplished!

Assuming you're referring to me, you obviously could not be more incorrect. I argued that, using Arles' logic, she should have already hit the interview circuit. But as I mentioned earlier, she'll have plenty of interviews in the next two months. It's much ado about nothing.

This is actually a very good point. The more I think about it, the more I see this as another "low expectations play" by the McCain/Palin camp. They come out and say she's not doing any interviews initially to let all the anger die down a bit, but also know it will be spun as "she is not prepared". Then, in 2-5 weeks, she'll hit the talk show circuit and do fairly well - once again exceeding the low expectations they helped create.

My point was it makes no sense to do any interviews right now for two reasons:

1. It makes sense to wait a bit because of the initial anger and also to let some of these things work themselves out ("troopergate" and the pregnancy stuff).
2. It makes sense to wait until they actually need her. Either tied or in the lead, it doesn't make sense to trot Palin out right now when you could use her in a few weeks when Obama pulls ahead again (which will happen, IMO). It's akin to using your best pinch hitter tied 4-4 in the 5th inning with nobody on and 2 out.

I must say I saw the Heart flap coming the minute the song started playing. Its not that unusual for an artist to want to have some control over it's rights and its not that unusual to want to use the song so I dont necessarily see this as a big deal. The RNC will likely pay them some modest sum of money for the misstep and/or pay them to use it going forward.

I don't think you read it fully. The RNC did pay for the song usage. They didn't do anything wrong this time, it was just the artist being grumpy because they obviously don't support them.

Someone mentioned later that evidentally Heart is using their proceeds from it to give to Obama so win-win, but I haven't read that part anywhere else but it sounds like a logical thing to do. In a way, the RNC helped donate some money to Obama I guess :)

we agree on this point here. Anyone and everyone makes slips of the tongue, ask Ted Kennedy (Osama) or John McCain (his shia/shiite slip) but you make a good point...

many people will take X as fact even when it's not and base their vote solely or most heavily on X, which is a shame.

Why does a poll matter at all, sir. You disclaimed that polls dont matter because theyre rolling averages. why do you get to have it both ways?

Well if it was paid for, Heart can be grumpy all they want but they should STFU about its usage or else not sell the rights.

Quote where I said that polls don't matter because they're rolling averages? I've been very consistant in saying that the polls during both conventions didn't matter a hill of beans. I've said that the best comparison was the poll before the Dem convention should be compared to the one after the Rep convention. This is the first poll that is completely post convention, so it's a good measure of the net margin of the bounces of each convention. When all was said and done, the bounce was roughly even in the end. No benefit to either candidate.

Of course it makes sense for McCain, I just thought we were supposed to put country first.

They won't let her do interviews because of things like this:

And doing whatever is necessary to keep Obama from become POTUS is doing just that.

Lol. That's hilarious.

Nah, just honest.

Par for the course for Jon. He's an authoritarian with dictatorial impulses. I give him credit, though, for not varnishing his beliefs in a layer of bullshit.

me too.

This guy does a pretty nice hatchet job on Obama's activities as a "community organizer."

Barack Obama's closet - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

I can play this game too.

John McCain's chief foreign policy advisor is Randy Scheunemann

Randy Scheunemann had close ties and was a major promoter of Ahmed Chalabi

Ahmed Chalabi was/is an Iranian spy

John McCain = Iranian Spy

JoninGA,

1. How do you feel a McCain administration differ with the Bush administration?

2. Do you feel an Obama administration is less able to deal with challenges and why?

I'm looking for facts and/or opinions, really. Its just that a lot of your posts are Obama can't succeed, and I like to know why you feel that way?

I post this article not for the content, but rather the picture. How have I not seen or heard about the Ukrainian prime minister before???? Talk about easy on the eyes. She could put forth the worse policies every and I'd believe every word she said...........

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Cheney: McCain-Palin administration will be unlike any other « - Blogs from CNN.com

You're assuming anyone in our media is capable of acting like an actual journalist. They might ask a few actual questions, but there's almost never a line of questioning to follow up on the canned BS answer.

Now various interviewers might act snotty while questioning, but that's simply bruised egos. As long a major politician lets the media in the cool kids club, their interviews will always be cupcakes.

There is only one state poll out today. A PPP poll has Obama up by just 1 point in Michigan, 47-46. The poll was taken Sept. 6th and 7th after the RNC. Michigan is a critical state for Obama to hold. 45% of respondents say they are more likely to vote for McCain with his pick of Palin for VP. 30% said the same thing of Joe Biden.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/p...chigan_908.pdf

I'm sure there will be a full round of state polls out by the end of this week. It'll be interesting to see how it affects the electoral vote projections.

The campaigns have their own internal state polls, but they don't publish the results. Obama and Biden have been spending a considerable amount of resources on Pennsylvania and Michigan recently. These should be fairly safe states for the democrats, so maybe their internal polling indicates that they're closer than they should be at this point.

Yulia....she's very easy on the eyes and all the reason I need to support the defense of the Ukraine against any enemy.

Ouch... what in the Hell is Obama thinking by undermining his tax argument?

My Way News - Obama: Recession could delay rescinding tax cuts

Oops. Tried to answer this earlier, browser crashed while posting & it looks like it didn't go through before the fritz. So let me try again.

re: how differs -- I'm almost certain to be unhappier with McCain than I've been with Bush. There are several key points I disagree w/ McCain on thoroughly & have no love lost for the man because of it. Worth noting here is that the majority of unhappiness I have with Bush's second term is from things he didn't do and/or things he wanted to do rather than things he did.

re: Obama -- Not only less able, but less likely to deal with them in a fashion I find acceptable. That distinction can't be overlooked & I'll get to it in a minute. As to capability itself, which is what I believe your original question mostly concerned, I don't believe he has remotely sufficient experience nor judgmental ability to make the right call in difficult situations.
(FTR, the experience factor also concerns me about Palin).

He's a relative babe in the woods, particularly where realpolitik is concerned, and that's generally not something I find appealing in regard to having their finger on the button. While I'm most likely fairly described as an ideologue when it comes to internal affairs (and some external as well) there's also an element of realism that I value with regard to foreign policy particularly.
I don't believe Obama has sufficient real world experience to recognize instances when practical reality is something that cannot be avoided.

And that brings us the judgment factor I mentioned earlier. You don't know me as well as some of the others here (as far as I can figure at least) so what they might take for granted I'll spell out here briefly as part of this reply. Be forewarned however, you aren't likely to like it or agree with it but neither of those is necessary for it to be a part of my answer.

I believe that he has shown a lack of appropriate judgmental ability based upon a number of the positions he has taken. I find some of his positions to be incompatible with good sense, reason, or good judgment. Doesn't really matter which ones for the purposes of this discussion because that isn't the point, what they boil down to is that I don't find being dead wrong or even downright destructive a virtue that I'm looking for in a President nor is it something that I can avoid considering when I assess someone's ability to make good decisions (aka their judgmental ability).

Hopefully that answered what seemed like a reasonable question in a reasonable way. If it didn't, it wasn't for the lack of trying.

I can't help but imagine that there's some internal polling that indicates an advantage to making this acknowledgment at this time. It doesn't mean he'll actually change (or that he won't) but rather just that there's some indication that it's to his advantage to suggest the possible shift in policy.

It seems to hint that he's trying to appeal to voters who have the difference in
the two plans as a deciding factor in their November vote and that his camp believes he can gain more votes with this than he would lose because of it.

I gotta say that's one of the best posts in the entire thread, eventhough I don't agree with much of it.

Somewhat unlikely source for praise in this thread but I'll definitely take it ;)
Thanks.

I'll give him credit for taking the correct stances on this, drilling, staying in Iraq and the surge. But, again, you have to wonder why he was against these 6 months ago given very little has changed on the issues of the ecomony/taxes/energy and the situation in Iraq. I'm going back to what I said earlier in that there will be little difference between McCain and Obama in the first 4 years on things like Iraq, education, social security, energy, climate and health care. Since I've said that, he's now for drilling, he wants to stay in Iraq longer, feels the surge did better than expected and he is now saying his "Robin Hood" tax policy might not be the best for the country given the state it's in financially.

Again, I'm glad to see he's coming around on all these policies - I'm just unsure on how motives. So, I am left with one or two situations:

1. He legitimately feels the surge has worked better than he anticipates, we need to ensure we get the best outcome possible in Iraq, that the economy can't handle a "take from the rich/investors, give to the middle class" tax policy right now and that we are now at a point where we need to consider serious drilling. If this is the case, I give him a ton of credit for his character and adjusting.

2. He's done some polling that shows the people/independents are now in favor of different policies in these areas and he's adjusting accordingly.

I would hope that number 1 is the case, but either way he's going to take a bit of beating politically for some of these fairly drastic shifts coming down the homestretch. In some ways, it makes me feel better should he get elected that he won't just be a shill for the left, but I can't see these changes helping him much down the stretch.

We'll see.

In 1988, GHWB continued to increase his lead after the convention bounce, and that time period included Dan Quayle getting absolutely destroyed by Lloyd Bentsen in the VP debate. After that debate, the Dukakis campaign spent a lot of money into "Do you really want this man a heartbeat away from the presidency" commercials. It had absolutely no effect on the polls.

In general, after Labor Day the public starts to pay a lot more attention to the candidates' stand on the issues and voting record. That's one of the key factors that lead to Dukakis' demise in 1988. His campaign was able to do a good job of shielding his far left stand on most of the issues until the public started paying attention in September and October.

This makes sense. McCain seems to be leading by between 3-5 points nationally right now. Michigan is a DEM leaning state, so it makes sense that it is 4-5 points to the left of the national numbers.

It will be panic time for Obama in Michigan if his national numbers start to move but Michigan stays close. Until then, I think that he's happy with 1% right after the GOP convention.

All that said, it does not mean much if it turns out that the move toward McCain isn't a bounce but a fundamental shift. And I don't think that anyone really knows that.

My 2c (with hindsight) is that this race was always closer than people thought. It was just that the GOP was such a damaged brand that people who were planning to vote for McCain told pollsters that they were undecided. Palin made it OK to admit that you were voting for the GOP--which you were really planning to do all along.

But 1988 was an historical outlier. Like I said, we'll know a lot more by the end of this week or the beginning of next. My instinct says this is still close to a tie and will stay that way until election day. I'd be surprised if either candidate has more than a 3 point lead in October.

Benn reading 538 today I see. ;)

Gore won Michigan by 5 points and Kerry won it by 3 points, so I doubt if the Obama campaign is turning cartwheels over being in a dead heat there right now.

The difference is Dukakis was an absolutely terrible campaigner. The first debate after the Bentsen/Quayle debate was his worst performance, with the answer on the death penalty question. I'm certain a better performance would have helped the momentum and made the Quayle issue a problem. I think what it came down to is people liked Dukakis so little that they were willing to roll the dice on the chance that Quayle would ever have to take over.

I think it's clear that Obama isn't nearly as bad a campaigner and he's certainly not as far left as Dukakis.

I suspect someone may have mentioned this but the thread is a little hard to search for every post so ... which one of the websites out there has a good chart to show polls vs actual results by state? What I'm looking for is something like "Gore eventually carried Michigan by 5 points but was up by X points in the polls on date Y". I have a general inclination of how they match up in my head but no idea about specific states (or whether my broad brush expectations even hold up).

I agree with both you guys. This thing is going to go down to the wire and the main issues are
A. If people feel that McCain has a good enough handle on the economy/energy/health care. If they do, many may vote for him.
B. If people feel comfortable enough with Obama as the commander in chief to handle foreign policy and that he won't kill their pocketbooks with taxes.

Whomever can answer their question above the best in the final 8 weeks will probably win. All this other stuff is just food for political junkies.

Always and forever ;)

I think that Obama was actually more upset when he was leading by 5 nationally but only by 2 in Ohio than he is when he is trailing by 5 nationally but tied in Michigan.

If the swing states lean toward one candidate or another, that is a HUGE deal. Of course, at the end of the day, the candidates have to move the national numbers as much as possible. But if Ohio is basically [National +3] for McCain then he has a great margin for error in the most important swing state. Obama needs a 3 point national lead just to make that state a toss-up.

100%. Bravo, sir.