The Inaugural

Over at TNR, John Judis races to be the first to diss the inaugural address, calling it a "hodgepodge," and the talkbackers pile on to take sides.

I have to say, Judis completely lost me on this one. The speech was beautifully delivered, spoke to our better angels, and had a rational progression:

Hi, everybody, we are in some deep shit. Who cares who's to blame. We're Americans, and we can dig out, if everybody grabs a shovel and if we get past all those false choices, all that either-or, blue-vs-red, GOP-vs-Dem, Free Market-or- Socialism-and-no-in-between bullshit. Here's a few high points of my domestic and foreign policy agendas everybody knows already. Let's finish up with inspiration, exhortations to courage, and calls to service and responsibility, all liberally (if you'll forgive) sprinkled with totally appropriate historical allusions, confidence in the American spirit, and praise of inclusion and tolerance. So let's get to work. God bless us, every one, cuz we're gonna need it.

It was an incantation, calling forth the archetypes that lie in the collective unconscious of America, and an eloquent affirmation that those powers belong to us all.

That's what I heard. Then I went back to work.

So for today the speech was just right.

What will be the ultimate verdict on the inaugural address of Barack Hussein Obama? I don't know. But I do know that verdict won't be passed down by Mr. John Judis. History will judge this speech and, as always, She will do it in Her own good time.

So take a chill pill, everybody, and try to savor the moment. No matter what happens tomorrow, today was a good day.

Hope.

Rove Calls the Election...

...for Barack Obama, 338 to 200.

Sullydog's 2008 EV Prediction

Here's my prediction, based on the most recent polling. My research materials included 538.com, electoral-vote.com, rcp, pollster.com, cnn and msnbc. Obama wins the Kerry states + FL, IA, NM, CO, NV, NC and VA. He does NOT win OH, IN, MO, MT, AZ (gimme a break), ND or any contested district in NE.

Step Up The Security, Obama!

Assassination plot targeting Obama disrupted

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal agents have broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree, the ATF said Monday.

In court records unsealed Monday, federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the school by name.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the two men planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The men also sought to go on a national killing spree, with Obama as its final target, Cavanaugh told The Associated Press.

"They said that would be their last, final act - that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama," Cavanaugh said. "They didn't believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying."

Greetings From Chicago

Hi, guys. I'm a little out of the loop this week. I'm attending the Scientific Assembly and Research Forum of the American College of Emergency Physicians in Chicago. Good times!

I hope you guys will pick up the slack, keep posting, maybe ignite an argument or two. I can't believe that, on our very own blog, Tep and Chan and Mr. Cookie can't get into a flame war.

My observation of the day: Palin's being called a "Diva" and a rogue candidate, and there's every indication that McCain's campaign can't shoot straight. Somebody tell me again...why should we even think about letting these two bozos run our country?

Pennsylvania, McCain and Pickett's Charge

Herewith my own take on the new McCain Pennsylvania "strategy" that Mike Crowley brought up here, reconsidered here, and further eludes to here. This sums it up:

The go-north strategy assumes McCain thinks he can hold Virginia. But, even though VA wasn't named in yesterday's CNN story about states at least one McCain insider considers "gone," his chances there are looking awfully bleak, even if you assume a surprise Bradley effect. If Virginia's gone, too, then PA really is McCain's last shot.

I don't get it.

Looking at the polling in PA, it just doesn't seem like a good play. PA has gone blue for the last 4 elections, and Obama is ahead there by double digits--as much as 12 points in some polls. McCain hasn't been ahead in PA in a single poll since at least May. Even when McCain was surging, he wasn't winning PA.

And poster Mike, responding to Crowley's "reconsidered" post, makes nice point:

It's looking more like the primary where Plouffe's ground game built too many firewalls before Hillary invaded a state. Plus, McCain knows the $150 million in October combined with the flood of new donors means Obama began his version of Rove's final 72 hours when polls opened. McCain can burn his time and money in PA for the rest of the week but by early next week he'll know if Obama has already done the job on the ground. At that point he might save a close down ballot race but won't reclaim any state where 1/3 of the vote is locked in and it shows he's several points behind.

So I have to ask myself: is this a hail-Mary, a head-fake, or a kamikaze mission? Somebody help me out here. I agree that taking PA maybe wins McCain the election, VA or no VA--assuming Obama loses all the other battlegrounds: OH and MO and NV and FL and NC, which is not a done deal by any means. (I don't include CO as a battleground anymore; I think it's solid blue in 2008.)

Okay, sure, in that scenario PA wins McCain the election--but that's kind of like R. E. Lee saying, ca March 1865, that taking the Eastern Seaboard brings victory to the Confederacy. Absolutely true, and totally irrelevant, since Lee had no hope of capturing the Eastern Seaboard. And McCain, to my eye, has next to no hope of capturing PA.

Am I just fucked in the head, here? Because I really don't get it. Somebody please help me out, because PA for McCain looks like Pickett's Charge to me.

Powell Endorses....

...Barack Obama.

It's not exactly an original thought that Obama probably locked up this endorsement some time ago, and kept Powell in pocket until the best time.

This was, undoubtedly, the best time, kicking McCain while he's down.

What will be the effect of this endorsement? It's hard to imaging that it's anything but great news for Barack, but what is the magnitude of this vector? I think there may be competing factors here. On the one hand, it further cements American's greater comfort with the idea of Obama as CiC. Notwithstanding the tarnishing of his rep by the UN presentation, Powell still commands great respect in this country. The endorsement also emphasizes that Obama is surrounding himself with, and listening to, some very smart, mainstream political, economic and foreign policy titans. OTOH, there may be an undercurrent of "Powell endorsed Obama cuz he's black." My guess is this view would be held predominantly by people who wouldn't vote for Obama anyway.

So, yeah, net positive for Obama. But the magnitude? The effect on the polls, and the election? Anybody's guess.

Tep Endorses Obama

In a strange way, I think we all knew he would; Tep, the mighty Talkbacker who would not be persuaded, was finally convinced that Obama is not so bad.

I think David Brooks today articulates perfectly why I'm comfortable voting for BHO now.

Short version: this crisis has shown our political class, both left right and center, to be an army of either poltroons, whores or scamps, or some combination thereof. With such a dismal backdrop for a foil, Obama, whatever his leanings or calculations, shows none of these traits. He's an adult. He's calm, centered, intelligent. He's not greedy or self-aggrandizing.

In a forest full of midgets, Obama now appears ten feet tall.

Given the choices on offer, that's good enough. Not great, but about as much as we can hope for in an era of vastly diminished expectations.

T

100K in St. Louis!

Wow!

I Just LOVE Electoral Maps

It's a sickness, really. Maybe it's because, perversely, they reinforce the election-as-warfare concept. When you talk about McCain barely holding on south of the Mason-Dixon line, and how Obama has probably taken Virginia and is making inroads in Ohio...jeez, it sounds like something you'd hear in a Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War.

Anyway, I love electoral maps. So here's another cool one to add to your bookmarks. Zogby's interactive electoral map is pretty nifty (not to mention very, very blue right now). CLick on a state and get a succinct analysis of where things stand.

"Racism is a Luxury"

Priceless post from Sean Quinnn at fivethirtyeight.com. They've been tramping across the country, looking at battlegrounds and safe states alike, checking out the electorate, reporting on the ground games (or lack thereof), as part of their "Road to 270" series. Great stuff. But yesterday's installment, on Pennsylvania, takes the cake. Must-read grafs:

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

My country, 'tis of thee...

Hey, Guys!

Brian, I wish I had seen more remarks from you. Do you have any overarching thoughts about the debate? Anybody?

One Initial Thought

In passing I note that McCain's final statement was actually more airy than Obama's. McCain appears to honor and his family history. Obama appeals more directly to the voters.

More importantly: A lot of analysts, including George Will, have been saying that McCain's best line of attack is to raise the spectre of an undivided, liberal Democratic government.

McCain didn't do that. Interesting.

The A Word

McCain makes it into an attack on Obama. Obama makes it about making good decisions.

Oh, here goes the jab at the McCain, and a thinly-veiled appeal to women.

John McCain talks about the "terribly difficult decision." Of course, he doesn't want it to be a decision.

I see at 538 that XX dialers are giving this one to Obama so far. Men: mixed.

McC: "That's the extreme pro-abortion position: health (of the mother)." Ooh. Good answer. Not.

Health Care

Obaama talks directly into the camera again, and gives a smart, if unimpassioned, answer.

Back to Joe the Plumber, who has already made the transformation from affecting and effective reference to a cheap gimmick. MK sez: he's gone from caring about Joe to using Joe. It's clear who he's targeting here: Joe, the white middle-class voter.

Obama talks to Joe: "Here's your fine, Joe: ZERO." He goes on to skewer McCain's health care plan.

McCain's counter is snarky. And completely untrue. Obama talks to Joe again.

Side note: snarkiness and small-scale fireworks aside, this debate so far is a lot about numbers and facts and such dryness. I don't see anything so far to ignite the voters' passion. Does anybody else?

"Climate Control..."

...is what you have in your Cadillac.

McCain takes the opportunity to lecture Obama on nuclear power.

Obama gives a realistic answer, looking right into the camera. I don't think he's was doing enough of that before. Obama's speech is a bit stumbly, but he still makes his points clearly. When he pivots to the Free Trade issue he gets more fluent, and pins it to American business and workers.

McCain looks sharp when he parses Obama's "we need to look at offshore drilling."

Why Would the Country Be Better Off With YOUR VEEP?

OBama gives a ringing endorsement of Biden and links it, once again "to 8 failed years" and his economic plan for struggling individuals and small businesses and energy and, gosh, we could all give this answer by now.

McC: "Americans have gotten to know Sarah Palin."

Yeah. Well. That's your problem, John-boy.

McCain appeals to the Special Needs voting block. After all, none of the other voting blocks are working out for him.

Is she qualified? Obama refuses to take the bait. "That's up to the American people." As to the special needs kids, John-boy, your across the board spending cut will kill research and special programs for those kids.

Can You Say It To His Face?

McCain's assertion that all the nastiness could have been avoided if only Obama had down the town halls hasn't worked before and it still sounds lame. Also, he falsely accuses Obama of not repudiating Lewis' remarks.

Obama takes the high road. "Let's make it about the issues."

No such luck. It's OBama who's running all the negative ads!

McCain is chomping at the bit. Again, he looks like The Angry Warrior. Obama looks like the Cool Cucumber.

Aren't You BOTH Out of Touch With Reality?

Obama's answer is okay, but a bit analytical.

McCain brings it right back to home values. Shieffer has to steer both of them back to the question.

Offshore drilling from McCain again. Not only is it a false issue, but it's getting old. And the spending freeze again. Then he gets made about the debt again, which nobody really gives two fucks about anymore. Subsidies for ethanol? Excuse me?

And the overhead projector again? Weird.

McCain is definitely swinging. He knows he's in the fight of his life. Obama is trying to give the impression that he's parrying calmly.

They're mixing it up a little, which is good.