Saturday, November 1, 2008

01 Nov 2008 09:45 pm

Palin's Medical Records

Still AWOL. No explanation. Not even a gesture, which suggests to me that some in the McCain camp realize they'd rather release nothing than be implicated in anything that might hurt them after the election. Only ABC News' Kate Snow seems to care. Only this blog has really pursued this story for two long months. For the record, I find the idea that a vice-presidential candidate refuses to either give a press conference or release full medial records as a dreadful precedent for transparency. Obama and Biden and McCain have been pathetic as well. But no one has been as secretive as Palin and no one else has similar strangeness in her medical history. Presumably the records are there and could have been released easily two months ago. Unless there really was no vetting at all and the McCain camp is now covering up its own incompetence as well as preparing to throw her under the bus in a few days' time.

01 Nov 2008 09:10 pm

Pennsylvania

McCain has been doing better there, especially in the West of the state - surprise!. Silver:

The Pennslyvania polls have probably tightened by more than one point, although it is important to note that the four polls that show the state in the mid- single digits (Rasmussen, Mason-Dixon, ARG and Strategic Vision) have all had Republican leans so far this cycle. Pennsylvania is still an extreme long shot for John McCain -- Obama is more likely to win Arizona than McCain the Keystone -- just not quite the long-shot that it had looked like a couple of days ago.

That's worth absorbing as a statistical likelihood:

Obama is more likely to win Arizona than McCain the Keystone.

You can see a graph of all the Pennsylvania polls here.

01 Nov 2008 08:55 pm

No On 8: Good News

The SUSA poll on Proposition 8 on October 6 found the proposition winning by 47 to 42 percent, with 10 percent undecided. Today's SUSA poll shows the proposition losing by 50 to 47 percent, with 3 percent undecided. Still too close to call, but the momentum seems to have shifted against the proposition and in favor of keeping marriage legal for gay couples in California. Keep going, guys.

01 Nov 2008 08:48 pm

63 To 1

College newspapers go overwhelmingly to Obama.

01 Nov 2008 08:32 pm

Going Rogue Update

No signs mention McCain at a Palin rally in Florida.

01 Nov 2008 08:31 pm

Hewitt Award Nominee

"The media congratulates itself on its courage, bravery, fearlessness, etc, more than any other profession. Yet, in the end, as I said to Hugh Hewitt the other afternoon, to be the eunuchs in Sultan Barack's harem," - Mark Steyn, NRO.

01 Nov 2008 08:09 pm

Are Our Families That Different?

Mindy Blum defends hers.

01 Nov 2008 07:11 pm

Bring Out Your Munchies

Megan has some good news:

TiVo and Netflix finally announced that they would be partnering to deliver instant streaming video.  If you have a Netflix subscription (and a TiVo, of course), you can stream all the video you want at no additional charge.  The deal makes a lot of sense:  both companies are struggling, competing with Bittorrent and the cable companies to keep their business models alive.  But together they can offer something that the cable companies will have to step up their game considerably to compete with.  Indeed, the deal makes so much sense that people have been waiting for it since 2004, when it was announced with much fanfare and then went nowhere.  Yesterday was the fruition of a long-held dream.

01 Nov 2008 07:06 pm

The Conservative Symbolism Of Marriage

Virginia Postrel:

The drive for gay marriage represents the end of the sexual revolution. Marriage lost its glamour. It lost its connection to sex. Divorce got so easy that "single mom" became a sympathetic political trope. Cohabitation became normal. Nowadays, nobody--least of all gays--has to get married to be a respectable member of society. And yet people want to get married. They want to bind themselves to be monogamous. They want to promise in public to face bad breath in the morning. That's pretty remarkable.

And one of the most historically radical of communities, the gay and lesbian population, has chosen to add this conservative choice to its array of possibilities. In so many ways, real conservatives should be rejoicing. How did such a marginalized group come to seek such a traditional way forward? And yet so many "conservatives", rather than hailing this socially positive development, demonized those of us who stood up for it, cast us out of respectable conservative discourse, and tried to do all they can to destroy and uproot our families.

It's an emblem of what went so horribly wrong with conservatism. Fixing it will be a critical element of putting it right. Until the Republican party finds a way to talk to gay and lesbian people and our families, they will fail to become a modern political movement.

(Photo: David McNew/Getty.)

01 Nov 2008 06:37 pm

Why You Should Vote No On 8

A reminder from the Republican mayor of San Diego:

If have a friend or family member in California, please take a few minutes this weekend to call them and ask them to vote No.

01 Nov 2008 06:03 pm

Inside The No On 8 Campaign

Well, the gay press isn't always that awful. Here's Chris Lisotta with an exclusive inside look at the campaign to save marriage in California.

01 Nov 2008 05:42 pm

Realists On Either Side

The National Interest, traditionally a conservative realist policy magazine, offers a split decision on the election. Yglesias explains what this means. What it means, to my mind, is that serious foreign policy conservatives, who haven't drunk the entire neocon kool-aid (or mixed it with some traditional conservatism), understand that there's a very serious case for Obama in foreign affairs. Especially in the war on terror. I always saw neoconservatism as an important insight, if balanced with traditional conservative prudence, especially in disabusing us of the potential of Arab regimes to treat Israel with minimal respect. But when turned into a theology of sorts, and a doctrine, it has all the limits of any doctrine. It becomes resistant to reality, to events, to experience - to what we've learned on the ground in seven grueling years of failure. It is not a conservative impulse to double-down on such a theology. It's a conservative impulse to step back and review it and think again.

It's incredibly encouraging to find so many conservatives now getting there. Obama may not be the answer. But he sure is closer to it than McCain, and the neocon fanatics who surround him on foreign policy.

01 Nov 2008 04:58 pm

Gay-Baiting From The Left

Robert Farley points to a print ad and and a related radio spot. He writes:

...the ads linked above are pretty goddamn ugly. They do not in any manner or fashion put the drive for GLBT civil rights in a good light; in fact, just the opposite. While pointing out hypocrisy on this issue is always rather awkward, it can be done in a way that doesn't rely on homophobia to make the point. I certainly hope that Bruce Lunsford had nothing to do with the ads. There's no immediate reason to think that he did; AFSCME sponsored the radio version.

Homophobia is a sin that affects all of us, right and left. No party has a monopoly on virtue - or vice. It's important to remember that. There are good and decent Republicans in this election, as well as some unscrupulous and ugly Democrats. What Obama's candidacy, at its best, has tried to bring out in us is that understanding. We don't always live up to it. We should try.

01 Nov 2008 04:47 pm

Tell It To K-Lo

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis:

Obama is running out of states if you follow out a traditional model. Today, he expanded his buy into North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona in an attempt to widen the playing field and find his 270 Electoral Votes. This is a very tall order and trying to expand into new states in the final hours shows he doesn't have the votes to win.

01 Nov 2008 04:21 pm

Red Sex, Blue Sex

Margaret Talbot writes about sex in blue and red America. She asserts:

Social liberals in the country’s “blue states” tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in “red states” generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have an abortion.

From later in the article:

Continue reading "Red Sex, Blue Sex" »

01 Nov 2008 04:07 pm

Could McCain Lose Twice?

This is a bad sign:

In a test run for his 2010 re-election against Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, McCain is trailing 53%-45%.

01 Nov 2008 03:49 pm

White Supremacists For Obama

The Chairman of the American Nazi Party, among other self-proclaimed racists, is voting for Obama. It's called heightening the contradictions - something all good communists and neocons also understand.

01 Nov 2008 03:32 pm

The View From Your Window

Hell's Kitchen, New York, 1.45 pm. 

01 Nov 2008 03:06 pm

Staring At The Electoral Porcelain

New York magazine asks bloggers what they are going to do on November 5th. Here's Ben Smith:

I think the transition is going to be just as breakneck as the election, and that the real lull, if any, will come in June or July of next year. I've been doing this since Politico launched in January of 2007, and it's so metabolic at this point I'm not sure I can really unplug. Also, I'm very boring.

I'm currently running on fumes and without Patrick's stamina and help would probably be on a stretcher. But adrenaline exists for a reason. It's balls-to-the-wall till the fat lady sings, or something like that.

The more I think about it the more this election day feels like one giant collective, global puke. That Bush-Cheney thing never quite settled with us, did it? We'll feel a lot better but a lot more tired once the last heave is over.

01 Nov 2008 02:57 pm

"John McCain! Not Hussein"

Palin supporters' closing argument.

01 Nov 2008 02:26 pm

The "Real McCain"

Freddie attacks Reihan:

Reihan's argument, such as it is, is that we have not just gone through 20 months of campaigning by John McCain. No, we've been laboring under the misconception that the man who appears before us is the real McCain; that crass politician who has stoked the flames of cultural hatred and partisan divide is a construct designed, somehow, merely to win an election, and then be discarded once he ceases to be of use-- never mind the utter failure of that construct to actually build any lead in the polls. Reihan avers "We haven't seen the real McCain in this campaign." Let me be plain: that is a nonfalsifiable, evidence-resistant assertion that can only be supported by faith.

01 Nov 2008 02:12 pm

Smiling While Botoxed

Rob Horning stresses the importance of being able to control facial expressions. When was the last time Nancy Pelosi looked human?

01 Nov 2008 01:54 pm

Face Of The Day

Artist Meg Wachter dumped a smorgasbord of edible products on her friends and took pictures of them. Her explanation:

The thing was that everyone asked me how he or she should react. I had no idea how everyone would respond and told them that I thought they just would react. I think the novelty of how random and unusual the whole ordeal was what contributed to the fun of it. The moment of reaction is what interested me, I suppose.

More images here.

01 Nov 2008 01:34 pm

Arab-Americans And The Election

Justin Vogt studies the Arab American vote. A vignette from an event hosted by the Arab American Institute:

...the evening’s most striking moment was a less encouraging one. During his pitch, Bob Straniere, a Republican congressional candidate, made a rather cursory mention of his support for John McCain. A young man sporting ultra-hip jeans and heavily gelled hair raised his hand, and aired his distaste for McCain’s recent statements at a campaign rally in Minnesota.

When a supporter there told McCain, “I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him and he’s not, he’s not... he’s an Arab,” the candidate took back the microphone and said ““No, ma’am. He’s a decent family-man citizen.”

“Why,” the young questioner asked Straniere, “would you support a person who would respond in such an unfavourable way to the community?”

Continue reading "Arab-Americans And The Election" »

01 Nov 2008 01:33 pm

Weekend Polling Crack II

Blumenthal:

Not surprisingly, yesterday was another heavy day of new poll releases: 37 new statewide surveys and 10 national releases, yet these surveys indicate no clear trends and leave our bottom line electoral vote count unchanged. McCain does a little better on some polls and on some of our statewide trend estimates, Obama does a little better on others. The net result -- for today at least -- looks mostly like random noise.

Most people have made up their minds. But Obama is right about this:

"We can’t afford to slow down, sit back, or let up for one day, one minute, or one second in these last few days."

01 Nov 2008 01:07 pm

Weekend Polling Crack

Nate Silver:

Pennsylvania seems to be the one thing that McCain has to hang his hat on. But he remains very unlikely to win it, and even if he does, Obama has any number of firewall states that could preserve a victory for him. McCain’s win percentage is down to 2.8 percent, his lowest number of the year.

01 Nov 2008 01:00 pm

Liberal? Conservative?

JPod gives ten reasons why McCain might win. Here's number eight:

What happened with the Joe the Plumber story is that Obama has now been effectively outed as a liberal, not a moderate; and because liberalism is still less popular than conservatism, that’s not the best place for Obama to be.

I agree with JPod that the McCain campaign has finally managed to haul out the one theme they should have emphasized from the start, and it has helped with some independents. On tax, Obama is more liberal than McCain. But on debt, McCain is more liberal than Obama. Obama's proposals, according to every independent source including the CBO, will increase the debt less than McCain's. So, to my fiscal conservative mind, it's a wash. Neither one is serious about restraining spending - but, then, in the context of what could be a global depression, that might not, in the short term, be the worst thing in the world.

01 Nov 2008 12:54 pm

The Final Pitch

McCain's closing ad:

01 Nov 2008 10:30 am

The Old Media Dieth Off

PEW reports:

While use of the web has seen considerable growth, the percentage of Americans relying on TV and newspapers for campaign news has remained relatively flat since 2004. The internet now rivals newspapers as a main source for campaign news.

01 Nov 2008 09:44 am

Less-Crazy

Yglesias is troubled by moderate Republican leaders jumping ship and endorsing Obama:

On some level, I sort of regret seeing people like this hop onto the Obama bandwagon. Realistically, at some point the Republicans are going to come back into power and I’d prefer that to be a less-crazy version of the GOP. That’s going to require less-crazy people, people like Duberstein, to exert some influence and have some credibility.

01 Nov 2008 09:14 am

One More Word On Khalidi

Marty:

I assume that my Zionist credentials are not in dispute. And I have written more appreciative words about Khalidi than Obama ever uttered. In fact, I even invited Khalidi to speak for a Jewish organization with which I work.

01 Nov 2008 09:06 am

Reality Check

America:

01 Nov 2008 08:03 am

The McCain Comeback

Rick Davis:

"We are witnessing, I believe, probably one of the greatest comebacks that you've seen since John McCain won the primary"

Coates:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there a single shred of evidence in this story? A poll? Anything? How is this not a GOP press release? How is it not journalism as stenography?

It's a really truthy thing to say.

01 Nov 2008 07:30 am

A Ten Hour Wait

The lines are stretched around the block in Atlanta.

01 Nov 2008 07:08 am

A Mormon Against Prop 8

Dan Savage has been a hero in fighting the discriminatory Proposition 8 in California. You can still donate here. Here's an email Dan received that he has given me permission to share:

I am a straight, married man, and I am a practicing Mormon.  I am disgusted with my church's efforts to pass proposition 8.  Not only do we have more important things to devote our energy and money towards--last time I checked, people were still starving, suffering from disease, neglect and abuse, and all other kinds of ills that could be helped with some good Christian sentiment--but I am horrified at the idea of painting loving, stable families like yours as something shameful, hurtful to children, or worse.

Continue reading "A Mormon Against Prop 8" »

Friday, October 31, 2008

31 Oct 2008 11:04 pm

Happy Halloween III

Pumpkins are lit up before a rally for Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) at the Wicker Memorial Park October 31, 2008 in Highland, Indiana. By Joe Raedle/Getty.

31 Oct 2008 11:00 pm

Pushed Off The Plane?

Dallas Morning News pushes back against Drudge:

"...we don't have evidence that the newspaper's endorsement of Sen. McCain had any bearing on the campaign's decision to boot us from the plane," Rusak added, noting their news reporters had no knowledge of the paper's McCain endorsement. "We think the Obama campaign's decision is to some degree more a function of limited seats, and while we're a large regional newspaper, we're not national and we're not in a swing state."

Rusak noted that while the News continues to protest the decision, the paper has encountered similar issues periodically while traveling with the McCain campaign.

The Washington Times was less understanding.

31 Oct 2008 10:57 pm

Your Polling Crack Nightcap

Blumenthal:

It is probably premature to start talking about a "widening" of Barack Obama's lead over John McCain, although today's national tracking results certainly produce no evidence of any continuing "narrowing." Of the eight national tracking polls out today, five show slight movement in Obama's direction today, only one in McCain's direction and two show no change in the margin.

31 Oct 2008 10:54 pm

The Unwind

Thomas P.M. Barnett endorses Obama:

Obama's task is the great unwinding of the Bush debacle, which Bush himself started these past two years, but which is likely to go four more. If Obama spends his first term unwinding both the financial crisis and the two wars well, then he wins a second term and there stands his real chance to imprint a different world moving forward.

McCain is just not the guy to do the unwinds. I honestly think he'd be a complete disaster, so my expectations for Obama are suitably set: unwind and reset in first term, come out charging like the America the world needs in term two.

(Photo: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty)

31 Oct 2008 09:54 pm

A New Era

Peggy Noonan makes the case for Obama:

He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief.

Continue reading "A New Era" »

31 Oct 2008 09:11 pm

How Bad Is The Gay Press?

I just read this piece in Out magazine about the gay press corps. Could any piece in the straight press be this shallow, this uninformed and this homophobic? The reason gay men are campaign reporters? Take it away, Out:

It’s also a glamour job -- inasmuch as any ink-stained gig can be glamorous -- that keeps you close to high-profile people. “I think a lot of gay men are attracted to that boldface-namey thing,” says a gay reporter who has covered presidential campaigns. “My guess is that if you did a canvass of gay male journalists who are on-air or who are writing -- so I’m taking out copy editors and producers and that sort of thing -- you would find them gravitating toward spotlighty things. To me, that’s one of those things gays appreciate, is life on the public stage.”

I mean: seriously. And why exactly does this moron stay off-the-record?

31 Oct 2008 08:00 pm

Obamacon Watch

This time, a Republican vet:

31 Oct 2008 07:26 pm

Powerline Goes There

I have to say that even I'm a little shocked at this latest piece from Powerline, endorsed by NRO's Andy McCarthy and elaborated on by Diana West. It is the highbrow equivalent of the Obama-Is-A-Muslim-Terrorist emails. Except it isn't even that highbrow. It's a strange attempt to draw parallels between Congressman Keith Ellison's career and Barack Obama's. Ellison, you might recall, is the only Muslim congressman. Over to Scott Johnson:

Despite the natural alliance that should exist between them, Obama has scrupulously avoided Ellison.

Continue reading "Powerline Goes There" »

31 Oct 2008 07:06 pm

Gallup's Older Model

You know: the one Drudge featured in bold red!! as showing a near tie. Well, check it out today.

31 Oct 2008 06:23 pm

A Rejected McCain Robocall

Ahem:

"Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has not accepted Joe the Plumber's friend request on Facebook. We know he's logged on, because we saw he changed his status on Monday. On Tuesday, he joined the group Art Historians Are Saucy. But he still won't accept Joe the Plumber's friend request. He knows it's Joe. Joe uses the screen shot of the two of them together as his profile picture. That's not a uniter. That's the same old liberal-elite politics as usual."

31 Oct 2008 06:11 pm

Obamaguity

Phil Weiss coins a phrase.

31 Oct 2008 05:35 pm

Why McCain Can't Win

He violates Jon Rauch's rule:

With only one exception since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, no one has been elected president who took more than 14 years to climb from his first major elective office to election as either president or vice president.

His expiration date is long gone.

31 Oct 2008 05:25 pm

Children and Marriage Equality

A reader writes:

My 7 year old just learned about gay marriage. Not form his school or teacher, but by the Yes on Prop 8 ad on radio while carpooling to school. He asked me about it and I gave an age appropriate answer. I have no doubt that many other kids will learn about the gay marriage thanks to prop 8 ads. I hope the theocrats realize the irony ...

Irony isn't their strong point.

31 Oct 2008 05:15 pm

Obamacon Watch

Now, Ken Duberstein, with this priceless and completely indisputable quote:

You know what most Americans I think realized is that you don’t offer a job, let alone the vice presidency, to a person after one job interview. Even at McDonald’s, you’re interviewed three times before you get a job.

Even with a glowing reference from Bill Kristol.

31 Oct 2008 05:11 pm

Heads Up

I'll be on the Colbert Report the night before the election on Monday.