VoxOrion wrote:Speaking of enthusiasm, I noticed in school tonight that the Senator from Illinois is referred to as "Barack", not "Obama". Who refers to "John"? Who referred to "George"?

If you say "Barack," I don't think anyone will say "Barack who?"
John is a really common name. I've heard Obama referred to by his first, last, or both names fairly commonly though.

On the other hand, my 10th grade history teacher referred to George Washington as "GW." People are weird.

a new twist

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07kO9TtHYzQ[/youtube]

(was posted a few days ago)

still awesome tho

LL Cool J and James Earl Jones are registered Republicans?

(they're rich?)

Bob Loblaw wrote:a new twist

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07kO9TtHYzQ[/youtube]

I think we all wish that we could do that; McCain included!

McCain on Imus:

http://i.timeinc.net/time/2008/thepage/ ... 102208.mp3

He does sound about a thousand years old when you can't look at him.

Interesting wonky stuff - Are the polls accurate?

So if Palin and Dobson are confident that God will do the right thing on Nov. 4, I wonder if they'll say that Obama is God's choice if he wins. /troll

Houshphandzadeh wrote:So if Palin and Dobson are confident that God will do the right thing on Nov. 4, I wonder if they'll say that Obama is God's choice if he wins. /troll

Clearly, anyone who votes runs the risk of interfering with God's will. So, believers should stay home.

VoxOrion wrote:Interesting wonky stuff - Are the polls accurate?

Exit polls have not been accurate for a long time. But as to the ball park estimate of the other polls, yeah, sure. I'd say they're not precise, rather than say they're not accurate.

TenuredVulture wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:Interesting wonky stuff - Are the polls accurate?

Exit polls have not been accurate for a long time. But as to the ball park estimate of the other polls, yeah, sure. I'd say they're not precise, rather than say they're not accurate.

I think that's what Barone argues up front - they're generally (if not always) correct in regard to who the winner will be, but they gather the margins poorly.

So the people who initially thought the Palin choice was "great", "fresh", and "smart" still agree? I mean, I know its an intricate point, but you'd think the potential VP would know the actual role of the VP.

FTN wrote:So the people who initially thought the Palin choice was "great", "fresh", and "smart" still agree? I mean, I know its an intricate point, but you'd think the potential VP would know the actual role of the VP.

I'm pretty sure at the beginning I said she was high risk, high reward. Willing to be corrected if someone digs through the archives to prove otherwise.

As far as the Senate thing goes, I mean, the VP is President of the Senate. The VP could very well work with Senators. Does she think that the VP is literally in charge of the Senate? I don't know. If she does, that would be dumber than anything she has said so far (which of course is saying something). Also, I realize at this point she hasn't earned the right to get the benefit of the doubt for anything, but she could have just been inartfully making the point that the VP is in fact the President of the Senate.

jerseyhoya wrote:

FTN wrote:So the people who initially thought the Palin choice was "great", "fresh", and "smart" still agree? I mean, I know its an intricate point, but you'd think the potential VP would know the actual role of the VP.

I'm pretty sure at the beginning I said she was high risk, high reward. Willing to be corrected if someone digs through the archives to prove otherwise.

As far as the Senate thing goes, I mean, the VP is President of the Senate. The VP could very well work with Senators. Does she think that the VP is literally in charge of the Senate? I don't know. If she does, that would be dumber than anything she has said so far (which of course is saying something). Also, I realize at this point she hasn't earned the right to get the benefit of the doubt for anything, but she could have just been inartfully making the point that the VP is in fact the President of the Senate.

Who knows what she meant. But the implication is that she could work with Senators on developing policy. But policy is developed in committees, and the VP does not sit on committees.

Or maybe it's just a plain folks way of making Cheney's claim that the VP is not part of the executive branch.

The more I read about the Obama campaign, the more convinced I am that he's trying to set the table not just for victory in a couple weeks, but for governing next year and beyond. The Biden pick was one indication of this: Obama clearly believes that Biden can help shepherd his policy agenda through Congress.

This might or might not be true--I don't have a sense of how close Biden is to Reid (probably somewhat) or Pelosi (probably not so much)--but I like the thinking involved. For one thing, if they win, we're very likely to see the same tension between the president, who will want to project an image of fiscal prudence, and the congressional Dems, who will want to spend wildly on everything, that undercut Clinton in 1993. Biden will know where they're coming from, and presumably it will be harder for them to blow him off. (Of course, Gore wasn't much help in calming those waters last time around despite having spent a couple terms in the Senate.)

I find it dubious that Palin would play the same role were McCain to win, what with having to keep an eye on Russia and all.

FTN wrote:So the people who initially thought the Palin choice was "great", "fresh", and "smart" still agree? I mean, I know its an intricate point, but you'd think the potential VP would know the actual role of the VP.

I'm not sure how she hurt his ticket, it's kind of like trying to prove a negative. We'd have to be able to somehow determine where he'd be in the polls if he had selected Romney or whomever. I don't think anyone here expected him to win, so it's hard to argue that he'd be winning now if he selected someone else anyway. His only real jumps in the polls surrounded his slection of her as VP, and the convention where she played a big roll in the end. If the best he can claim occurred in the 2008 election are his two jumps in the polls, it's tough to argue that she didn't play a role in both.

VoxOrion wrote:

FTN wrote:So the people who initially thought the Palin choice was "great", "fresh", and "smart" still agree? I mean, I know its an intricate point, but you'd think the potential VP would know the actual role of the VP.

I'm not sure how she hurt his ticket, it's kind of like trying to prove a negative. We'd have to be able to somehow determine where he'd be in the polls if he had selected Romney or whomever. I don't think anyone here expected him to win, so it's hard to argue that he'd be winning now if he selected someone else anyway. His only real jumps in the polls surrounded his slection of her as VP, and the convention where she played a big roll in the end. If the best he can claim occurred in the 2008 election are his two jumps in the polls, it's tough to argue that she didn't play a role in both.

I don't know how exactly one would quantify it, but I do think she hurt, in at least two and maybe three ways.

One, the sense among independents that she isn't qualified is really damaging--both because McCain's no spring chicken and has some health concerns, so the prospect of her taking office isn't at all beyond the realm of the plausible, and because it says something about his judgment.

Two, while she fired up the Republican base, she also fired up the Dem base--and this isn't a good year for the Rs to run a base polarization strategy. The Dem base is bigger, evidently deeper-pocketed (if for no other reason than because Obama opted out of public financing), and more highly motivated. And if you believe that antipathy is a more powerful motivator, Palin provided that--which wasn't really there with McCain.

The possible third way is opportunity cost. If he'd picked Romney, he would have had a more compelling surrogate on economic issues. If he'd picked Ridge (almost wrote "Lidge"...) or Lieberman, he would have reinforced the bipartisan/post-partisan messaging--which would have helped him make the closing argument that voters shouldn't give the Democrats unified control of the federal government, and probably would have preserved his amen corner in the media, which I think deserted him over Palin more than any other one thing.

(Admittedly, Lieberman might have ginned up as much agita on the left as Palin has. But I don't think Romney or Ridge or Pawlenty, all former/current blue-state governors, would have done so.)

This all seems like a lot to give up to make James Dobson happy.

If Obama wins, what is Jon Stewart going to do?

TenuredVulture wrote:If Obama wins, what is Jon Stewart going to do?

Hopefully start mercilessly making fun of Obama and pointing it out when he lies or fucks up.

I think everybody has gotten so used to the comprehensive tribalism of Bush-era politics that we've forgotten it doesn't have to be that way.