dajafi, you can only hide your super-secret Furry lifestyle so well before it catches up to you.

NOTE: I violated my politics thread moratorium but since my comment was not of a political nature, but rather a good natured and borderline swipe at a colleague on a non-game day, I think I'm still okay vis-a-vis the SPIRIT of the moratorium.

The Red Tornado wrote:You mean I shouldnt be blogging if I want to make the headlines?

Not you. You're different.

One of the many aspects of the piece that I found interesting was in the decison to go with Palin. The campaign was struggling with message and controlling the narriative, and was impressed with Palin's ability to control the conversation and stay on narriative the way Obama does (I also found it personally interesting that they rejected the other VP candidates for the same reasons I would have). I'm not saying it worked out, but it's interesting to hear some logical and less cynical reasoning was involved than the storyline has ended up being.

Pretty funny (and maybe perceptive) Kathleen Parker op-edin the WaPo.

dajafi wrote:

The Red Tornado wrote:You mean I shouldnt be blogging if I want to make the headlines?

Not you. You're different.

Thanks?

I feel better about myself for not having a clue what any of you were talking about for the past 3 pages.

dajafi wrote:Pretty funny (and maybe perceptive) Kathleen Parker op-edin the WaPo.

That would certainly explain this
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dajafi wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:Really facinating read about the McCain campaign. Interestingly, Rich Lowery commented that all that appears here jibes with his "inside" knowledge of the campaign (so it's tough to argue it's a hit piece or that it's unfair - his only comment is that he can't believe the campaign let Draper publish before the election was over).

It's pretty long, and some of the irrational Palin haters might wish it were harder on her, but in the end, this might be a pretty good first chapter in how to not win a presidential campaign.

I put this in my gym reading for the weekend. Thanks.

Apparently this circular-firing squad dynamic is becoming "the" story: see hereand here.

If nothing else, that seems like spectacularly bad form; the campaign isn't over, fellas.

Ha - two thoughts:

1. Replace "Republican" with "Phillies Fans" and it reads just like this place did in August (that's not to say McCain will win the World Series).
2. No one is mentioning the obvious (yet) - McCain was and still is the worst candidate the GOP could have selected. Palin hating aside, she's kept this race interesting - imagine if he had chosen Pawlenty or Romney - I'd bet the words "John McCain" would have dissapeared from the national brainshare a month ago. Seriously, I think Mike Huckabee would be tied with Obama or better at this point. Mike. Huckabee.

VoxOrion wrote:One of the many aspects of the piece that I found interesting was in the decison to go with Palin. The campaign was struggling with message and controlling the narriative, and was impressed with Palin's ability to control the conversation and stay on narriative the way Obama does (I also found it personally interesting that they rejected the other VP candidates for the same reasons I would have). I'm not saying it worked out, but it's interesting to hear some logical and less cynical reasoning was involved than the storyline has ended up being.

People who like Palin (presumably you) are far more irrational than the people who hate Palin. Besides Bill Maher. I think he'd kill her if he got the chance.

VoxOrion wrote:

dajafi wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:Really facinating read about the McCain campaign. Interestingly, Rich Lowery commented that all that appears here jibes with his "inside" knowledge of the campaign (so it's tough to argue it's a hit piece or that it's unfair - his only comment is that he can't believe the campaign let Draper publish before the election was over).

It's pretty long, and some of the irrational Palin haters might wish it were harder on her, but in the end, this might be a pretty good first chapter in how to not win a presidential campaign.

I put this in my gym reading for the weekend. Thanks.

Apparently this circular-firing squad dynamic is becoming "the" story: see hereand here.

If nothing else, that seems like spectacularly bad form; the campaign isn't over, fellas.

Ha - two thoughts:

1. Replace "Republican" with "Phillies Fans" and it reads just like this place did in August (that's not to say McCain will win the World Series).
2. No one is mentioning the obvious (yet) - McCain was and still is the worst candidate the GOP could have selected. Palin hating aside, she's kept this race interesting - imagine if he had chosen Pawlenty or Romney - I'd bet the words "John McCain" would have dissapeared from the national brainshare a month ago. Seriously, I think Mike Huckabee would be tied with Obama or better at this point. Mike. Huckabee.

People like Huckabee as a late night host...not a president. That's my view anyway. I think he'd have gotten trounced by Obama.

pacino wrote:People like Huckabee as a late night host...not a president. That's my view anyway. I think he'd have gotten trounced by Obama.

I don't know - I feel like there was a really, really strong opportunity for the GOP to run away with this after the convention and they blew it. I really believe McCain has done more to make Obama look like the unbeatable candidate than Obama has.

I thought the strength of schedule argument was reserved for college football and beer pong

VoxOrion wrote:2. No one is mentioning the obvious (yet) - McCain was and still is the worst candidate the GOP could have selected. Palin hating aside, she's kept this race interesting - imagine if he had chosen Pawlenty or Romney - I'd bet the words "John McCain" would have dissapeared from the national brainshare a month ago. Seriously, I think Mike Huckabee would be tied with Obama or better at this point. Mike. Huckabee.

You're definitely seeing a different reality than I am.

Palin prompted the mass defections of the "elite Republicans" in the press (Parker, Buckley, Frum et al), and high profile folks like Powell and Bill Weld and Arne Carlson, and she hasn't played well with the indies. Suburban women, including a lot of moderate pro-Hillary Democrats who couldn't stand Obama six months ago, detest Palin. I don't think Romney or Pawlenty would have driven any of the big-name Republicans away, and while they might not have won the indies or suburbanites, they wouldn't have lost as many. My guess is that McCain would be a few points closer, if anything.

If you're arguing that Huckabee as nominee rather than McCain would be doing better, that I probably agree with. He's more plausible than McCain both as someone who represents a break from Bush, while somewhat preserving what people once liked about Bush, and someone who understands and would have ideas on what to do about the economic straits people are facing. But the Norquist faction never was going to let him get the nomination.

The big irony of all this: the Republicans are now fully as bloated, tribalized and insular as the Democrats were in the 1980-88 period. I think it just tends to happen after you win for a long time.

We could have run Jesus Christ with Rove, Carville and Atwater running the campaign, and we still would be losing this election.

Shit went bad.

VoxOrion wrote:Really facinating read about the McCain campaign. Interestingly, Rich Lowery commented that all that appears here jibes with his "inside" knowledge of the campaign (so it's tough to argue it's a hit piece or that it's unfair - his only comment is that he can't believe the campaign let Draper publish before the election was over).

It's pretty long, and some of the irrational Palin haters might wish it were harder on her, but in the end, this might be a pretty good first chapter in how to not win a presidential campaign.

Reading this, it becomes clear the guys like Jerseyhoya see a very different world than guys like me. I'm not talking Dem/Rep, though. I'm talking political pros v. political scientists. All this talk about branding and narrative, who looks good on the cover of Time Magazine.

In terms of getting someone elected, it reads like old fashioned baseball talk like grit and heart. Guys like me, by contrast, believe that the most important thing is what's going on out there--the more or less objective context the in which the campaign unfolds matter a lot more than the narrative spin doctors manage to weave. There's simply no evidence that any of this stuff really matters. Yeah, the pros use focus groups, they use crosstabs, they might even do logit and probit analysis. Heck, they probably to confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis. But they don't do it to learn stuff about how people are thinking about policy alternatives, they do it to figure out how people are responding to the brand, or the tie color or some other triviality.

Anyway, Jerseyhoya, here is a million dollar idea (my third, after bunny nuggets and goat lawn care) use sabremetrics in political consulting. There. You're the next Atwater.

dajafi wrote:Palin prompted the mass defections of the "elite Republicans" in the press (Parker, Buckley, Frum et al), and high profile folks like Powell and Bill Weld and Arne Carlson, and she hasn't played well with the indies. Suburban women, including a lot of moderate pro-Hillary Democrats who couldn't stand Obama six months ago, detest Palin. I don't think Romney or Pawlenty would have driven any of the big-name Republicans away, and while they might not have won the indies or suburbanites, they wouldn't have lost as many. My guess is that McCain would be a few points closer, if anything.

I don't agree on the elite conservative types thing, mainly because (this will sound crass in your ears) conservatives don't care what those people think as much as liberals do. Were there many conservatives that were surprised Powell came out for Obama? On the "inside" (and I know you're pretty well read on both sides) you've surely seen the ages old argument about how conservatives have to stop caring what liberals think of them (because it never gets them anywhere). All of these "defections" are seen as just that... interestingly, they're seen the same way conservatives saw McCain for 8 years.

As for the "a lot of moderate pro-Hillary Democrats... detest Palin" I don't even know how either of us could prove that one way or the other. I said this earlier (and the article alludes to it) McCain was doing nothing to gather his base in the early going, and it was killing him. Romney wasn't going to gather the base for him, Lieberman or Ridge would have obliterated it, Pawlenty may have, Palin we know did. I can't imagine where McCain would be if she hadn't given Republicans someone to cheer for, cause it certainly wasn't McCain. You can't tell from the echo chamber, but Palin is really really popular out there. Translate the deeper meaning of that however you want.

The other thing on the "elite Republicans' - I think this is the first signs of the necessary "what the hell is a conservative anyway" debate to come. There are a lot of positives that come from an Obama win, and reforming and fixing the definition of conservative is high on that list.

If you're arguing that Huckabee as nominee rather than McCain would be doing better, that I probably agree with. He's more plausible than McCain both as someone who represents a break from Bush, while somewhat preserving what people once liked about Bush, and someone who understands and would have ideas on what to do about the economic straits people are facing. But the Norquist faction never was going to let him get the nomination.

Huckabee would have done well if only because Obama would have had to show up and try at the debates Ditto for Romney. As I think about it, I think those two are the only two that would be doing better than McCain - Thompson and Giuliani would have been worse.

The big irony of all this: the Republicans are now fully as bloated, tribalized and insular as the Democrats were in the 1980-88 period. I think it just tends to happen after you win for a long time.

They are, and I can't wait for them to get shook to the ground over the next two years. It'll be good for the country and good for folks who still believe in conservative values.

Dunno about Huckabee... he shot himself in the foot the moment he said the "align the constitution with the bible" comment.

You can't tell from the echo chamber, but Palin is really really popular out there.

Or from favorability ratings. Or polls about it. But she is popular out in fantasy land.

VoxOrion wrote:I don't agree on the elite conservative types thing, mainly because (this will sound crass in your ears) conservatives don't care what those people think as much as liberals do.

No, doesn't sound crass. It makes perfect sense. They (to use a word I relearned from a recent Simpsons rerun) disintermediate. For better and for worse, I guess.

VoxOrion wrote:As for the "a lot of moderate pro-Hillary Democrats... detest Palin" I don't even know how either of us could prove that one way or the other. I said this earlier (and the article alludes to it) McCain was doing nothing to gather his base in the early going, and it was killing him. Romney wasn't going to gather the base for him, Lieberman or Ridge would have obliterated it, Pawlenty may have, Palin we know did. I can't imagine where McCain would be if she hadn't given Republicans someone to cheer for, cause it certainly wasn't McCain. You can't tell from the echo chamber, but Palin is really really popular out there. Translate the deeper meaning of that however you want.

I've seen numbers and have some anecdotal (e.g. my mom and all her friends) sense of the suburban moderate women phenomenon. Palin's approval ratings overall and in subsets of the electorate don't seem much in question.

I know Palin is a rock star "out there." But here's a thought: Palin 2008 is to a certain tribe of Republican as Howard Dean 2003 was to a certain tribe of Democrat. (Or if you want to go old-school, and I know you do, Goldwater was to late-'50s/early-'60s Republican activists.) Intensity alone doesn't win--though maybe you're right to posit that without intensity, there's nothing to build upon.

VoxOrion wrote:The other thing on the "elite Republicans' - I think this is the first signs of the necessary "what the hell is a conservative anyway" debate to come. There are a lot of positives that come from an Obama win, and reforming and fixing the definition of conservative is high on that list.

That makes sense. And as with the Democrats after losing and losing and losing, the choice will be whether you want to draw down to the true believers, or broaden out to diffuse the ideological purity. Some have framed this as "Palin vs. Gingrich," though I think Huckabee makes vastly more sense than Newt--he's definitely more likable, probably smarter, and as an executive he has more relevant experience.

A second question is whether "conservative" and "Republican" should overlap as much as they have. Maybe the failures of Bush and the likely defeat of McCain have given cover for all those self-described conservatives who support Obama because they find him dreamy or whatever, but it's also at least arguable that they're putting a sense of principle above party loyalty. (Says the former big honking liberal who voted for Nader in 2000...)

VoxOrion wrote:Huckabee would have done well if only because Obama would have had to show up and try at the debates Ditto for Romney. As I think about it, I think those two are the only two that would be doing better than McCain - Thompson and Giuliani would have been worse.

You have a different take on Romney than I do--probably a more valid one, since I just can't get past my visceral dislike of the guy. But yeah, Huckabee would have been a much more able debater, and as I said before, probably a stronger candidate. While I'm drawing silly historical comparisons, I'll put Huck 2008 in the box with Gary Hart 1984; so long as he stays off boats and keeps models off his lap, I think Huckabee is your front-runner for the next one.

With the political fundamentals being what they are this year, I think McCain is the only person in the Republican nomination field who could have won. Giuliani? I don't think so. Huckabee? I'm pretty sure not. Romney? He would have been the Republicans' Mondale, especially if the Christian right decided it could not support a Mormon and backed their own independent candidate.

Had McCain picked Pawlenty or Lieberman, I think the polls would be closer than they are right now.

At the end of the day, though, if Obama wins, I'd like to see him get some credit - a lot of credit, actually - for being a really good candidate who also ran a really solid race. An outstanding race by recent Democratic standards. He's got many of Bill Clinton's strengths without legitimate peccadilloes. (You can disagree with Obama's policies all you want, but people who accept the reality that Obama is not "friendly with terrorists" or anything like should admit that Obama does not invite the character argument like Bill Clinton did.)

If the polls hold up, I hope the post-election coverage is more about Obama winning the race than McCain losing it.