The Republican Strategy – My Theory

After watching John McCain’s acceptance speech for the Republican candidate for the presidency, I came to a conclusion about the Republican campaign:

They are throwing the election away because they know they can’t win, and they want to save their money, and their top candidates, for the next presidential election 4 years from now.

It wasn’t just the speech itself that made me draw this conclusion. It is a culmination of months of watching the campaign unfold, starting with the Republican primary season. If you recall, during the initial stages of the primary, McCain was having money problems, and he didn’t appear to have a very organized campaign. But, suddenly it looked like McCain was appealing to more Republican voters than anticipated, and it breathed some new life into the McCain campaign. It wasn’t enough though, as the party spent more time pointing the fingers at Democratic candidate Barack Obama than defining their own platform.

This was even more evident in the last few days, when McCain chose unknown Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. With Palin’s inexperience, this immediately took their whole argument about Barack Obama - which was that he just didn’t have the experience and judgment to lead – completely out of the picture. It was also directly opposite to the Democratic strategy, where Joe Biden was selected as Obama’s running mate, to help balance out Obama's experience issue. While some pundits say that Palin has energized the party, it has only help draw days of negative attention to her (with many more days to come), and cause many to question McCain’s judgment. With the election less than 60 days away, the media and public will continue to vet Palin, and I imagine only the negative issues will come out. Again, this is unlike the Obama campaign, which chose a candidate who is well known and thoroughly vetted, just by the nature of Biden’s tenure with the Senate.

Now, let’s review McCain’s speech. You’ve heard of style over substance? Well, this speech had neither style nor substance. McCain seemed stiff, his smiles forced – he looked like he could not wait to get it over with. He said he would drive change in Washington, yet he’s had years to do it, and hasn’t done so. In fact, in many cases he supported the current administration, which is expected from any dutiful party member. But it doesn’t make for a person who can say that NOW he will make change. McCain also did not really define just exactly how he would make change, so the speech was very thin on substance and relaying the party platform. I still don’t know what their platform is.

It is evident that Barack Obama is an excellent public speaker. That was made crystal clear years ago when he made a speech at the Democratic convention during the 2004 DNC, which catapulted him into the spotlight and may have set the stage for his current bid for the presidency. I am sure that the McCain campaign knows that they are unable to match the oratory skills of Obama, but their approach with McCain acceptance speech could have had more life to it.

Another issue of concern is that during this convention, it has become apparent by the camera coverage of the delegates that there is little representation from African Americans. The Boston Globe reported that “only 36 of approximately 2,000 delegates gathered here at the Xcel Energy Center this week are African-American, according to the study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The center, which tracks such data, said it is the lowest rate of black participation in 34 years.” This could mean that McCain has little chance of drawing African-American voters, who seem poised for a record turnout for Barack Obama.

And despite what the Republicans say is a whole host of disgruntled Hillary supporters out there who will vote for McCain out of protest that Hillary isn’t the Democratic candidate, I just don’t see it. I supported Hillary in the primary, but I also am currently an Obama supporter. All the women (and men) that I know who voted for Hillary are also currently supporting Obama. I think the whole “we are going to get all the Hillary voters by selecting Sarah Palin” was a Hail Mary pass that is going to fail.

The Republicans know that they have a formidable opponent in Barack Obama. Based on many people that I speak to on a daily basis about this election, I tend to think that we may have a near landslide coming for Obama. The McCain supporters are few and far in between. But, as we all know, anything can happen between here and the election, but one thing I don’t see happening is the Republican Party waking up and energizing their candidate or better defining their platform. I think they know it’s over, and are already setting the stage for excuses as to why they failed. We’d probably hear things like “people aren’t ready for a woman as VP” or “the media was easy on Obama” etc. etc. I think the Republican big wigs have already moved on to four years from now. So as far as the Republican strategy, I say that right now, it’s either duck and cover, or cut and run. Maybe a bit of both.



Check out my blog home page for the latest information, here.

The Hits Just Keep on Coming to the Republicans

Well, there are now so many varying news releases regarding the McCain/Palin ticket that I almost can’t keep up. And I haven’t even started really digging in to the opinions about McCain’s acceptance speech last night. The hits just keep on coming, and the next 60 days as the heat turns up on the election, things will only get more intense. So everyone else can play along with me, here is just what I found in the last 30 minutes, with either links or videos:


Palin Attended Five Colleges in Six Years


Spoof, based on the show “Northern Exposure” called “Too Much Exposure:






McCain blew up his own flight deck on the USS Forrestal

And the McCain response to the “Forrestal Disaster”



Sarah Palin Bombs with Independents (story from ABC, focus group video below)




Check out my blog home page for the latest information, here.

The Republican Pundits – The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Well, it’s been a busy few days for the Republican pundits, with all the focus on their convention and John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as VP running mate.

But it seems that every minute, I see some new news piece where it looks like they continue to stick their feet into their collective mouths. Personally, I don’t think that they can keep up with the mud and nasty comments that they were slinging during the primary season and even afterwards, against Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. Now, their words are coming back to haunt them.

No one can bring this to light better than Jon Stewart, who demonstrated the depth of the flip-flopping going on with the Republican talking heads. Take a look – it’s self-explanatory. (Note: the video clears up after a few seconds into it.)





Check out my blog home page for the latest information,
here.

Palin’s Speech: From Frying Pan to Fire

Image from CNN

The one great thing about the Internet is that anyone can get a lot of information very quickly. The downside for public people is there is no place for them to hide. In the case of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin, she is clearly become a sitting duck.

A writer for Associated Press did some fact checking on Sarah Palin’s statements that she made in her speech Wednesday night to the RNC. Personally, after listening to her speech, I found myself even more disappointed in McCain’s choice. Palin really does not bring much to the table. Most offensive to me was her minimizing the work that Barack Obama did in community service. Maybe community service in her tiny hometown of Wasilla wouldn’t amount to much, but it is a quite different ball game in Chicago.

Take a read (below) of the AP piece and you may find yourself questioning this candidate as well. I hate to keep harping on the issue of Palin, but I believe that for someone who could end up being the next in line for the presidency that intense scrutiny is essential. After all, we’ve had a few years to vet Obama and, despite the fact that he is a relative newbie to Washington politics, we have a much better picture of what he’s done during that time and before.

Also, I have included (below the AP piece) a YouTube clip of Ben Stein and his comments about McCain’s selection of Palin for his running mate, which Ben said was “peculiar.” For those of you who don’t know Ben outside his cameo in the movie "Ferris Buehler’s Day Off”, Ben served as speechwriter for Republican U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and is frequently seen on Republican mouthpiece Fox News on their business shows. For Ben to speak out this way about Palin is very telling about how true Republicans may view Palin, and I don’t think it’s good.

Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer
Wed Sep 3

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.





Check out my blog home page for the latest information, here.

Political Pundits: Beware the Live Mic

Today, on MSNBC, as Chuck Todd was talking with Republican insiders Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan, someone forgot to cut off the microphones when they cut away for a break or a commercial. And, many times when people think they’re off camera and off mic, they say what they really think. It sounds like they really don’t like Palin as the VP choice, and question McCain’s campaign strategy. Take a listen, the transcript is below.

If these people are insiders, then they may be reflecting exactly what others in the party are saying but don’t dare speak.






Transcript

Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we'll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We'll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she's the right woman for the job Up next, one man who's already convinced and he'll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.
(cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

PN: It's over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MM: They're all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah


Check out my blog home page for the latest information, here.

When Average Isn’t Good Enough

When I was working as a director of a large Cleveland company, I had the opportunity to review and administer many performance reviews. At one point, I had 50 people reporting to me, either directly or indirectly, so that was a lot of people whose performance I had to monitor. Of course, there were always some people that were struggling to keep their heads about water, and some who excelled in their positions. It was the people who were just average that were always the toughest because they often were inconsistent and straddled the line between being solid performers and being somewhat undependable, and they took a lot of effort to manage.  

So when it came to the big jobs or tasks that required special skills and guaranteed results, I always relied on those who were at or near the top of their game. And that’s usually how it works in the non-union private sector, unlike union or government work which sometimes gets mired in job classifications, pay grade, job titles, and tenure. But, as in any work environment, one needs those average employees – sometimes referred to as the “worker bees” – to slog through the day-to-day, routine work.   But outside that,  it's the top performers that I wanted standing beside me, doing the work that was critical to the operation. 

There is one job – a government one at that – where we need more than the average employee or the worker bee. And that is the job of the President and Vice President of the United States. I don’t want someone who is just cutting it to be the face of one of the world’s superpowers. Nor do I want someone in the White House who hasn’t demonstrated a clear ability to lead, manage large groups of people, or motivate and inspire. This has nothing to do with experience. While in some jobs, experience can give one street smarts and the ability to understand and avoid past mistakes, there are times that experience can saddle a person with too much baggage from things gone by.

Let's look at the candidate pairings for both sides. 

With the Obama/Biden ticket, Obama may be light on the experience, but we get experience in the VP candidate.  With Obama we get leadership, management skill, and inspiration.   The Obama campaign's money-raising talent has been remarkable, and the management of his staff has had no glitches of which I am aware.  And he can certainly inspire and motivate, as evidenced by the packed venues that follow him wherever he goes.  Obama's choice of Biden for his second banana helps bring experience to the ticket.   And while Biden always mildly annoyed me, I think I can live with it if he had to step into the top slot, if the situation required. 

With the McCain/Palin ticket, we get experience it in the Presidential candidate, but after that, not much else. Had John McCain added something in the VP slot to make up for the fact that he clearly doesn’t have "people skills", and can’t manage big projects (example: his early campaign management problems, including raising and managing money), he may have had a better chance in the November election. But all that Sarah Palin does is offer possible enticement to those women voters who may be shallow enough to vote for a woman just because she’s a woman. And with McCain’s age, despite his mother’s longevity, one has to ask the question of whether Sarah Palin would make a good President if McCain is unable to serve his full term.  His choice makes me question McCain’s judgment if, after all the ads he’s aired about Obama’s lack of experience, that he chose a running mate with possibly less political experience, and certainly less experience in leading and motivating large groups of people. In fact, Sarah Palin looks barely  average – at best – to me. And if John McCain thinks that average is what this country needs, then he won’t be getting my vote.  Average just isn't good enough for what this country needs. 

On a related issue, here’s some information from the LA Times about how Palin was vetted, if it can even be called that.  It sounds like it was no better than a Google search.

With Palin revelations, McCain's gamble is clearer.

Details emerge one after another, and the campaign can't be sure what will capture and hold public interest.
By Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 2, 2008
ST. PAUL, MINN. -- Only four days ago, the nation's voters were asked to accept John McCain's assurances that Sarah Palin, known to only a tiny portion of the public and barely to McCain himself, was fully suited to be vice president.

But now the magnitude of McCain's gamble is becoming clear.

For every piece of the portrait of Palin that the McCain campaign sketches, a far more complicated picture of the Alaska governor is drawn.

The youthful mother of five whose placement on the ticket was meant to reinforce traditional values has now revealed that her unmarried teenage daughter is pregnant -- a piece of information that the family and the campaign said they had hoped to keep private.

The woman introduced to America as a reform-minded Washington outsider who opposed the infamous "bridge to nowhere" -- the symbol of McCain's hatred of wasteful spending -- originally supported its construction. The governor who in her introductory speech decried the practice of budgetary "earmarks" sought, as the state's chief executive and as mayor of Wasilla, hundreds of millions of dollars in such federal funding for local projects.

Moreover, Palin has now retained a lawyer to represent her in a controversy the McCain campaign said it had fully researched -- Palin's role in dismissing a state police official who had refused to fire a trooper who divorced Palin's sister.

On Monday, the McCain campaign dispatched lawyers to Alaska in a move described as an attempt to manage a growing crowd of journalists who have traveled there to inspect Palin's background. But the move raises the impression that the McCain campaign didn't know everything about his No. 2 and is now racing to learn what it can while trying to avoid tough questions about the Arizona senator's decision-making process.

"I really hope McCain did his homework," said David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush. "I cannot stifle a growing sense of unease that he didn't."

A former McCain advisor, Mike Murphy, said Monday that it remained an open question whether "the running mate in a good or bad way becomes a window into the skills of the nominee."

Most dangerous of all, McCain's team does not seem to know what new development, if any, might grab the public's attention.

One Republican strategist with close ties to the campaign described the candidate's closest supporters as "keeping their fingers crossed" in hopes that additional information does not force McCain to revisit the decision. According to this Republican, who would discuss internal campaign strategizing only on condition of anonymity, the McCain team used little more than a Google Internet search as part of a rushed effort to review Palin's potential pitfalls. Just over a week ago, Palin was not on McCain's short list of potential running mates, the Republican said.

The unease comes as Palin, 44, prepares for her next big public test: a prime-time, nationally televised speech Wednesday at the Republican National Convention.

She will no doubt receive an enthusiastic welcome from delegates and party activists who continued Monday to express unqualified excitement about Palin's presence on the ticket.

As a staunch opponent of abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, Palin has invigorated religious conservatives and other members of the GOP base who have been cool to McCain's candidacy and reluctant to work for the campaign with the same verve that fueled President Bush's 2004 reelection.

And the speech by Palin is shaping up as a dramatic moment in a convention that has been muted by Hurricane Gustav.

Although grass-roots Republicans remain protective of Palin, the campaign has clearly moved from celebratory mode into a full defensive posture.

Critics continue to question why McCain, after months of assailing Democratic nominee Barack Obama as lacking foreign policy experience, would tap a running mate who has been governor for less than two years and before that was mayor of Wasilla, population 7,000.

McCain's wife, Cindy, told an interviewer over the weekend that Alaska's proximity to Russia bolstered Palin's credentials, and Palin has pointed to her leadership of the Alaska National Guard and her Army son's imminent service in Iraq as evidence of expertise.

The campaign has little room for error. A new CBS News poll found that 66% of registered voters were undecided about Palin. And although enthusiastic support from the GOP base is important, strategists know that McCain cannot win without appealing to moderate voters as well -- a bloc that the campaign had hoped Palin's middle-class roots would help win over.

"She remains very popular in the convention hall," said Murphy, "but it's the rest of the country that matters."

Palin could face questions in on other facets of her past, such as her 1990s membership in the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that has pushed for more than 30 years to give Alaskans a vote on whether to secede from the union.

Another potentially troublesome story line is Palin's past support for federally funded projects that she now claims to have opposed -- a key piece of her reformist image to which McCain was most attracted.

As mayor of Wasilla, Palin made regular trips to Washington seeking federal aid. The city received $26.9 million in earmarks during her tenure from fiscal year 2000 to 2003, according to the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks pork barrel spending.

As The Times reported Monday, Palin has requested 31 earmarks in next year's federal budget worth about $197 million. On Friday, she portrayed herself as a champion of curbing the "abuses" of earmark spending.

For McCain, the Friday surprise of introducing Palin resulted in a weekend of buzz and anticipation. But if additional surprises surface about Palin, McCain could face stark choices.

Might he be forced to anger conservatives by dumping Palin? Could he risk an admission of poor judgment, tainting what he has long claimed as a key strength?

And if a new stumbling block could have been discovered by a more careful search, critics will no doubt question a well-known trait of McCain's: that he sometimes makes decisions on emotion instead of careful deliberation.

"John McCain is decisive and listens mainly to John McCain," said David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union.

"That is either comforting or discomforting, depending on whether you're trying to get him to do what you want."


Check out my blog home page for the latest information, here.

Should Children Be Off Limits in Politics?

Back in May of this year, I covered a story in my blog ( Michelle Obama – Off Limits or Fair Game? ) that spoke about whether family is off limits in political criticisms. I said that “Personally, I think when you have anyone working for you on the campaign trail – spouse, children, parents, anyone – who is speaking on your behalf, they should take the heat for whatever comments they make while campaigning.”

I still stand by that statement.

But, in light of the recent story with Republican VP running mate Sarah Palin and her recent announcement that her 17 year old unwed daughter is pregnant, I feel the need to expand on my original statement. But first, here is a video of Barack Obama’s response to the issue, where he says that children should be off limits:





I am in agreement with him, with one exception. I think that adult children of any candidate who actively campaigns for their parents or family members should face any and all repercussions for what they say and do. This case with Sarah Palin’s daughter does not fit that criteria, and the media should back off any further scrutiny of this issue.

While I believe that parents need to educate their children on proper birth control, kids will be kids, and they will still find a way to do what they want. A pregnant teenager may indicate problems with parenting, but it isn’t a foolproof indicator. Children can get into all kinds of trouble, despite a parent’s repeated attempts to keep them on the straight and narrow.

But while the media may lay off the issue, the cat’s already out of the bag. Also, some are concerned that Sarah’s acceptance of the VP slot, and the subsequent campaigning, will take attention away from her down-syndrome child. Would the media be as hard on a man if he were in the same position? I doubt it. So while I question Sarah Palin’s qualifications for the VP slot based on her track record and background, I don’t think her role as a parent should be an issue.



Check out my blog home page for the latest information, here.