A New Beginning

The presidential election is over. The people have spoken. Obama clearly deserved the win. He had by far the better organized, financed and focused campaign. McCain's, by comparison, was disjointed and reactionary.

Oh, one more thing. Obama got the financial system to freeze up (or is it melt down ?) at exactly the right moment, thereby eradicating McCain's overwhelming strength on national security just weeks before the election.

 

How he pulled that exquisite piece of timing off is a mystery befitting Obama's ever expanding "walk on water" reputation. 

 

Obama's main selling point on why he would be better at solving the economic crisis was that he wasn't a Republican. Since it happened on their watch, it must have been the Republicans who got us into this mess. The voters' logical response was to throw the bums out. McCain's post convention bounce rapidly disappeared and Obama never lagged in the polls again.

 

With his election, the rest of the world appears ready to give America another chance to become good guys again. The fact that he is an African-American certainly demonstrates that Americans are willing to move past the old racial divides. Muslims worldwide, but especially in the Middle East, must have noted that Obama's middle name is Hussein. Africans surely noted that Obama's father came from Kenya. Asians probably noticed that Obama resided for a time with his mother in Indonesia. And Europe undoubtedly has paid attention to Obama's "spread the wealth" taxation and "consult with our friends" proclivities. 

 

So we wish the new president well. He will have his hands full, what with the economic mess, two wars and an eager Democratic congress straining to be unleashed.

One final comment: I will miss watching SNL and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. It sure is hard to tell them apart. All things must come to an end, and so too must this. Alas. 

Are We Becoming Bluer?

The good ship McCain continued to take on water this week. A potential tide-turning event was the third and final presidential debate on Wednesday. McCain heaved up a "Joe the Plumber" bomb in his latest attempt to change the trajectory of the campaign. This follows his previous failed Hail Mary attempts: choosing Palin as his VP and a temporary suspension of his campaign to rush back to D.C. to rescue the economy. But the focus on the scary economic mess rather than on national security continued to help Obama.

 

According to America's most respected newsman, Jon Stewart, all Obama had to do to win the last debate was refrain from jumping up and saying "Where are all the white women at"? The Chosen One resisted that temptation and thereby maintained his momentum.

 

More bad news for McCain was that a number of Republican luminaries, reading the growing pile of tea leaves, scampered off the ship. George Will, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks and Colin Powell all bailed out.

 

The week did have some positive moments for McCain and Palin. McCain won the hilarious battle of the roasts at the Alfred Smith annual dinner. He looked like the straight talking McCain of yore and was seen having fun for the first time in the last two years.

 

Similarly, Palin finally made her anticipated appearance on Saturday Night Live. The first of the two skits was pretty lame. The second skit, however, was clever. Amy Poehler, who looks like she must be at least 10 months pregnant, rapped out a tune that had Palin swinging in her seat. The Governor came across as a good sport.

 

All the polls say Obama and Biden (remember him?) are gliding to victory. At this point, their strategy should be to just play it safe, not get drawn into any nasty name calling, avoid any memorable gaffes and pray like heck that the Dow doesn't suddenly rise 3000 points.

 

Perhaps the best tactic at this point for McCain/Palin is to jettison all pretenses of serious political talk. They should concede the boring wonkish policy stuff to Obama/Biden. The populace can't really evaluate whose plan is better and will just blame the Republicans for the economic mess since it occurred on their watch.

 

Instead, MCain/Palin should continue to do comedy for the remainder of the campaign. This will pick up the voters who base their decision on whom they want to have a beer with. But even if they lose the election, both McCain and Palin will burnish their resumes and improve their chances for future gigs during the Republican diaspora. They should have lots of juicy material resulting from observing the Democrats' attempts at dealing with the economy.

Is The Spoof Better Than The Original?

My question of the week: is the spoof better than the original? Let me explain. 

For comic relief, 70 million Americans tuned in for the long anticipated Vice-Presidential debate last Thursday. Just prior to the debate, we were momentarily distracted by the news that the moderator, Gwen Ifill, had a book coming out and she would clearly benefit from an Obama win in November. This little tidbit perhaps neutered Ifill from acting like a moderator who might actually try to get the candidates to answer her questions. With this limitation, rather than the train wreck everyone was anticipating, it turned out that all three protagonists in the show did OK.

 

Ifill moderated moderately, Biden behaved and Palin projected power. Ifill's questions were clear and covered a reasonable range of topics. Biden controlled his impulses to actually debate Palin, instead focusing his remarks on how much he loved McCain and how wrong McCain was on every topic discussed. He finished off each retort with a broad smile, clearly indicating what a nice guy he is.

 

But the star of the show clearly hit her marks. Palin uttered every rehearsed line in fine cadence whether or not her response had anything whatsoever to do with the question asked. Ifill's limitations clearly helped Palin in that she faced no follow-up questions. Palin talked directly into the camera, ignoring the other two on stage, smiling broadly, and even winking from time to time. All this while never uttering the "g" sound at the end of her words.

 

None of this changed anything in the slightest, but it sure was entertaining.

 

After the original debate was aired, everyone waited for the inevitable Saturday Night Live spoof. First of all, to give them the credit they deserve, the SNLers are amazingly quick. It must be pretty hard to create that good a parody in only 48 hours. The Joe Biden and Gwen Ifill (Queen Latifa) impersonations were great. The Biden smile after denouncing McCain and the looks of disbelief of Ifill after Palin spoke were right on. But, as usual, Tina Fey nails it big time. She is such a tour-de-force that an un-cued observer might have trouble guessing whether it was Tina Fey on stage Thursday night and not some hockey Mom from Alaska.

 

The question of the week is really a toss up. If I had to decide, though, I'd say the original. As Palin would say, "you betcha", it's my acting that's more real.

My Vote Doesn't Count

I'm pretty ticked off. I've spent countless hours reading, analyzing and debating who we should vote for to lead the nation; it's all for naught. I live in California. Thus, my vote to elect the President simply doesn't matter.

What? Well, just check out the campaigns' actions themselves. Have you heard about any candidates tromping through California delivering electrifying speeches, declaring that they are going to change politics as usual in Washington while their opponent is such a clueless yutz? No, you haven't. That's because each party knows that, no matter what they do or say, the vote will be decisively for Obama. The Democrats could have nominated Atilla the Hun and he would carry the state. The same situation applies in other solidly blue states like New York, Oregon, Washington or Illinois.

Similarly, the Republicans could have nominated Karl Marx. He would prevail in the solidly red states like Texas, Oklahoma and the rest of what is fondly called by their residents the heartland, and by the people residing on the East and West Coasts, the dustbowl.

The only states that matter are the battleground states. The cruel fact is that, in this election, the electoral college voting system gives the power to determine the leader of the free world to the good people who have chosen to reside in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida.

I guess I wouldn't be so annoyed about this system if I felt that these residents had the intelligence and deep insights that many of us other blue and red state voters lack. Unfortunately, the mere fact that they don't live in California, where the weather is infinitely better, lends me to believe that they don't possess these admirable traits.

So, I'll continue to have fun following the most interesting presidential election that I can recall, but I'll pine for the right to participate in its outcome. Maybe some day we'll scrap the electoral college system and turn our country into a true democracy in which everyone's vote counts equally.

Change Beats Experience: Palin is Perfect

With all the hubbub over John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential nominee, I was wondering how it became the norm for the party nominee to select his running mate. It certainly seems odd that after an incredible amount of time and money is spent to determine the Presidential candidate, the Vice President can be picked on a whim.

I found the answer in an article appropriately entitled: "Process of Selecting Vice President Evolved over Centuries. America’s earliest running mates often competitors rather than partners." It's a pretty good summary of all the stuff I used to know about this subject before my gray matter starting turning really gray. Do you remember that it wasn't until after Eisenhower in 1952 that the Presidential candidate unilaterally selected his running mate? I didn't.

Well, what about McCain's VP choice? It seems to me that the GOP pollsters must have determined that they were not going to win the election based on "Experience", or, to put it more directly, Obama's lack thereof. That means that "Change" will be the key factor.

This was a real problem for McCain. Obama says he's the Change guy, with his continuous chant that McCain is nothing but four more years of Bush. But McCain has always prided himself on being a maverick who goes against the straight line of his party to do what's right for the country. He's even compromised with the other side from time to time, acts which really ticked off his "Base".

So, the answer is to select another Change person who can also bolster his standing with the GOP Base. To McCain, apparently Palin is Perfect.

She's first and foremost a politician who changed the game in Alaska when she took on her own party's politicians for their egregious lack of ethics (and, in some cases, lack of legality).

Second, she's a she. Perhaps that will get McCain a few Hillary supporters, hoping that the women will overlook her political positions, which are almost exactly the opposite of Ms. Clinton.

Third, she's an Evangelical Christian and long term member of the NRA. What more could the lunatic far right wing of his Base want?

Fourth, just let those pesky Dems bring up her lack of experience. This forces them to explain just exactly how their number one guy has more experience than the GOP's number two gal. Here's how I presume McCain expects that debate to go: "She's run the largest state in the land, one of the smallest cities in the land, and a PTA. OK, now, it's your turn. Are you going to tell us again how Obama was an "Organizer" in Chicago for a few months. By the way, what the heck is an Organizer? And it was in Chicago. Sure sounds like a job Tony Soprano and his pals handled in New Jersey."

Will this strategy work? We'll have to wait to find out. It's a high risk, but possibly high payoff gamble.

I'll close with an old aphorism. If you don't like the question, change the topic. Whatever you think of his choice of VP, I think McCain did that pretty well.

Marketing the Presidential Candidates 101

The past week has seen an interesting strategy shift in the Presidential race. McCain's campaign must have concluded that they can't win without going negative. So they've put out some PR and ads that attempt to reposition what everyone thought was Obama's biggest strengths into his biggest weaknesses. Never mind that McCain said he would run a positive campaign. That was before the polls convinced him he's losing.

Here are a few examples which show the strategy in action:

1. All the pundits are calling Obama the greatest orator of the new millennium. Therefore, McCain declares that while Obama gives great speeches, words don't matter. Only deeds matter, and Obama has accomplished no deeds that matter. It's not really his fault. He's just too darn young.

2. Obama is as famous as a rock star. He is the Chosen One. So, McCain says that fame is not what's important. As McCain's ad points out, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are famous. But, would you vote for either to be President? (Maybe, it depends on who they're running against).

3. Obama visits all the world leaders and they just love him. The Germans go completely ga-ga. They even wave American flags while Obama lectures the world on how we should just all get along with each other. Obama makes no major gaffes (except not visiting wounded soldiers) and looks quite Presidential. This results in McCain suggesting that Obama is celebrating his victory with a world tour even before the poor American voters get a chance to give their opinion on who they want to lead the Free World. How arrogant of Obama, they say.

4. And finally, Obama's greatest strength is that he is Black. Oops, wait, that used to be a real negative. But just how cool would it be if the US elected a Black President (not to mention one whose father is a Muslim)? The rest of the world would simply swoon with new respect for the US of A. McCain's response is to accuse Obama of playing the Race Card when Obama said he doesn't look like the other Presidents on the dollar bills. How tacky of Obama to inject Race into our color-free society.

Well, all this is really quite familiar. It's an old marketing adage: if you can't fix it, feature it. This tactic usually works. The latest polls say that the race is tightening.