Red State

When John McCain suspended his campaign on Wednesday and asked for a postponement of tonight's debate, Barack Obama's initial reaction was to hurl an insult, saying that he could handle the Wall Street bailout negotiations and debate at the same time. It was a foreshadowing of the juvenile, petty, and petulant candidate that would show up in Oxford, Mississippi tonight. McCain won this debate on points. But critically, he also won on temperament and likeability, allegedly Obama's strong points. McCain got under Obama's skin, and it showed.

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GOP Officials just held a press conference here in St. Paul, Minnesota, to announce changes to the convention schedule in advance of Hurricane Gustav making landfall somewhere along the Gulf Coast. Sen. McCain has directed that all convention activities outside of necessary business be suspended until further notice.

RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said that the convention must meet tomorrow to constitute itself. But he said that the program will be restricted to gavelling the convention open, receiving the report of the Credentials Committee, establishing a quorum on the floor, electing officers, and adopting the rules of the convention. The session will then be adjourned with no further activity. All of the speakers set to address the convention tomorrow, including President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and First Lady Laura Bush, have ben canceled.

McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis said that there will be no "political rhetoric" as a part of tomorrow's program, and that the campaign was heeding Sen. McCain's call to "take off our Republican hats, and put on our American hats." Asked about the possibility that Sen. McCain may not appear to accept the nomination at all, depending on the cours eof the storm, Davis would not speculate.

"The only thing I can tell you for sure is that there will be no activities besides necessary business tomorrow. We will make a decision about Tuesday's program then."

The Democratic Convention has finally gotten around to discussing the nominee, Sen. Barack Obama. Tonight was a good one for Democrats in general, although the performance of the Vice-Presidential nominee, Sen. Joe Biden, left much to be desired.

Credit the Democrats, they managed to turn the Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama nomination controversy into a positive. The roll call of the states provided the backdrop. Sen. Hillary Clinton strode onto the floor of the arena to move that the convention nominate Obama by acclamation. It was good political theater, timed to occur during the evening news broadcasts. The roll call would not have been carried by the networks, so the stagecraft allowed Democrats to get Obama's historic nomination covered. Political junkies appreciate that kind of strategy.

Soon after came the speakers. Bill Clinton wowed the crowd like only he can at a Democratic convention. But the other main speakers of the night once again disappointed. So the nominee himself showed up in the arena to brighten things up, and take the focus off of his running mate.

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The second night of the Democratic National Convention prior to Sen. Hillary Clinton's speech was nearly as unmemorable as day one. And an interesting pattern has emerged in all of the main speakers' remarks. Barack Obama is an accessory, an add-on, a superfluous reference tucked in on the end of a litany of the speaker's accomplishments and beliefs. There is almost no discussion of the nominee as a man separate and distinct from the speaker. Rather, he is a concept, an ethereal being, an abstraction. It is almost as if the speakers are deliberately trying to distance themselves from Obama, at his own convention.

Hillary Clinton was the star of the evening in a big way. So much so that she appears to have taken the convention by force, and will hold it for at least one more day.

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The first night of the Democratic National Convention is (mercifully) over, and even for a political junkie, this was difficult to watch. The after show reviews are coming in and a consensus appears to be building that this was a wasted night. CNN's David Gergen was the first to remark on this around 9 PM Eastern.

"We're two hours into this and so far, nothing of substance, nothing memorable."

That came after the tribute to Jimmy Carter and a brief appearance on the podium from the man from Plains. Carter did not speak. Earlier, Nancy Pelosi gaveled the convention to order with a speech that she must have deliberately written to take all the air out of the room. Unbelievably, her delivery was worse than her words, and it was all down hill from there.

The night was supposed to showcase a unified party rallying around the theme "One America." It was also supposed to belong to Michelle Obama, who addressed the convention in the prime speaking slot. But one man who was curiously absent from the festivities, even from his wife's speech, was the man for whom all of this grand production is supposed to have been planned: the actual nominee, Barack Obama.

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Geography enthusiasts who watched the big Obama-Biden rally in Springfield, Illinois, yesterday were probably a bit curious to hear the town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, mentioned so often in relation to a man from Delaware. Together, Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden mentioned the town five times.

Joe Biden has roots in Scranton. He was born there in 1942. But Joe Biden hasn't lived in Scranton since 1953, 55 years ago. Joe Biden lives in Wilmington, Delaware, and has represented his home state in the Senate for 35 years. He grew up there, went to school there, raised his family there, and has become a fixture there in Wilmington-two and a half hours, 142 miles from Scranton.

So why is the Obama campaign trying to pass off a man from Wilmington, Delaware, as a Scrantonian? The answer may be Hillary Clinton.

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Ever since then Governor Bill Clinton answered the "boxers or briefs" question, presidential campaigns have from time to time become pre-occupied with pop-culture questions designed to demonstrate the candidate's hipness. Generally, they are harmless curiosities, even if they may actually provide some small subset of barely sentient voters a reason to support or oppose a particular candidate.

But sometimes a candidate's answer to the iPod playlist question or the favorite book question can reinforce a narrative against him. And that is exactly what Barack Obama did when he submitted a list of his ten favorite songs to Blender magazine.

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The media coverage of yesterday's energy speech by Sen. Barack Obama has focused mainly on Obama's flip-flop on opening up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But that is really a dog-bites-man story. Hardly a day goes by anymore that Obama does not abandon one or another of his "consistently" held positions. Looking a little closer at the proposal, anathema to the press, reveals that Obama's plan to release 70 million barrels from the reserve is as insulting as it is cynical.

During the primaries, Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain joined forces to call for a suspension of the 18.4 cent federal gasoline tax for the summer. Obama, the big populist, derided that proposal.

"We're arguing over a gimmick that would save you half a tank of gas over the course of the entire summer so that everyone in Washington can pat themselves on the back and say they did something." [...]

"Well, let me tell you, this isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer, it's designed to get them through an election."

Now, however, with his own election prospects dimming, Obama has made a proposal every bit as shallow and meaningless as he claimed the gas tax holiday was.

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Barack Obama's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod went on Good Morning America this morning to address McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' asertion that Obama is playing the race card. Interviewer Chris Cuomo played Obama's comments from yesterday in reaction to McCain's brilliant "Celeb" ad in which Obama's readiness to lead the country is brought into question. Obama said, "What they're [Bush and McCain] going to do is try to scare you about me. He's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Cuomo asked Axelrod what Obama meant by that.

But Axelrod's answer (1:35) contained a little more truth than he may have liked to admit. Axelrod was trying to explain that Obama was not saying McCain would use his race against him. Instead, he admitted that Obama himself has been using his race as a justification for his candidacy all along.

CUOMO: "What does that mean if it's not a suggesiton that his race is going to be used against him?"

AXELROD: "Well...look he's said...and by the way he's said this repeatedly as you've mentioned all across the country, he's not from central casting when it comes to candidates for President of the United States...he's young, he's new to Washington, yes he's African-American, and...uh so this is nothing new."

Those are the three justifications for Obama's candidacy, according to its chief architect, David Axelrod. Obama should be elected president because he's young, he's inexperienced, and, "yes he's African-American." Just don't call Obama on it. That would be using his race against him.

UPDATE: The Obama campaign now admits Obama was talking about race when he accused McCain and Republicans of trying to scare voters.

Obama's camp initially denied the remark was a reference to Obama's race. [...]

"He was referring to the fact that he didn't come into the race with the history of others," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday. "It is not about race."

But Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, acknowledged on "Good Morning America" Friday that the candidate was referring, at least in part, to his ethnic background.

When pressed to explain the comment, Axelrod told "GMA" it meant, "He's not from central casting when it comes to candidates for president of the United States. He's new to Washington. Yes, he's African-American."

That seemingly obvious reference sparked the first real fireworks between the two camps as backers of both candidates accused the other of trying to subtly inject race into the presidential contest.

Cross posted at Mark on the Right.

Sen. Barack Obama must be very glad to have returned to the United States. After a hero's welcome in Afghanistan and Iraq, at least from the mainstream press, the last few days of his journey have not exactly earned the Senator much praise and may in fact have done damage to his campaign. First, there was the speech in Berlin, in which Obama didn't really say anything of consequence; a fact that did not go unnoticed in the German press even if the American media was too starry-eyed to notice. Then there was Obama's now infamous decision to skip out on a meeting with wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan at the U.S. bases at Landstuhl and Ramstein, Germany. That was followed by the shifting explanations for the cancellation, which the campaign ultimately tried to blame on the Pentagon. And just for good measure, Obama hinted on his last day abroad that he may be about to make the mother of all flip-flops and change his position du jour on troop withdrawals from Iraq.

Foreign travel can be so...troublesome.

Better for Obama to come home. It's not like he was learning anything, anyhow. That's according to the Senator himself. It seems that Sen. Obama told Fox News that he mostly had his views on foreign policy "confirmed" by what he saw overseas.

"There was a lot of confirmation of my strategies -- that we need to get more troops into Afghanistan, and that the Iraqis are willing to take more responsibility ... that Iran is a grave threat."

Now we know why Sen. Obama never held a hearing on the situation in Afghanistan. He had all the answers all along.

Sen. Obama went all the way to Afghanistan and Iraq to accomplish nothing more than he could have by looking in his bathroom mirror. That helps explain the stumbles of the second leg of his tour. Obama was bored. It's becoming clear that the Senator from H.O.P.E.™ has an inflated opinion of himself and his abilities. But to come right out and admit in broad daylight that his much hyped foreign mission was a gigantic waste of time for him speaks of a conceit that borders on pathological.

Three days and three translations later, the shock waves from the alleged Nuri al-Maliki "endorsement" of Sen. Barack Obama's timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq have been tempered by a statement from the Prime Minister's office making clear that the German magazine Der Spiegel got it all wrong. In their rapture at the thought that their golden boy had conquered Sen. John McCain on the one issue on which he holds a distinct advantage over Sen. Obama, national security; many media outlets, bloggers, commentators, and pundits of the left declared the remarks to be the death of the Republican presidential campaign. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder said:

"This could be one of those unexpected events that forever changes the way the world perceives an issue. Iraq's Prime Minister agrees with Obama, and there's no wiggle room or fudge factor. This puts John McCain in an extremely precarious spot: what's left to argue? to [sic] argue against Maliki would be to predicate that Iraqi sovereignty at this point means nothing. Obviously, our national interests aren't equivalent to Iraq's, but... Malik [sic] isn't listening to the generals on the ground...but the "hasn't been to Iraq" line doesn't work here. [awk]

Mr. Ambinder must have been in a bit of a hurry to get that post up, so we'll forgive the capitalization, spelling, and grammatical errors. As it turns out, however, he could have taken his time. We now know that Maliki did not endorse Obama's withdrawal timeline. The headline writer at Der Spiegel did. What Maliki did was call for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq as early as possible. That's no surprise announcement from an elected head of state with political considerations, and it is certainly no surprise from Maliki, who has been calling for an end to the occupation almost since he was sworn in.

Maybe that's why Ambinder left open the possibility that Maliki would revise his remarks. "Will Maliki retract his words?" he asked. Well, Maliki did. But so far, Ambinder has not.

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The McCain campaign has been showing signs of life, as Moe deftly points out. There is one issue that we know motivates McCain enough to go on the offensive, and that is national security in general and the war in Iraq in particular. Barack Obama is set to travel to Iraq to view firsthand the success of the troop surge strategy that he opposed. And the McCain campaign isn't about to let him try to share in the credit.

The campaign released a statement yesterday, reacting to the news that the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government have come to an agreement on a "general time horizon" for the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. To some on the left, the announcement is vindication for Obama's plan to remove troops from Iraq quickly. For some on the right, the announcement pulls the rug out from under John McCain, who has steadfastly argued that the duration of the U.S. troop presence should be determined by conditions, not politics. Both are evidence of shallow thinking.

Rather than a defeat for McCain, and evidence of the prescience of the Senator from H.O.P.E.™, the announcement is a vindication of McCain's call for a surge of troops to begin with. It is evidence of the correctness of Republican and Administration policies on the war and should be celebrated as such. It also shows the dangerous irony of Obama's and liberals' timidity on matters of war. In their zeal to end hostilities and prevent casualties, Democratic policies lead to longer wars and more bloodshed.

McCain's statement hits all those themes and more.

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The New York Times has a profile of the man behind the fundraising effort for the Democratic National Convention in Denver next month. His name is Steven Farber, and he just happens to be the head of the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, which the Times describes as, "one of the fastest-growing lobbying shops in Washington and one of the most powerful firms in the West." Now ordinarily this would not be news, a lobbyist raising money for a politician, political party, or political event. But as is the case with almost everything about the Democratic Party these days, and about its presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, it is not quite as simple as it appears.

Obama has made quite a show of his claim to be running a campaign free from special interest money. He claims to take no contributions from lobbyists and hits Sen. John McCain at every opportunity for his alleged ties to lobbyists. Now, as Sen. Obama's fundraising prowess is coming back to Earth a bit, and as the host committee for the Denver convention has fallen $11 million short of its fundraising goals, Sen. Obama prepares to accept the nomination of his party at an event bought and paid for by powerful special interests.

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