Via Instapundit, Michael Graham imagines a pretty funny scenario:
I have a dream for Sen. Barack Obama.
I have a dream that one day, for just 24 hours, he could be Sarah Palin.
OK, maybe that’s less of a dream and more a plot point from a bad Lindsay Lohan movie (redundancy alert!).
But imagine the Democratic nominee’s day as Barack Palin Obama:
He wake up and reaches for a secret cigarette and a copy of The New York Times [NYT]. Instead of the usual partisan puff pieces (“Obama Health Care Plan Pledges Miraculous Healings For All”), the Times is running exposes about his family.
This is, of course, mostly the media’s fault: much as I’d like to blame the candidate for letting himself be made like unto a god by the press, could we have really expected him not to fall into that insidious, but short-term useful, trap? Senator Obama has never before been subjected to even the comparatively mild criticism that he’s been confronted with this election cycle (yes, I said “comparatively mild:” read the op-ed again if you’re still in need of a proper baseline): with that criticism comes a certain basic immunity to the more egregious forms of nonsense. So, yeah, the sudden switch would probably snap him like a twig. Fortunately for him, a sudden switch like that is almost certainly a fantasy scenario.
Anyway, the real problem is that, should the man become President, he will immediately be subject to strains and tensions that dwarf anything that he has encountered anything thus far. And when – not if – he does something wrong, Americans die.
And there are no mulligans in this business.
Moe Lane
Dan McLaughlin
Dan Spencer
Jeff Emanuel
Neil Stevens
Caleb Howe
European public opinion would be the first to go.
Uma Richie (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 8:09AM EDT (link)As much as the Sen. Obama claims to be a man of the world, he erroneously believes that if he became President, the Euro public would embrace him and America. In this respect, he is to blame for not understanding that he is popular only because of his (essentially) “America should be weaker” and “Bush is bad” rhetoric.
The fact is that Europeans love to trash us and our President, just as much as they enjoy spirited discussions of the politics of their own countries. If he were President, Obama could bend to the will of Europe on every issue, and he’d still be an object of derision. It just comes with the territory.
So it would be better if he loses on Election Day. I wouldn’t want his delusions shattered.
This election cycle?
Mr_Green Thursday, October 23rd at 8:25AM EDT (link)He’s been the media darling since 2004.
Palin was poorly handled
Badill_T Thursday, October 23rd at 8:58AM EDT (link)Whoever went on that shopping spree (it wasn’t Palin), as trivial as it may have seemed, made a major mistake and should be purged from the party. When that story broke on top of the government-sponsored family travel story, the two stories had a synergy. Without the $150,000 clothes price tag the attack on her family travel would have backfired – she could have made a statement about wanting to educate her daughters to garner sympathy, reversing the attack at a critical campaign juncture.
The clothes distracted from the core message and didn’t need to be done. I’ve never been a big Palin fan (in retrospect Romney or Huckabee were the right choices), but she has now been entirely relegated to energizing the base, her pull with independents having been entirely destroyed. Please, show me some polling data to prove me wrong.
Ok, sorry to be so depressing, I’m going to leave for a while so you guys can focus on rallying the troops to prevent a route in these final weeks.
Totally erronous
BillRoy (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:26AM EDT (link)The one thing that Europeans, and especially we British, look for is a strong America to lead the free world. A strong America requires a strong and honest President, something that we have learned to our cost the present holder is definately not.
The difference that Europeans see between the two candidates is to a major extent the question of integrity, Obama has demonstrated his integrity in the eyes of the world countless times, unfortunately McCain is not percieved as having integrity, starting with his wishing to carry on a war that is seen as unjust so as simply to win the war, secondly, his choice of Sarah Palin is looked on with so much derission it is off the scales – she has demonstrated publicly that she is unsuited to the office, incapable of even understanding the most basic foreign affairs, and is seen as totally corrupt. But John McCain’s dithering from knee jerk reaction to knee-jerk reaction in the present fiscal crisis has demonstrated beyond question in European eyes that as President he could not lead America let alone the world in the current crisis.
Everyday more and more Europeans expect Obama to be a tough forthright President on the world stage, they look on an Obama Presidency as akin to a smaller brother looking at their bigger brother. At times the smaller brother may disagree with the bigger brother, at times the bigger brother may gently ‘bully’ the younger brother, this is all to be expected, but Europeans trust Obama and unfortunately do not trust McCain
Where have I heard this before?
Moe Lane (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:36AM EDT (link)Right. The European reaction to Ronald Reagan.
BillRoy, I’m afraid that you’ve passed your sell-by date here. Thanks for stopping by!
The Kim Kardashian of blogging.
Check out my blog at http://moelane.com/.
http://moelane.com/filthy-lucre-filthy-lucre/
http://twitter.com/moelane
My (combined) wish list.
As if we care what a foreigner thinks about our election.
Tim_Schieferecke (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:39AM EDT (link)Why don’t you fix your own country. You’ve got huge problems with your liberal health care system, and the political correctness there is like a soft silk strangulation cord. You’re right about one thing though. You should want America to be strong. But if you think Obama will make us stronger, I think you must have eaten some bad cod at the local fish and chips or ingested some moldy bread pudding.
Tim Schieferecke
Oh, and for our resident lefties? Relax.
Moe Lane (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:44AM EDT (link)An American posting the above wouldn’t have gotten the boot for that.
Moe Lane
PS: I figure that the hypothetical relationship between Obama/Europe would be pretty much the same as the one that we had between Clinton/Europe: smiles in public, knives in private, and the former learning to ignore the latter whenever possible after the second or third oopsie.
The Kim Kardashian of blogging.
Check out my blog at http://moelane.com/.
http://moelane.com/filthy-lucre-filthy-lucre/
http://twitter.com/moelane
My (combined) wish list.
Yes, trying to "prevent a route".
blooch Thursday, October 23rd at 9:48AM EDT (link)We don’t get our kicks on Route 666 ;>)
“Lieutenant Dike wasn’t a bad leader because he made bad decisions. He was a bad leader because he made no decisions.”
I think I won the fishing derby.
Uma Richie (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:48AM EDT (link)I hope that there will be no President Obama for you to complain about, but if there is, I believe that you will turn on him in less than a year.
Funny how Michelle Obama's IRANIAN CAVIAR isn't an issue.
Tim_Schieferecke (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:52AM EDT (link)Incidentally, I wonder who paid for it??? Tit for tat.
Tim Schieferecke
Is that even true?
Badill_T Thursday, October 23rd at 10:45AM EDT (link)I heard the caviar story got retracted.
The “whitey video” would also be nice right about now.
I’m frustrated with the campaign, especially with regards to their communication about health care (see my rant on efficiency), and from what I can tell the electoral map is looking ugly. I know everyone is saying to ignore the polls, they’re meaningless, but these same people crow when the polls go Republican. It is still a tossup, though, I’ll grant you that.
Anyhow, the caviar story is getting some traction and it’s a nice counter to the clothing debacle. I still think that whoever thought that a hundred thousand dollars worth of clothes were necessary for Palin should be fired. My girlfriend (admittedly she’s on the small side, so she can shop sales) dresses classy for far less than that.
Her clothes are a necessary part of the campaign.
Tim_Schieferecke (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 10:56AM EDT (link)I mean, if they want to get nit picky, all four candidates fly around on private jets that cost thousands of dollars everytime they’re taken up. The campaigns pay for those expenses. By your argument, why don’t they just fly coach with everyone else to save money. The McCain camp has done nothing wrong in insisting on the best clothes. They’re all in a daily job interview with the American people, and you don’t go to a job interview without wearing the best clothes. Much about nothing, that’s what this is.
Tim Schieferecke
Agreed
Badill_T Thursday, October 23rd at 11:13AM EDT (link)But, it’s a bad soundbite in today’s economy. If Obama’s campaign had $100k in receipts from upscale clothing stores in a month he’d be hit hard, too. I’m not arguing that Palin didn’t need a wardrobe upgrade, it was just done in a sloppy fashion, and inefficiently (there I go again). I think they could have dressed her nicely for far less, or at least shopped around to avoid the shock value of having dumped many tens of thousands of dollars at Saks and Nieman. She wouldn’t have looked quite so sharp, but she was the hockey mom reformer, any attack on or even reference to the quality of her clothing would have backfired greatly, especially with women.
You mean sloppy like Obama's campaign paying ACORN over 800 THOUSAND DOLLARS for services rendered?
Tim_Schieferecke (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 11:20AM EDT (link)I’m not sure, does buying clothes rise to the same level as paying a group of democracy crushing stalinists to do his dirty work? You’re not going to win this, I’ve got something for everything you can throw out.
Tim Schieferecke
You win
Badill_T Thursday, October 23rd at 11:49AM EDT (link)I don’t give a flip about Obama’s campaign, I am not comparing this to Obama’s campaign, I am not attempting to engage in a war of talking points. I’ve already voted for McCain, I have no more money to donate, and I am going through my own little campaign post-mortem a few weeks early as a form of mental defense. I prefer to damp my expectations and be pleasantly surprised rather than buy into the hype and feel crushed.
You could have fooled me the way you were defending The One.
Tim_Schieferecke (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 12:04PM EDT (link)n/t
Tim Schieferecke
How much did the average female
Andy W. Thursday, October 23rd at 12:33PM EDT (link)movie star goddess spend on her dress for the Oscars? Then the one she wore to the Emmy’s. Oh yeah, don’t forget the MTV awards. Sheesh. Nobody gripes if someone spends like a movie star, unless they are running for an office more important than the last role Liv Tyler had.
Keep up the good work Sam Graves (R, MO-6)
very bad example
Badill_T Thursday, October 23rd at 1:00PM EDT (link)Obama was attacked explicitly for his celebrity standing, and other ads have come out attacking “Hollywood values”. The GOP can’t attack Hollywood and then hold them up as the standard by which they should be judged.
I think Hollywood is insane, as are sports stars, and I would never use them to calibrate levels of personal consumption.