Redstate

as well. Him.

Fortunately for John, his four point answer on the hallmarks of his presidency came at a time when the MSM and even most of the blogosphere were not focusing on what McCain says.

It was a one day tempest in a teapot and might have been laid to rest. If it does come up again, he will have had plenty of time to figure out how to explain away the stupidity of his comments.

The upside, at least for those of us who oppose McCain, is that John is consistent. He'll find a high profile place, at the right time, and shove his foot in his mouth again. Only next time the focus will be on him and he will get eviscerated in both the MSM and the blogosphere and his head will explode because he cannot tolerate being challenged.

He may be fighting 2000 all over again, but if so he's fighting on the wrong front. He should be fighting his tendency to say stupid things, to be personally offended when people point out how stupid his comment was and then to defend the original stupidity. And that's what will be his undoing.

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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the role of blogs like this one in 2008.

On that note, one of my favorite bloggers, Howard 'Extreme' Mortman, has a series of interviews on this topic with bloggers in early primary states. Some interesting stuff there, and not just because I'm one of the bloggers interviewed.

The thing that so many of these old school campaign types fail to grasp is that they don't get to run their own campaigns anymore. Their opponents won't be running their own campaigns either.

To this day, John Kerry cannot believe that the Swift Vets were not in some way connected to the Bush campaign. The notion that an opponent could appear out of nowhere — or in Kerry's case, out of his own past — simply because they hate your guts and want you to lose, is totally foreign to them. They just don't get it that in this day and age, anyone, from anywhere, can choose to join your campaign or oppose it. And virtually anyone today has the power to make some kind of noise.

I'll bet money that Karl Rove chewed his fingernails down to the quick wondering whether those "Swift Vets" were really going to hurt Kerry, or totally screw up The Rovian Plan for Conquest. He had no way to know, and no way to stop them.

Over on the Democrat side, they had their own "volunteer meddlers" in the form of MoveOn and the rest of the George Soros show. Whatever carefully laid plans the Democratic politicians had made, they were all tossed into a cocked hat by a huge crowd of enthusiastic interlopers.

The same thing will happen to McCain, and to everyone else running. They will get help, and they will get hit with flying bricks, by people who have decided on their own to participate in the campaign. And there is not a thing these "experts" and "pros" can do about it.

The right Flash video could catch on and totally sink some candidate. No one will see it coming, and no one will be able to stop it. Chances are, no one will be able to make it on purpose, either. Things like that just "happen," or they don't, totally outside the control of anyone. Dozens of people tried to make "the next JibJab video," but not even JibJab succeeded.

McCain in particular will hate this, because removing these third-party influences from campaigns has been a crusade of his. But even had he succeeded in stomping out 527's, he still can't stop the serendipitous blog posting or homemade video that gets loose on the Internet and causes measureable change to the campaign dynamic.

I don't know that the behavior of the "campaign professionals" can change because of this. They will still want to run a "calibrated message" effort, even though the environment will be full of "messages" — even ones meant to help them — that they can't control. They will still want to line up endorsements from supposedly influential people.

I don't think there's much they can do to influence the various enthusiasts who want to participate in campaigns now. Even if they line up the supposedly "influential" bloggers, somebody else could come out of the woodwork the week before the election and throw a wrench into everything.

No one knows how this new dynamic will affect things. Or even whether it will be good or bad. The only thing that I feel certain about is that we will see fewer slickly-packaged, blow-dried empty suits elected to office. That for sure will be a good thing.

Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.

I think it is interesting that McCain wants eliminating "torture" of people who want to kill Americans should "a hallmark of his presidency," especially since there has been a report (in the Guardian, but still) that torture may have been critical to saving thousands of American lives on the 16th of this month.

The idea that Spears' endorsement was a key factor in Bush's 2000 primary win is ridiculous. Despite McCain's upset win in NH and the hysteria it generated in the media, Bush entered the SC primary holding some good cards. His father - and mother - were and are held in the highest esteem here. He had early organization here. And he took McCain to the woodshed in the debate just before the primary.

A big issue McCain's campaign raised was the "push-poll" misrepresenting McCain's adopted child as the product of an out-of-wedlock liason with a woman of another race. This was false and malicious, but had no connection to the Bush campaign whatever: it was the sole project of an independent preacher and two others on a single day, totalling no more than 200 calls. It was repudiated strongly by Bush as soon as it was known. Yet McCain kept playing the "dirty campaigning" angle.

In the debate, Bush again strongly denied any connection, and chided McCain for his own false and negative campaigning. McCain became righteously indignant - if it is possible to distinguish that state from his usual demeanor - and vigorously denied he had engaged in any sort of negative campaigning.

At that point, Bush pulled a flyer out of his jacket pocket, bearing the imprimatur of the McCain campaign, which had been distributed on car windshields at fifteen Wal-Marts across the state the previous weekend. It was down and dirty, and left McCain speechless.

Had McCain denied his campaign hit piece, Bush had proof to the contrary, but the Senator cut his losses by remaining stunned and silent.

It was no contest. Stans Spears is a good man, and many vets will give him a listen. He wasn't a kingmaker then, and he isn't now.

Neither are bloggers, though. Most South Carolina voters couldn't tell you what a "blog" is, as I suspect is the case with most voters nationwide.

on the rowdy unpredictability of the coming campaigns. The old school types don't get it, and still think top down. The Swift Vets are an excellent example of the root effects on campaigns; so is Howard Dean, as in the Dean Scream endlessly echoed throughout the blogosphere, talk radio and on cable. And who can forget John Teletubby Kerry?

In both parties, campaign managers are not in control of either the base nor the wild roots. Furthermore, our side has talk radio, which the other side most definitely does not. Their concept of media is still shaped information pushed by elites to a passive, receiving public. Their side of the blogosphere resembles a crack house; our side resembles a military-influenced business school. In a war of the wild roots I do not see the Dems winning.

Yes, Democrats: Please, please PLEASE try to impeach the president during wartime.

Most people in SC never heard of General Spears. The only time his name ever comes before the general public is once every four years when he runs for reelection as Adjutant General of the state National Guard. And if Gov. Sanford gets his way and starts appointing the Adj. General, even that meager name recognition will go away.I would hazard to guess that most SC veterans don't even know who he is.

A Lindsey Graham endorsement is far more valuable to McCain than a Stan Spears endorsement. (But Graham has alienated many SC Republicans with his association with McCain and the Gang of 14. I, at least, liked Graham much better in 2000, when he was SC-03 Congressman and much more recent Clinton prosecutor. I even voted for McCain in the 2000 primary, but that was before his assaults on the 1st amendment.)