Elections
Flashback: Clinton vs Dole 96 debate
Change Candidate Obama said McCain is “right” nine times
The McCain camp put out a rapid release ad using only 3 instances:
On spending cuts:
“Well, I think Senator McCain’s absolutely right that we need more responsibility, but we need it not just when there’s a crisis.”
On spending cuts II:
“Not willing to give up the need to do it but there may be individual components that we can’t do. But John is right we have to make cuts. We right now give $15 billion every year as subsidies to private insurers under the Medicare system. Doesn’t work any better through the private insurers. They just skim off $15 billion.”
On earmarks:
“Well, Senator McCain is absolutely right that the earmarks process has been abused, which is why I suspended any requests for my home state, whether it was for senior centers or what have you, until we cleaned it up.”
On lobbyists:
“He’s also right that oftentimes lobbyists and special interests are the ones that are introducing these kinds of requests, although that wasn’t the case with me.”
On business taxes being too high:
“Now, John mentioned the fact that business taxes on paper are high in this country, and he’s absolutely right.”
On violence in Iraq going down:
“Senator McCain is absolutely right that the violence has been reduced as a consequence of the extraordinary sacrifice of our troops and our military families.”
On POTUS needing to use prudent language: (but added after the McCain bomb, bomb Iran joke)
“And, John, I — you’re absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say.”
On Iraq being “difficult”:
“Now, Senator McCain is also right that it’s difficult. This is not an easy situation.”
On not tolerating Iran having nukes:
“Senator McCain is absolutely right, we cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran.”
Both camps summarize the first 08 debate
Literally, one minute after the debate ends, McCain’s campaign was out with a statement:
“There was one man who was presidential tonight, that man was John McCain. There was another who was political, that was Barack Obama. John McCain won this debate and controlled the dialogue throughout, whether it was the economy, taxes, spending, Iraq or Iran. There was a leadership gap, a judgment gap, and a boldness gap on display tonight, a fact Barack Obama acknowledged when he said John McCain was right at least five times. Tonight’s debate showed John McCain in command of the issues and presenting a clear agenda for America’s future.” –Jill Hazelbaker, McCain-Palin 2008 Communications Director
The Obama campaign response:
“This was a clear victory for Barack Obama on John McCain’s home turf. Senator McCain offered nothing but more of the same failed Bush policies, and Barack Obama made a forceful case for change in our economy and our foreign policy. While Senator McCain wants to keep giving huge tax cuts to corporations and said nothing about the challenges Americans are facing in their daily lives, Barack Obama will be a fierce advocate for tax cuts for the middle class, affordable health care, and a new energy economy that creates millions of jobs. While foreign policy was supposed to be John McCain’s top issue, Barack Obama commanded that part of the debate with a clear call to responsibly end a misguided war in Iraq so that we can finish the fight against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. John McCain needed a game-changer tonight, and by any measure he didn’t get it,” said Obama-Biden campaign manager David Plouffe.
Obama goofs on McCain’s inability to use a computer (due to POW torture wounds)
The Obama camp recently released this commercial, which basically amounts to “the old man can’t even use a computer!” as its sole source of criticism.
The attack angle is super weak (can you imagine any swing voter anywhere saying “well, i was considering John McCain but after finding out that he’s not good with computers!? Nooooo thank you!), as well as risks needlessly offending a large voter block who might be in the same non-technical area (senior citizens are known for high vote turnout).
But far worse is the allegation that McCain’s war injuries limit his ability to use a computer. Yikes! If true, that would make this line of attack incredibly tasteless, not to mention misleading.
The Huffington post says no way Jose, citing that McCain told the New York Times in July:
I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.
Huffpo adds 2 similar follow ups to that and includes this picture twice on the page:
Seeee? He’s holding a phone. IN A CAR! So clearly he can use electronics just fine. Not to mention that the awkward way the Senator is holding the phone in that picture doesn’t help the Huffpo’s claim, but that’s besides the point.
Maybe they were relying on this answer he gave to Yahoo News 7 months ago? ….ya. probably not. It basically says the same thing said in the Times quote.
Whatever the Obama camps excuse is, Jake Tapper of ABC News confirms:
Assuredly McCain isn’t comfortable talking about this — and the McCain campaign discouraged me from writing about this — but the reason the aged Arizonan doesn’t use a computer or send email is because of his war wounds.
I realize some of the nastier liberals in the blogosphere will see this as McCain once again “playing the POW card,” but it’s simply a fact: typing on a regular keyboard for any sustained period of time bothers McCain physically.
He can type, he occasionally does type, but in general the injuries he sustained as a POW — ones that make it impossible for him to raise his arms high enough to comb his hair — mean that small tasks make his shoulders ache, so he tries to avoid any repetitive exercise.
Again, it’s not that he can’t type, he just by habit avoids when he can repetitive exercise involving his arms. He does if he has to, as with handshaking or autographs.
Conservative blogger Allahpundit comments:
Making fun of a war hero’s severe injuries — smooth move, Team O. Talk about computer illiteracy! Doesn’t anyone on the Obama campaign know what they’re doing? Didn’t it ever occur to them that a man who can’t raise his arms above his head might have a physical barrier to using a computer?
And matters were not made better when an Obama spokesman, appearing on Fox News, won’t deny he knew McCain’s injuries limited his computer use…
So what happened here? Allahpundit hypothesizes: Sounds like what happened is they did their research, stumbled across the Globe piece from 2000 claiming McCain couldn’t use a keyboard because of his wounds, then stumbled across the NYT interview from this summer where he talks about using a computer and learning to go online and assumed the problem must have been resolved through some sort of technological advance in the eight-year interim. Clearly a risk worth taking for a line of attack this dorktastic.
Jonah Goldberg makes this killer observation about the thesis of the ad:
Lord knows I think the chicken-hawk arguments are stupid. And I don’t think the fact that Obama never served in the military should count against him in and of itself. But how stupid is it for the Obama campaign to claim that McCain is unqualified to be president because he can’t grasp cyber-security issues based on the fact he has never sent an email when the McCain campaign can just as easily say Obama can’t understand first order national security issues because he’s never fired a rife, flown a plane, commanded men in battle, or faced an enemy? I mean which prepares someone to be commander in chief better, hitting “send” on AOL or fighting a war?
Obama, by this 1982 ad, has made this point valid and fair. Whether the McCain camp is likely to take the opportunity is unlikely, but remains to be seen.
Scott Ott of Scrappleface produced this second ad for Team Obama:
Indeed if the Obama camp had shown some technical know-how themselves, finding The Boston Globe report that explained this 8 years ago, or when Forbes Magazine noted McCain’s disability in 2000 would have been smart moves to get out of the way before producing the ad.
“Palin / Hillary” open up SNL
The cast of Baby Momma reunited on Saturday Night Live last night, except this time to do something funny and entertaining that people would want to watch! Tinay Fey portrayed Palin as clueless and Amy Poeler, reprising her Hillary Clinton impression, was the stiff passive/aggressive “shrew, harpy … boner shrinker” we all have enjoyed previously.
Palins response? The NY Times says that on Sunday, a campaign adviser confirmed that she had, indeed, watched the skit from her screen at the front of the plane she was traveling in and told the Times in an email response that “She thought it was quite funny,” “especially because the governor has dressed up as Tina Fey for Halloween.”
Are the attacks on Palin likely to subside and rest her in the comfortable perch Joe Biden has enjoyed? We don’t think it’s likely, but Penwellblogs has this analysis:
I have a feeling, however, that attacks on Sarah Palin from the national press are going to start dwindling out, particularly if the McCain-Palin ticket keeps rising in the polls. Folks in the press aren’t stupid, really (just STOP that now!). They know that if McCain wins, they’ll need access to Palin for their stories after 4 Nov.
I’m guessing that Palin’s people are keeping score; she’s flexing that velvet-gloved mailed fist, and the worst offenders in the media risk getting themselves frozen out — at least for a time — if Palin takes office as vice president.
No one in the national press wants to be in Vice President Palin’s doghouse for long. Those folks will watch the polls and keep their fingers in the wind; if they see the Obama-Biden ticket on a long downward slide, then almost overnight look to see the national press as Palin’s best friends.
Biden: Hillary might have been a better choice for VP, is qualified to be president now
“There’s praising a colleague effusively. And then, there’s going so far that the praise diminishes yourself.” notes the Boston Globe, in response to the fact that at a town hall in Nashua, N.H., this afternoon, Senator Joe Biden seemed to veer off into the latter when talking about Hillary Clinton, whom many of her supporters wanted Barack Obama to pick as his running mate instead of Biden.
It’s a curious statement for him to make considering that during the primaries he repeatedly alleged that Obama wasn’t qualified to be president.
“Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America,” Biden replied, standing before a crowd at a Nashua rally. “Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend; she is qualified to be president of the United States of America. She’s easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America and, quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me, but she is first-rate.”
The clip left blogger Allahpundit to quip And so, with this, the number of Americans who don’t think Hillary would have been a smarter pick stands at one.
He goes on to ask the following questions:
Serious question: If Palin aces the Charlie Gibson interview and McCain bounces out to, say, an eight-point lead, does Obama decide that Biden needs to spend more time with his family, swap in Her Majesty, and launch the gender politics clusterfark to end all clusterfarks? It’d have to be done before the VP debate on October 2; they wouldn’t want to miss the chance to draw the contrast with Palin and cement the substitution in the public’s mind by not having her in place already for an event as high profile as that.
Even more serious question: If Obama’s imploding, why would Hillary agree to come aboard? Better to let McCain finish him off and then skip to the nomination in 2012.
Still more serious question: If McCain had chosen Palin before Obama picked his own VP, is there any doubt who the choice would have been? A
nd the most serious question of all: What is this tool doing telling audiences Obama should have gone with Hillary? Is there any conceivable strategy behind that? A feeble ploy for the PUMAs, maybe, or just Biden being Biden?
McCain gets Barackrolled at the convention
In case you’re unfamiliar with the practice of “Rick-rolling”, it is an Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up”. The meme is a bait and switch: a person provides a Web link they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. The URL can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true source of the link without clicking (and thus satisfying their curiosity). When a person clicks on the link given and is led to the web page he/she is said to have been “Rickrolled”. By extension, it can also mean playing the song loudly in public in order to be disruptive.