Category: Politics & Elections

Prime time

Barack Obama’s audience for his acceptance speech likely topped 40 million people, and the Democratic gathering that nominated him was a more popular television event than any other political convention in history.

More people watched Obama speak from a packed stadium in Denver on Thursday than watched the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the final “American Idol” or the Academy Awards this year, Nielsen Media Research said Friday. …

…

Through four days, the Democratic convention was seen in an average of 22.5 million households. No other convention — Republican or Democratic — had been seen in as many homes since Nielsen began keeping these records for the Kennedy-Nixon campaign in 1960. There weren’t enough television sets in American homes to have possibly beaten this record in years before that.

Yahoo! News

I had the strangest dream

I woke up this morning after the strangest dream. The whole thing was like a made for TV movie; a comedy. Some totally unqualified small state governor — amiable, attractive, intelligent, but just not prepared — gets selected to be vice president in a crazy effort to win the election. The governor has a household full of kids, eats mooseburgers, and her husband is — get this — a professional snowmobile racer she calls “First Dude.” The whole thing was just wacky.

I woke up before the dream turned from comedy into nightmare.

Good speeches you might have missed

While the nitworks and cable news channels keep yammering about what someone will say or what they meant when they said it, the speeches and other events proceed. Two speeches Wednesday evening that didn’t get much coverage but deserve your attention were Major Tammy Duckworth and Senator John Kerry.

No, really, that John Kerry.

The highlight of the evening for this 10-year vet of parochial schools was the benediction when Sister Catherine Pinkerton came out, started to begin, then without a word, just stared at the delegates and crowd until they became quiet. Then Sister began her fine prayer. I’ve been on the receiving end of that stare a million times.

Thursday, Olympic gold medalist gymnast Shawn Johnson will lead the Pledge of Allegiance and Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson will sing the National Anthem. You can see it all on C-SPAN, no ads, no commentary, no interruptions.

A better way

Lewis Black suggested in one of his comedy routines a better way to select the president.

As soon as the next American Idol is chosen, blindfold them and have them throw a dart at a map of the U.S. Then take a monkey, put a parachute on him, and drop him from a plane at the spot where the dart hit. The first person the monkey takes by hand, that’s the president.

Works for me.

More of the same only worse

Insofar as neoconservatives do not understand this, and cannot understand this, they are a clear and present danger to the security of the West. Their unwillingness to understand how the US might be perceived in the world, how a hegemon needs to exhibit more humility and dexterity to maintain its power, makes them – and McCain – extremely dangerous stewards of American foreign policy in an era of global terror. They are diplomatically and strategically autistic.

McCain’s response to the calamities of the past eight years has been to compound them all. It has been to propose a “surge” in Afghanistan, to aggressively embrace open-ended commitment to Iraq (if the Iraqis can be pressured hard enough), and to launch one new hot war against Iran and another cold one – and hot, by proxies – against Russia. And the way in which the question is debated – around asinine concepts of “toughness” or “sissiness” – leads to facile decisions. It also leads to ads like this one: fear-mongering as an argument. It should be noted that Obama’s statement that Iran is “not a serious threat” is so out of context as to be a lie. He said it was “not a serious threat compared to the Soviet Union.” That is a critical, historical point – a way of actually looking at foreign policy outside a box crafted by morons.

Andrew Sullivan

Big Sky Governor

While the talking heads on TV were yammering on last night that the Democrats weren’t criticizing McCain enough, Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana was at the podium doing a pretty good job of just that. This should have been the keynote speech.

By the way, CSPAN carries the convention from gavel to gavel with the focus on the speakers, not the know-it-alls in the network booths. I even watched the closing prayer.

I can’t tell for sure, but I think Governor Schweitzer is wearing the mountain states dress up uniform — sports jacket and Levis.

Hillary Clinton speaks at convention. The press concocts a story

From a useful look at past conventions by Eric Boehlert:

Many in the press have portrayed Clinton’s planned convention address, as well as the fact that her name is being placed into nomination, as an unprecedented, heavy-handed power grab.

Fact: It’s not. In years past, Democratic candidates who won lots of primaries and accumulated hundreds of delegates (sorry, Howard Dean and Bill Bradley) have always been allowed to address the convention and very often place their name into nomination. It’s the norm. It’s expected. It’s a formality.

Two best lines from The Daily Howler

We love it when Dems know enough to mention people who work on “the day shift” and “the night shift”—and “military families, who say grace each night with an empty seat at the table.” (On Saturday, Biden specifically cited the “cops” and the “firefighters.”) We love it when Dems know enough to say: We know what real people really do.

But let’s get back to those families. Forget Obama’s Kenyan father; even on his mother’s side, his personal story is very unusual in the American presidential context. No one has ever run for president talking about a decent, lovely, sweet-natured mother who spent years doing doctoral work in anthropology in Indonesian villages. Many American voters have never known anyone remotely like that ….

The Daily Howler

New McCain Ad Attacks Obama Kids

In what might be his most controversial attack ad in a campaign dominated by them, presumptive G.O.P. presidential nominee John McCain today launched a new TV spot attacking Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill)’s two children.

. . .

In the ad, which is being broadcast in key swing states, an announcer intones, “They’re the cutest children in the world – but are they ready to lead?”

. . .

The commercial goes on to blast the Obama children for “smiling and giggling but refusing to state their position on offshore oil drilling.”

While some critics questioned how well the ad would play in living rooms across America, Sen. McCain defended it, telling reporters, “It played very well in all of my living rooms.”

Andy Borowitz

Dollar Bill

Earlier this week the Daily Howler suggested, just maybe, Obama’s VP choice was three-term U.S. senator, NY Knicks star, Rhodes scholar and Princeton All-American Bill Bradley.

The more I think about it, the better and more plausible it seems.

What sport does Obama play? Where did Michelle Obama (and Michelle’s brother) go to college? Bradley is originally from a swing state, Missouri. He’s mature (65 last month), but not old. Bradley even has an Olympic gold medal (basketball, 1964).

And Bradley endorsed Obama last January, when it mattered.

Update: Or not.

Deflection

NewMexiKen still thinks the housing flap is irrelevant, but I must say that McCain spokesman Brian Rogers takes the cake for non sequitur responses: “This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison.”

McCain’s camp is fast approaching its own form of Rudy Tourette Syndrome, replacing Rudy’s “noun, verb, 9-11” with “noun, verb, POW.”

Who cares?

The Obama forces are all atwitter today because McCain doesn’t know how many houses he and Cindy own. (Seven seems to be a conservative estimate; Josh Marshall says 10.)

Hello, the McCains are worth more than $100 million dollars. Big deal, they own seven houses. How could it possibly matter?

What matters is that McCain is wrong on the issues — the wars, the economy, drilling as a solution, abortion, social security, taxes. Beat him there.

Provocative line of the day

I’ve watched the Bush presidency very closely. I’ve watched McCain closely for the last decade or so. And I either know or know a decent amount about a lot of the people advising him on foreign policy. And in terms of the physical safety and future of my wife and two sons, let alone the country, I would much prefer four more years of the Bush presidency to a McCain presidency.

Josh Marshall

Elsewhere Marshall also wrote:

“For anyone who had eyes to see, Georgia was a perfect illustration of this. He totally flew off the handle, ramping the situation up dramatically with his unstable rhetoric.”