Two Fairly Liberal Dudes

Guest Post: Rush Limbaugh and Voter Irrationality

2009-03-10T13:08:00.001-07:00

At a recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh expressed his hope that President Obama's policies will fail. He stated, "I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don't want them to succeed."

Many have interpreted his argument as, "I am a conservative, I think conservative policies and ideals are best for the country, and so I don't want liberal policies and ideals to take hold."

But this isn't really what he was saying. He was saying that he would prefer Obama's policies fail, and the country suffer further, rather than be proved wrong. Even if it so happened that Obama's policies repair the economy, modernize our infrastructure, alleviate crushing entitlement debt, improve international security, increase access to healthcare and generally make Americans better off, Rush would be upset, because much of his world view would be shaken.

If any rational prognosticator, pundit or voter were strictly concerned with the national welfare, he or she should always want any policies enacted to succeed, regardless of ideology or who is in office.

What Rush is really saying, is that he has preferences with respect to his beliefs. He values beliefs for their own sake, not just because he thinks they will make the country will be better off. This isn't unique to Rush, or to conservatives. People of all stripes hold and cherish beliefs for their own sake. This is why liberals and conservatives alike are often imbued with deep self-righteousness. (And ooh doesn't self-righteousness feel good). We often don't just hold beliefs because we think we are right, we hold them because they make us feel good.

There is often very little cost associated with being wrong. Regardless of my individual views, or my single vote, national policies will remain the same. I may believe universal health care is a good thing, but that belief in and of itself will not generate substantial direct costs to me. I get to walk around feeling good about myself, inflated with self-righteousness. I care so much about my fellow citizens that I support public expenditure to help every one stay healthy. What a nice guy I am, really. And so, at virtually no cost, I can choose whichever beliefs so happen to produce the maximum psychological/pleasure return. In this sense holding the irrational belief is actually rationale from the standpoint of utility maximization. Of course, overwhelming contrary evidence would dash those returns, and that seems to be what Rush is concerned about here (not to mention that wildly successful Obama policies would undermine his entire schtick and lucrative career). Any republican who hopes for Obama to fail is really concerned more with the psychological returns from his or her views, than with what is right for the country. The same holds true for any democrat who hoped Bush's policies would fall flat.
This is a problem. Once these irrational views are aggregated, policies ARE indeed affected. All of a sudden, people's views which were premised more on what makes them feel good, than what is best for the country begin to shape policies. Not every one thinks and behaves this way all the time on every issue, but certainly almost all of us do it to a degree. Whether your political leanings, the country would be better off if we all tried to be a little bit less like Rush.

(And oh my god it feels so good dumping on Rush Limbaugh.....)

-Civil Rights Dude

Guest Post: Bail Out Culture or Pragmatism?

2008-12-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

Both Dudes posted articles written by prominent conservatives opposing bailouts for Detroit automakers, arguing instead that bankruptcy is the preferable option.

I agree that generally speaking, that is the right path. However, I think that position (also made by Mitt Romney in an atrociously reasoned NYTimes op-ed) glazes over some particulars.

First, while there aren't too many details out, the Dems were clear that any bailout for Detroit would come with strings attached, and force the automakers to change their practices. A bail out would thus not be "long-term support for the automakers to conduct business as usual". Of course, the devil is in the details, but certainly some changes would be in store. Perhaps we shouldn't trust a bunch of Congressman to turn around major auto-companies, but these failing companies wouldn't be allowed to simply perpetuate the status quo. Furthermore, and I know this is quite speculative, if Dems are able to pass ambitious legislation under which the Federal gov't takes on a much larger share of health care costs, this could potentially free up resources for Detroit to compete more effectively against foreign makers.

Second, the analogies to other industries may be ill-suited. For example, United Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, restructured some of its obligations, and continued business operations. If it worked for United, why can't the same happen with ailing Detroit automakers? The difference is that unlike a plane ticket, cars are long term purchases. You don't just buy a car, you rely on the manufacturer for warranties, maintenance, and potential re-calls. Who is going to buy a car from GM after its filed for bankruptcy absent some outrageous discount? Most bankruptcy experts agree that for GM, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy is tantamount to liquidation.

Third, collapse of a major automaker (or more than one) now, is a lot different than similar collapse a few years from now. Dogmatic adherents to the free market advocate letting Detroit automakers fail. Generally, that's how things ought to work, but we're not in normal times. The fall out would be massive, and the last thing the US economy needs is further sharp constriction of economic activity.

George Will is right to caution of political inertia. To the extent there are long run distortions, those still need to be balanced against the long run costs of blowing a hole in the US economy when its already clawing and scraping. Economic distortions are an inherent side effect of government. Gasp, sometimes its worth it.

All of this is not to say that a bailout for Detroit is the right move. That would require a lot of messy econometrics far too complicated for my meager attorney brain to handle. What is clear though, is that the decision should be based on pragmatism, and not on ideologically driven desire to adhere to free market principles, merely for the sake of free market principles. If we had a robust and healthy economy, the case for a GM bailout would be much weaker, even if the purely ideological arguments would have just as much force. As a pragmatic matter, the context is important.

Are there public debt considerations? Are there moral hazard considerations? Should we be skeptical of Washington trying to turn failing businesses around? Yes, yes and yes. But these concerns have to be viewed in comparison to the cost of allowing this economic mess to spiral even further out of control. Given what a precipitous position we're in shouldn't we be erring on the side of doing too much?

-Civil Rights Dude

Law Dude's Cabinet Dream Team

2008-11-15T17:03:00.000-08:00

Attorney General- Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

United States Attorney.
Insanely good trial lawyer, successfully prosecuted Scooter Libby.
Has a sweet blogspot page! (hey Education Dude- is he blog list worthy?).

Secretary of State- Richard Holbrooke

Unlike other candidates for this position, he actually has diplomatic experience within the state department.
Seriously, check out the guy's wiki page. Kerry, Hillary, and Richardson can't measure up to this guy by a longshot.

Secretary of Defense- Robert Gates

Say what you will about the Iraq war, but he's handled things there about a million times better than Rumsfeld.
By all measures not an ideologue- would support a shift in priorities to Afghanistan.
Would send a loud bipartisan message by keeping on a Bush cabinet member in such an important post.
Willing to fire top brass in order to hold people accountable.

National Security Adviser- Chuck Hagel

OK, two Repubs in the top two military positions is unlikely.
But Obama digs Hagel.
And Hagel digs moving troops to Afghanistan.

Secretary of Education- Colin Powell

Honestly, I'm no Education Dude, but I like Colin Powell.
Let the guy have another feather in his amazing resume.

Wichita's 4th District Alderman- Alan Klemke!

Everything Else- I don't care.

But please don't give Richardson an important position.
Have you seen him on Meet the Press?
He's overrated at best.
Sorry, Richardson.

Update: One other prediction while I'm at it. Obama will be a Supreme Court Justice within 20 years.

Fantasy Cabinet

2008-11-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

Time to play fantasy cabinet! Readers, comment to this post with your picks. Include commentary, and you'll get your own post. Hooray!

Bailout Culture and the Free Markets

2008-11-15T06:45:00.000-08:00

Liberal Dudes don't often trumpet conservative positions. But in the tradition of two dudes who "consider ourselves fiscal moderates," here are two must-reads from conservative columnists who raise red flags about our government's response to the economic crisis.

George Will reminds us that the trillion dollars earmarked for a bailout will not likely be a temporary measure, spent without political concerns. He notes that the "temporary" New Deal measure of agricultural subsidies and the emergency World War II rent-control imposed in New York have distorted free markets for more than the last five decades. In politics, taking away a government give-away is never easy.

David Brooks attacks a proposed Detroit car maker bailout as nothing more than "about saving politically powerful corporations." He argues that bankruptcy is preferable to a bailout, noting, "Airline, steel and retail companies have gone through bankruptcy proceedings and adjusted."

Taken together, these pieces make a persuasive argument against a sustained auto-industry specific bailout. A potential middle ground would be to provide the auto-industry with enough support to ensure that the Big Three automakers remain viable during the worst of the economic downturn (whether this can be best accomplished through short-term loans or bankruptcy, I don't pretend to know). But long-term support for the automakers to conduct business as usual should not be contemplated. Instead, government incentives and spending should be used to transform the industry-- to smaller, more fuel efficient cars and to massive investments in cars fully running on renewable resources.

As George Will recognizes, "falsely shouting 'socialism!' in a crowded theater such as Washington causes an epidemic of yawning." But young liberals and conservatives alike should recognize that massive spending decisions taking place right now, if not made wisely, will burden us for years to come.

UPDATE: This Economist editorial also argues for bankruptcy over bailout, but provides support for an argument that the Big Three are on the verge of better times, by virtue of their standing in developing countries.

-Law Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-11-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

If you’re a data geek and want to know how the Democrats moved into the 21st century during this election, you could do a lot worse than Marc’s demystification of the bits behind the Obama campaign.

Much speculation abounds about Sen. Clinton for Secretary of State. I think Ezra has it right that this was a trial balloon that had to float.

Clintonistas are flooding the Obama team. Ben and Carrie at Politico tell us why this is a good thing.

Andrew takes us back to Palin’s first mention in the media. Not quite the hockey mom.

Rahm Facts!

Begich could win in Alaska. That coupled with the MN recount and the GA runoff could create the 60 scenario. Nate talks about the way to win the GA race.

Law Dude's Dream Come True

2008-11-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

Daily Show reenacts SCOTUS arguments; amazingness at 2:41:

Pragmatism in Guantanamo (Reader Request Column)

2008-11-10T16:46:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Anonymous for the blog post request on how the Obama administration will treat Guantanamo detainees.

Following through on a campaign promise, Obama's advisors are planning to close Guantanamo. The Huffington Post quotes Senator John Cornyn's repsonse to the news: "It would be a stunning disappointment if the one of the new administration's first priorities is to give foreign terror suspects captured on the battlefield the same legal rights and protections as American citizens accused of crimes."

According to Cornyn and his Republican allies, Obama will treat terrorists as regular criminals, making him soft on terrorism and the country unsafe.

Even though Obama almost certainly will not move Guantanamo detainees into the criminal justice system without any restrictions, Cornyn's premise that the criminal justice system cannot effectively prosecute terrorists should be challenged. The first World Trade Center bombers were prosecuted in U.S. courts, leading to convictions without any essential military secrets being revealed (and without doing damage to our reputation abroad).

Regardless of whether whether detainees are tried within civilian or military courts, Obama must provide detainees with more legal rights than the current military commission scheme. This current scheme is biased in favor of obtaining convictions, doing damage to America's reputation amongst our friends and a recruiting tool for our enemies. For example, military commissions require only concurrence of two-thirds of its members for conviction and provide for the potential admission of evidence derived from torture.

The symbolism of closing Guantanamo and making an effort to try detainees will go a long way to improving how American is perceived by our friends and enemies. If Obama combines these measures with increased legal protections for detainees (even if they fall short of the protection afforded by the criminal justice system), Obama can achieve an optimal mix of effectively prosecuting terrorists and improving America's standing in the world.

-Law Dude

Afternoon Arugula

2008-11-10T13:57:00.000-08:00

Biden to play good cop to Rahm’s bad.

Ryan Lizza’s “How Obama Won” piece from the new New Yorker. Folks are going to pretend they’re shocked at how cocky he really is. Wouldn’t you have to be? Also, hasn’t he earned it?

Matt thinks that this compendium from the WaPo of “Day One” suggestions for Obama sort of misses one key issue: what’s going on in the world.

Ezra thinks that race is now just one of the myriad factors that influence electoral outcomes.

He also teaches us that all recessions are not created equally.

Must read Krugman column on “going big” to help the economy.

It finally hits Ta-Nehisi. He should check out the whole slideshow.

Marc wonders about the future of MyBO.

One TPM reader on today’s Obama-Bush meeting at the White House:

"I can't believe Obama is already sitting down with an unpopular, aggressive world leader without preconditions."

First sign that the presidential election is over: Nate Silver spends 2,000 words analyzing the likelihood of Al Franken winning the MN senate seat after a recount. And – shocking - his analysis is both fascinating and nuanced. I’m so glad this thing with FiveThirtyEight didn’t turn out to be a fling.

Mark Schmitt at the American Prospect grades the various election theories that got tossed around this year. The only A+ goes to FiveThirtyEight.

Also, be sure to check out the content at “Politico 44.” They are keeping a running diary of the Obama presidency, including his daily schedule, which today - seriously - includes the following:

“9AM - Obama takes his two daughters to school, walks them to the door and receives a kiss from both. He then heads to the gym.”

Indispensable.

The Lieberman Situation

2008-11-10T13:11:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of speculation about the future of Joe Lieberman in the Democratic Senate caucus. For those of you who aren't keeping track, the hawkish Lieberman was once the Democratic Senator from Connecticut until his pro-Iraq War stance caused him to lose the state's Democratic primary. So, he ran in the general election as an Independent and became the Independent Senator from Connecticut. (I think he was also on a national ticket at some point.)

Anyway, he has caucused with the Senate's Democrats since being elected as an Independent, but his relentless campaigning for John McCain throughout the election has left many Democrats thinking he needs to be punished. Everyone's idea of punishment is different, but most folks seem to think he should either relinquish his chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee or be forced to leave the caucus. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called Lieberman's actions "wrong," and the two gentlemen kicked off a series of what are sure to be fun discussions this weekend.

Until today, it had seemed like Lieberman lost his only real bargaining power in this situation; if the democrats had picked up three more senate seats, he could have been the 60th vote in a filibuster-proof majority. Now that 60 is looking extremely unlikely - though not impossible - Lieberman's vote is unlikely to be the deciding factor in major legislation. Two new reports are suddenly changing the calculus a little bit, though. One, TPM reports that President Clinton is making calls on Lieberman's behalf. Two, HuffPo is reporting that President-Elect Obama wants Lieberman to stay in the caucus.

I think there are a few ways to read this, with Obama's opinion being arguably the most powerful factor to consider. First, Obama clearly doesn't want a protrated fight over this. It would be distracting and definitely contrary to "the change we need." What could be more "old Washington" than the Senate Majority Leader pushing to boot an experienced Senator from a committee post or caucus over his endorsement of a fellow party member's rival candidate? It's sort of a bummer for folks to deal with, and everyone seems to benefit from this dying quickly and quietly. What better way to force reconciliation than Obama speaking out?

Second, with a lot of speculation over how Obama will interact with his former Senate colleagues, I think there is some important symbolism in taking a stand early. There isn't really a need to define who's in charge, as I think Obama's significant popularity and remarkable organization take care of that, but for him to say "this was ultimately about me, and I want the dude to stay" sends a message. It shows a remarkable ability to separate "politics" and "governance," a skill the Bush White House never developed and something that Obama seems to be establishing early with this move.

Finally, I think this is a good move - strategically - for Obama, as it takes a lot of options off the table in this situation. Lieberman seemed to balk at Reid's initial offer, which was basically "leave the chairmanship or leave the caucus." With Obama asking Lieberman to stay, he at once puts pressure on Lieberman to stay while also taking some of the onus off of Reid to follow through on that ultimatum. (Yes, it would make Reid look a little weak to change his mind on that at this point, but if there's someone it's okay to look weak against, it's the extremely popular, history-making President-Elect of your country and party.) Also, it puts Lieberman in a funky position of essentially having to defy Obama by joining the Republican caucus, which I can't imagine he wants to do. As if Lieberman weren't enough of a pariah right now, can you imagine how it would play if he suddenly joined the Senate Republicans? Not to mention it would essentially be tantamount to an early retirement for Lieberman, who is unlikely to get re-elected by Connecticut as a Republican. I'm just not seeing that being a win-win for a bunch of people. Obama's move at once makes it okay for Lieberman to stay in the caucus as chairman, while allowing Reid to save face with the progressives calling for Lieberman's punishment. And it costs Obama little political capital. I give Obama an "A" for this move.

-Education Dude

The Future of Two Fairly Liberal Dudes (Re-post)

2008-11-10T07:00:00.001-08:00

While the impetus for starting this blog certainly was the 2008 presidential election, it is not our intention that with the election finished, so should our blog be.

That said, it is not entirely clear how we should proceed. Some readers I talk to enjoy having the regularity of a daily one-stop shop for political news, the central pieces of which are the morning and afternoon clip blasts. Others want our sometimes snarky - once in a while informative - analysis, which is basically news filtered through the magical two lib dudes prism. Not nearly as regular, but still dubiously useful. One reader who has spent too much time around Law Dude and Education Dude wants us to publish the offline arguments we have with one another, which sometimes yield both entertainment and information. (Most recently: does there exist an objective reality? Law Dude - yes! Education Dude - no!)

In the interest of keeping you folks reading and engaged, let's use the comments for suggestions. What do YOU want to see from this blog? Coverage of the presidential transition? Tracking major legislation in the new congress? The earliest daily coverage of the 2012 presidential election in the blogosphere? Let us know! Feel free to be as prescriptive as you want ... for instance: "I want to see one daily roundup of important political news and thrice weekly essays on animal rights legislation." You are a small and loyal following, so we might actually take your advice! It's not like living in DC or Utah ... your vote counts!

Election Night Story II

2008-11-10T06:58:00.000-08:00

This via Expat Dude, who gives us a running diary of election night in Paris:

Despite living in Paris, I've been following the election very
closely. As "Jour J" rolled around, we wanted to make sure we weren't
too cut off from our fellow citizens and knew we'd have to do
something to get in the election night spirit.

10:30PM
Leaving work, stayed a little late tonight as I had warned my boss I'd
probably not make it in by 9am on Wed morning. Pass an 6 foot tall ad
for one of the newsweeklys: portrait of Obama: "Will they dare to
elect him"

11:45PM
Meeting up with some other Americans, figure we'll check out one of
the few expat bars in town to try and grab a drink and watch the first
results. Heading towards Harry's Bar, a staple of the Paris expat
scene since the early 1900s, we pass a guy wrapped in an American
flag. There's an understated buzz in the air. Turning the corner
onto Rue Danou, we come across a huge mob of people. The block is
completely packed, a few empty champagne bottles on the ground, and
plenty more being held in reserve. Many people with Obama t-shirts,
buttons, masks. Crowd is varied, but hearing lots of French, in
addition to Brits, Aussis, and plenty of Americans. I have a
flashback, World Series, 2004, New York, throngs of Sox fans blocking
half of 7th Ave outside the Riviera after the Sox sweep.

12:00AM
A roar goes up from the crowd as they announce the closing of the
first polls. We actually want to see something, so we decide to move
on. Next stop, Carr's, another expat bar near Place Vendome. This
one's Irish, so not quite as crowded. Plenty of American's watching
CNN on big screen TVs, Obama shirts and buttons abound.

1:30AM
Our group starts to feel the late hour, and things aren't too exciting
yet. Time to call a cab.

2:00AM
Turned on the TV shortly after getting home. Expat Dudette is heading
to bed, but I can't pull myself away. PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW HAMPSHIRE
CALLED FOR OBAMA! Signs are looking up. I tell Expat Dudette the
news, though she remains pessimistic as she drifts towards sleep.

3:05AM
Had set 3am as my sleep stop-loss point, but can't bring myself to go
to bed. Most midwest polls closed without any big calls. I'm glued
to CNN and a handful of blogs. Notice Education Dude is online as
well.

3:35AM
Expat Dude: OHIO!!
Education Dude: PRESIDENT OBAMA
PRESIDENT OBAMA
Expat Dude: I've got a huge grin on my face that won't go away
Education Dude: the tears are starting

4:00AM
Should be going to bed, really, I know it's in the bag. Told myself
4AM was the absolute limit, but can't pull myself away, know this is
going to be big but can't quite believe it yet.

4:49AM
Expat Dude: cnn calls virginia - getting chills
Education Dude: this is it

OBAMA 44!!!!!!!!!!
Tears were welling for a while, but now they're running down my face

I Wake up Expat Dudette to share the news and get a very sleepy "wow".
Having trouble keeping my eyes open.
Must...stay...awake...for...acceptance...speech...

6:00AM
Told myself this was the absolute latest I would stay up, thankfully
Obama appears to address the crowd.

Full of emotion, totally exhausted to the point of literally feeling
disoriented, but I'm pretty sure that was the best speech I've ever
heard. Worth every minute of lost sleep.

6:25AM
Finally in bed, time for a quick cat-nap before work

9:30AM
Walking through Gare de Lyon on my way to work. Things seem strangely
calm - no big Obama victory headlines outside the newsstands, since
the final result came in after they went to press. One paper skirts
the issue "Obama supporters already celebrating"

10:00AM
Arrive at work, hearty congratulations from my co-workers. Exhausted.
It's going to be a long, tiring, but very happy day.

Guest Post: Obama and the Youth Vote

2008-11-07T12:32:00.000-08:00

The youth vote finally had an impact. While voters 18-29 only made up one more percentage point share of the total vote (18% of total vote, up from 17% in 2004), an overwhelming 2/3 of them voted for Obama. No candidate, winner or loser, has taken such a large share of that sector of the electorate for at least 28 years (sorry, the exit poll data I looked at only went back to the 1980 election). Obama won without taking a larger share of voters 45-59, or voters 60 and up. No Presidential winner has done this in at least 28 years.

This may have been the first time in our lives when the youth vote actually played a meaningful role in a Presidential election. For many of us, it was the first time we felt national politics responded to our beliefs and values. The sentiment was: This country is ours, we’re calling the shots now. We have helped craft America into the country we could only dream of before.

Now the dream is reality, and we’ll see how Obama actually governs. On the campaign trail, he dodged the question of what promises would have to take a backseat due to financial crisis. Of course, now he will have to set some priorities and make some decisions. Will his priorities reward the youth who helped sweep him to office, or will he cater to the elderly, despite their tepid support? A key area to watch is how his economic philosophy plays out in actual policy decisions.

Greater deficit spending equals more money we have to cough up later, perhaps just as our generation is hitting peak earning capacity, or looking to retire. It’s clear that the Federal government will have to run deficits for at least a few more years, given the bailout, a likely stimulus package, and almost assuredly diminished revenue due to slowed economic activity. That’s fine, counter-cyclical deficit spending isn’t a problem. But it does mean that Obama won’t be able to pay for everything, so he’ll have to pick and choose. Like Clinton before him, Obama promised infrastructure investment, to improve transportation and alternative energy capacity. A stimulus package could take the shape of public works project, or we could have a direct cash infusion (or obviously, some blend of the two). Because the benefits of investment will accrue over the coming decades, a straight cash infusion gives the youth less value relative to older citizens, while still shouldering us with the debt burden.

The question of infrastructure investment is particularly important because of climate change concerns. It’s not just that a public works program could put people to work, and improve productive capacity, but it may also be vital to preventing serious harm to the planet. Even if it’s not the optimal way to approach the economy (as Clinton himself decided; he went for aggressive deficit reduction over public works), we may have no choice if we want to take the climate change issue seriously. Climate change, of course, will have virtually no direct effect on voters 45 and up, but could have enormous consequences for younger voters.

What the heck does he do about Medicare and healthcare more generally? Healthcare was a huge part of his campaign, and there will be a lot of pressure for him to follow through. Due to the baby boomers, there is a massive chunk of the population who will soon be consuming lots and lots of resources. Will today’s young voters in the coming decades spending more and more to treat today’s 45+ voters? Will healthcare expenditures crowd out energy/infrastructure spending and deficit reduction? If so, our generation, the youth voters, could really get hosed.

Obama has huge ambition, and a broad mandate to make some significant changes in the role the Federal government plays in our lives. The choices he makes will have some inter-generational costs and benefits. I don’t really know what the best balance is amongst all of these competing promises, but it will be interesting to see who gets the shorter end of the stick.

-Civil Rights Dude

Empiricism

2008-11-05T13:34:00.001-08:00

One thing that is abundantly apparent as we pick through the detritus of the past two years is that political commentary is pretty useless and that data is incredibly useful. As I relentlessly said throughout the general election season, this never looked like a close election. Anyone who got near me in person had to endure my consistent predictions of "landslide ... no doubt." And the Education Dudette and Education Friends would punish and belittle me for my overconfidence, but at heart, I am an empiricist. The data never had this looking like a close election, and folks had to conjure racist boogiemen to make the case that it was.

Anyway, to put it more plainly, this was the election of the data geek. Frankly, that's part of the reason I like Obama so much; he seems to be cut from the data geek mold as well. David Plouffe might as well be the chairman emeritus of the data geek cabal.

It's also why I love Nate Silver so freaking much. FiveThirtyEight was an amazing addition to the media, and while their final model was a little off, it was pretty darn close to right. Ezra joins the chorus:

Also, Nate Silver was pretty clearly this election's MVP, at least so far as media goes. What I love about his story, incidentally, is he starts as a DailyKos.com diarist, and blows up to become a major media figure. Ten years ago, there would have been no way for him to break into the industry. But because of the open platform and easy publicity provided by community blogs like DailyKos, he could wander right in, identify a market need for good data, and fill it. That's progress.

There is a bigger point to the value of empiricism, though. Part of the real tragedy of the Bush administration has been the systematic suppression of - and misuse of - information. Whether the administration concocted fake information to justify war in Iraq, denied federal funding to stem-cell research, or tacitly endorsed the infiltration of faith into science, the Bush administration symbolized a true "Assault on Reason."

Obama has shown us that technocratic data geeks also can be inspiring leaders, and he has leveraged his inate strategic sense to deliver an unprecedented win. In many ways, his campaign has been a repudiation of the Bush administration's policies AND tactics. And I hope that he will continue this assault on idiocy as he enters the White House. A good start would be to challenge all of these asshole commentators who continue to insist America is a "center-right" nation by saying something like:

"Guess what? I just won 52% of the vote. I received more votes than any other president in American history has received, and a MUCH greater share of the electoral vote than Bush's 'permanent Republican majority' ever managed to scrape from the bottom of the barrell. And, I did this amidst accusations that I'm a closet socialist. I'll be over here on the left, with the majority of America, bitches."

-Education Dude

Election Night Story I

2008-11-05T10:36:00.001-08:00

Via Real Estate Dude:

The highlight of the night was looking around the room during Obama's victory speech and witnessing everyone's eyes tearing up as history took place.

The overall surreal experience was capped off with my cab ride home with R.E. Dudette at 1:00AM. As we cruised down Second Ave, thousands of people were in the streets, jumping on cars, chanting "Yes We Can" in unison.

I will never forget the feeling of unadulterated joy and pride that I felt last night/feel right now.

Newsweek Behind the Scenes

2008-11-05T10:31:00.000-08:00

Newsweek always does a post-election behind-the-scenes look at the campaigns. HuffPost has some of the content in advance. Among other things, we learn that threats to Obama ticked up sharply around the time Palin started giving really incendiary speeches, and that a foreign entity aggressively hacked both campaigns.

But the best nugget in there - in my opinion - reveals just how reasonable and awesome Barack Obama really is:

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for the Democratic primary debates, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me ... answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

-Education Dude

Stuff To Watch For Your Fix

2008-11-05T07:14:00.001-08:00

So, if you're a junkie, like me, the Senate is where to look right now. There are actually some routes to 60 for the Dems. The following things are still up in the air:

1) Oregon - Merkley could still win.

2) Minnesota - Franken could still win.

3) Georgia - Chambliss has to win a majority, not a plurality. If he doesn't, there's a runoff. Given that there's a lot of talk about the screwiness of the vote counting in Georgia, expect Dems to converge on GA in the coming weeks (e.g. shades of the flooding of Florida in 2000).

4) Alaska - Alaska will have a special election if the convicted Ted Stevens gets tossed from the Senate following his re-election. Folks seem to think that Ted Stevens gave sort of a "wink, wink" to Alaska saying, "Hey, even if I get thrown out, let's take our chance on a special election as opposed to sending a Democrat to the Senate." I've gotta hand it to the land of Palin. It doesn't get more maverick-y than electing a convicted felon. Hats off, Alaska.

-Education Dude

Election Night Stories!!!

2008-11-05T06:47:00.000-08:00

Two Fairly Liberal Dudes wants your election night stories. Where were you? What did you do? What did you see? Post them in the comments, and we'll pull the best stories to the main page throughout the coming days.

I'll get it kicked off ... I stayed home, which was a good thing, because I completely lost my shit when Obama won. Cried like a baby. At about 1AM, some Education Friends showed up and we drove around until we found a roving pack of celebrating young people. We put on some Kanye West glasses and wandered around the streets chanting "Obama," until one young black man yelled,

"We've gotta give it up for Joe Biden, too!!"

And then we all shrugged and started: "Joe Biden!"

-Education Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres (President-Elect Barack Obama Edition)

2008-11-05T06:43:00.000-08:00

His victory speech.

Andrew has a nice compendium of pundit reax … Ezra Klein’s is my favorite.

Ambinder has a good post game.

Nate – ever the trooper – is still following the unresolved stories, like:

1) Will we have Senator Al Franken, and

2) What’s up with Georgia’s vote totals?

Also, we told you the “Bradley Effect” was dead. Let’s make sure this phrase joins the “permanent Republican majority” in the junkyard of political nonsense.

Just on the heels of that, though, a TPM reporter coins the “Stevens Effect” for when a bunch of Alaskans lie and say they won’t re-elect a convicted felon, but then they do anyway! America … Fuck Yeah!

Bachmann got reelected. Damnit!

Matt still doesn’t get why McCain ran right . He also can't ssee how a bunch of red states moving blue is indicative of a “center-right” country. Seriously, how can you run against a guy by saying he’s a socialist and then claim his victory reinforces the “center-right” thing?

Ezra has a good proposal for pundits who get things really really wrong.

With more seriousness, he looks at the state of our country:

“For the first time, America had to articulate what exactly it feared. Did it truly believe that the middle name "Hussein" suggested a terrorist threat to the country? Well, no. Did it genuinely think Obama a radical Afro-nationalist who had dedicated his life to serving a country he loathed? Probably not. Did it actually seem plausible that Obama wanted to become president so he could finish the job the Weathermen started? Unlikely. The shadowy terrors that animated American politics in the dark aftermath of 9-11 receded. Time had passed. To borrow a line, it was morning in America, and our country looked different in the clean light of the dawn. And so too did its problems.”

Kay Hagan!!!

2008-11-04T17:56:00.001-08:00

This is a huge win ... bellwether, if you will ...

Comment of the Night So Far

2008-11-04T17:02:00.000-08:00

"Tennessee and its collective 7 teeth go for John McCain." -Education Dudette

Liberal Dudes has nothing against the state of Tennessee.

Obama's Grandmother Passes Away

2008-11-03T13:46:00.000-08:00

We all hoped she would make it to tomorrow. Via Ben Smith:

A statement from Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng:

It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure.

Our family wants to thank all of those who sent flowers, cards, well-wishes, and prayers during this difficult time. It brought our grandmother and us great comfort. Our grandmother was a private woman, and we will respect her wish for a small private ceremony to be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you make a donation to any worthy organization in search of a cure for cancer.

Education Dude's Prediction - Slightly Less Pwnage

2008-11-03T12:46:00.000-08:00

I differ with Law Dude in that I think NC and GA will stay with McCain, while CO will go to Obama. Still, the GA pick on Law Dude's part could be prescient ... an Obama win there will more or less mean that pollsters have to throw out their old "likely voter" models. Or at least re-evaluate them in the face of massive African-American turnout.

By the way, HUGE hat tip to the LATimes for bringing us the embeddable interactive electoral map. Party on.

-Education Dude

Law Dude's Prediction- Utter PWNage of McCain

2008-11-03T12:35:00.000-08:00

To be fair, Education Dude predicted the Obama landslide (or a McCain squeaker) months ago. I still think that rings true- if Obama doesn't win by at least 100 votes, McCain will pull it off with less than 15.

A Viewer's Guide to Election Night

2008-11-03T12:31:00.000-08:00

Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight has a great viewer's guide over at Newsweek. He covers the race hour by hour and tells us what to look for. For his money, the 7PM EST hour is where to look for crucial bellwether situations, namely the closing of polls in Virginia, Georgia, and New Hampshire:

"Virginia, for my money, is the most important state in this election. If John McCain loses it, his path to victory is exceptionally narrow—he would need to pull out an upset in Pennsulvania, while holding on to Florida and Ohio, and avoiding a sweep out West. Barack Obama has considerably more ways to win without Virginia, but a failure to close out the state would suggest at best a more circuitous route to victory ... Georgia and New Hampshire are a bit less essential electorally, but they may tell us the most about whether the polls are off in this election. If there's one state where Obama is likely to overperform his polls, it's in Georgia ... On the other hand, if there is any state where the polls might overestimate Obama's numbers, it's in New Hampshire ..."

Check out the whole thing, so that you know when to pop the Cris and/or when to panic.

Coming later, some Liberal Dudes electoral math prognostication.

-Education Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-11-03T06:31:00.000-08:00

Avi Zenilman has a piece on the importance of the Democrats’ “Secretary of State” project.

Andrew has a few tales from “Obamacon” readers.

Gallup’s final tally has Obama up by double digits.

Nate gives a late update to yesterday’s polls.

Blumenthal does a morning poll round up. Important point:

“Four years ago, George Bush held a average 1.5 percentage point lead on the final round of national polls. Obama's lead on these 12 surveys averages 7.3 points …”

Matt looks at how rich and poor people actually vote.

Ezra wonders whether it is wise for a campaign to put all of its eggs in the “voters are racist” basket.

HuffPost has a compendium of predictions. All but one pick Obama to win. It will be interesting to revisit this on Wednesday. Also, on a more adorable note, a bunch of pictures of Michelle, Barack, and the kids.

John Ridley makes the point that the Republicans should have saved Palin and given her a more thoughtful roll-out. Something more like, well, Obama’s.

Douthat all but concedes, but doesn’t think the McCain campaign should have.

Also, remember when I kept talking about tightening? The election is tomorrow. Look at the polls ... it ain't really happening.

Evening Digestif

2008-11-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

Sorry the clips have been slow lately, but this Liberal Dude is out helping Obama WIN.

Fallows has a great read on McCain’s SNL performance … namely, acceptance. And a plea for the liberal media to start loving him again.

Nate looks at the cell phone effects in polling and potential McCain win maps. There aren’t many of them.

This is a great story about a conservative canvassing for Obama.

Marc looks a the “Knows [sic] Unknowns.”

Matt reminds us that Kerry really wasn’t even close.

Both Liberal Dudes have Jewish families on at least one side, but I think we’re completely comfortable saying, “FUCK the Republican Jewish committee and their nonsense.” While we’re at it, lay off of Rashid Khalidi. He’s a scholar with nuanced views, and reasonable people take time to understand the perspectives of our Palestinian brothers and sisters.

Ezra doesn’t quite understand how Rove was ever a “genius.”

TPM has the Obama lead EXPANDING.

Liberal Dudes Quote-arific Caviar

2008-11-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

In a new feature, Liberal Dudes, will be providing the caviar of quotations found on the interwebs. To start things off right: Is Obama a nerd, just like you?

"[Obama] would be the guy the jocks didn't choose to towel-snap, but he would kind of stand there looking disapproving while they towel-snapped. Whereas McCain would be more likely to towel-snap you, and Sarah Palin would make out with the guy who towel-snapped you."

Townies Blow up Palin Effigy

2008-11-02T05:32:00.000-08:00

Gotta love those small town values.

There should be some sort of Read the Constitution Test

2008-10-31T16:50:00.001-07:00

before getting placed on a Presidential ticket.

Palin's latest gem, as reported by the WSJ Law Blog. Apparently the media violates the First Amendment when they engage in unflattering coverage:

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

Palin reportedly told WMAL that her criticism of Obama’s associations, such as those with Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, shouldn’t be considered negative attacks. The media’s suggestions that it’s going negative may threaten a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, she said.

-Law Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-31T06:01:00.000-07:00

Fallows examines what we know about Obama’s management and leadership, and it’s pretty amazing.

Marc talks about the variety of messages the McCain campaign is putting out there in the closing days. This – more than anything else – strikes me as the pathology that made sure the McCain campaign never got any traction. The complete lack of strategy and coherence is indicative of an incredibly poorly run organization.

Matt sees a bunch of different kinds of unities at play in Obama’s potential presidency.

Ezra has fun with some conspiracy theories.

Best picture of he day, via Andrew and Marc.

Rove can’t even stay on message.

The Economist endorses Obama.

Josh at TPM asks a fabulous question about what victory means in a modern political environment.

The Wright ads hit the air in the home stretch. Two things about this. 1) If anyone thought this wouldn’t eventually happen, they were naïve, particularly given the tenor of the rest of the campaign. You know that if McCain loses and they hadn’t released the hounds on this, there would be even MORE second-guessing than there already would have been. 2) Either John McCain can’t control his party’s actions or he’s a hypocrite, because he said Wright was off limits. Either is plausible.

George Will takes McCain to the shed in yesterday morning’s WaPo. He hasn’t endorsed Obama, but he’s being ROUGH on McCain.

Andrew and Seed on Obama the empiricist.

Ezra says that McCain wouldn’t be accused of running a somewhat racist campaign if he did a better job of criticizing the racism in his coalition. (And I’m not suggesting that his whole coalition is racist, only that there are racist elements.)

A truly weird Esquire articles looks at prominent white supremacists who are going to vote for Obama.

Remembering Why I Love Obama, Part 37164

2008-10-30T06:27:00.000-07:00

After the Phillies won the World Series last night, I was too excited to go to bed, so I actually stayed up and watched the Daily Show at its regular time. Virtually unheard of in the Education Dude household.

Compare Obama on the Daily Show with anything McCain has said in the last week. Expert analysis: Obama seems like all of my funny, smart friends, and McCain seems like the annoying uncle I try to avoid at family picnics.

He tackles a lot of the things we've been talking about on this blog, particularly the "Bradley Effect." On that, Obama has this to say:

"I don’t think white voters have gotten this memo about the Bradley effect."

Jon Stewart then asked him whether his white half might be hesitant to vote for a black guy, to which Obama responded:

"It’s a problem ... I’ve been going through therapy to make sure I vote properly on the 4th."

I love this guy.

-Education Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-30T06:24:00.000-07:00

Nate breaks down the undecided numbers and looks at the African-American voting surge. He also looks at potential jubilation in Chicago:

“… what kind of odds could you have gotten in 1908 that a black dude would get elected president before the Cubs won the Series again?”

Matt looks at the odds that YOUR vote will be the deciding vote. If you live in DC or Utah, it doesn’t look good for you.

HuffPo has a compendium of glum GOPers.

Brian Schaffner at Pollster looks at the breaking of undecideds in past elections. Interesting stuff.

Ben has a picture of a house with a confederate battle flag and an Obama sign. The world is changing.

The AFL-CIO says Obama is in the rust belt.

Matt thinks Ezra’s wrong to paint Obama as un-progressive.

Ezra to McCain: “Warning people that Obama wants to spread the wealth around might actually be appealing to an electorate that’s saying , ‘Hey, we need some wealth over here!’”

From my running series, “Signs that the Democrats are regaining the swagger,” this Obama quote:

"'By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in Kindergarten,' he said."

Obama Campaign Finally Addresses Palin

2008-10-29T13:47:00.001-07:00

in a very effective ad...

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-29T06:06:00.001-07:00

Look to the right. That's tightening. Don't panic, but start WORKING HARD. If you're not already volunteering and helping to get out the vote in a battleground state, why not?

And with that, on to the clips ...

Marc makes speculating on the Obama cabinet a daily exercise.

Does anyone else think that the “one party rule” argument that the Republicans are making is funny? Doesn’t it inherently undermine either the presidential candidate or the congressional ones? Or as I heard someone else put it, "They're all going to lose, so vote for me!"

Andrew has McCain v. Palin escalating to “war” status.

Politico looks at the connection between how bad things are for McCain versus how bad things look for

McCain. If it sounds complicated, that’s because it is.

If you’re a regular Andrew Sullivan reader, you know he has a daily feature, “The View From Your Window.” Today’s picture is of Fairbanks, Alaska, and that building on the far left is where Education Dudette and I stayed last summer. It was an awesome trip, which is to say, not everything about Alaska blows as hard as Sarah Palin does.

Sean at FiveThirtyEight writes an amazing piece about the state of the race in North Carolina. I'm starting to get chills.

Nate looks at the days polls. The national numbers are fluctuating a bit – potentially tightening a little – but the state numbers look amazing for Obama.

Ben has the McCain aid on whom the campaign is trying to peg the blame for Palin's wardrobe speaking out on the media.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist – a Republican – just decided to extend early voting hours in Florida. For those keeping score, more hours mean more voters, a situation which tends to favor Democrats. Apparently, he wants to be on the right side of history.

Marc notices that Dole didn't get to the McCain rally in NC today.

Obama's Infomercial- A Strategic Mistake?

2008-10-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

I have no doubt that Obama will be terrific tomrrow. If the race was close, or if Obama was behind, his infomercial would have the potential to be a real game changer. But given his lead, the upside is minimal and the risks are large.

One of the few areas where Obama can be legitimately crticized of old-school political cynicism is his broken pledge to accept public financing for his general election campaign. His campaign realized Obama could vastly out-fundraise McCain and calculated that going back on his word to accept public financing would not be punished by the voters.

Up until now, the campaign has been dead right. Obama has used his financial advantage to drastically outspend McCain in a host of battleground states. Possibly because spending disparities are targeted to strategic states, the source of Obama's financial advantage has fallen under the radar as a national political issue. Yet, with six days until the election, the campaign will bludgeon the public with a $3 million advertisement, aired nationally, in prime time. If McCain is smart, he will use this opportunity to make Obama's refusal to accept public financing a central issue in the final days of the campaign. I almost hope he does; because 6 more days of Joe the Plumber would be unbearable.

-Law Dude

Biden Pwns Lightweight Reporter

2008-10-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

The conventional story line in the media this week has been that Biden is a gaffe machine. While his prediction that Obama will be tested in the first 6 months was a boneheaded line, he consistently does himself and the campaign credit during media interviews. Like this one, where he destroys bushleague questions from a lightweight reporter.

The whole video is worth watching (and the reporter's defense of her questioning may be found here), but here is the money shot of idiotic questions and solid responses:

Barbara West: You may recognize this famous quote. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." That's from Karl Marx. How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he's intending to spread the wealth around?

Sen. Joe Biden: Are you joking? Is this a joke?

West: No.

Biden: Or is that a real question?

West: That's a question.

Biden: He is not spreading the wealth around. He's talking about giving the middle class an opportunity to get back the tax breaks they used to have.

I know this has been a pretty mean campaign. I was on a television station the other day and doing a satellite feed to a major network in Florida. And the anchor quotes Karl Marx and says in a sense, "Isn't Barack Obama Karl Marx?" You know I mean folks, this stuff you're hearing, this stuff you're hearing in this campaign, some of it's pretty ugly.

-Law Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

Today’s MUST READ is from Nate Silver, and he talks about the “Three Ashleys.” It is quite poignant, and it will remind you why we MUST elect Barack Obama.

Nate has a bunch of other stuff worth reading this morning if you’re interested in either whether the race is tightening or the future of the US Senate.

If you want to follow the early voting numbers, go to GMU’s Michael McDonald’s site. There’s a Doobie Brothers joke in here somewhere.

Martin has the Dems taking a big line of credit to help with the Congressional races. This is on top of the unprecedented money already being pushed out.

Marc looks at various takes on the media “bias” and looks at Pew’s HUGE Obama numbers.

Matt looks at the assumption that Democrats must govern from the center.

An End to the Tyranny of John Murtha?

2008-10-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

Eve Fairbanks at The New Republic blog looks at the handful of Democrats who are at risk of losing their seats in Congress next week. In a year that strongly favors Democrats, this is an elite group of "f-ups" and unlucky dudes. Even among this group, however, John Murtha stands out, for calling his own district "racist" and then attempting to apologize by calling his constituents "rednecks." Fairbanks doesn't think we should care if he loses:

"And, to my mind, Murtha's denigration of his constituents as racists and rednecks wasn't merely an awkward gaffe. The concept of an existential, cultural, and unbridgeable rural-urban divide has been one of this election's lamest themes ... If poll-goers vote down a Democrat who touted this insulting concept as well as the Republicans who demagogued it, I can't say I'll be that sorry."

I tend to agree, especially given the other nonsense that Murtha has been behind over the years. The real reason I wrote this post, however, was to use the phrase "an end to the tyranny of John Murtha." That exact phrase comes DIRECTLY from a mass mail Christmas card that Education Dudette's parents received from one of their very right wing friends last year. How much of a nutter do you have to be to write about John Murtha in your Christmas cards??

-Education Dude

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

Edsall has a huge – yet speculative – list of potential Obama appointees. Marc comments as well. It’s important to remember that this is an incredibly disciplined campaign, so this is little more than educated guessing, at best. But, grist for the mill and such.

Weird shenanigans in Mitch McConnell’s surprisingly close re-election bid. He’s the Senate minority leader.

Another major news outlet – MSNBC – has Obama crossing the 270 barrier.

Obama policy advisor corrects folks on the “redistribution” scare tactics.

Matt has a senior diplomat from the Bush administration lauding Obama’s positions. Also, folks are bracing for the conservative “bloodbath.”

Ezra has a great take on the “accidental genius” of the American campaign process and its ability to expose the real character of the candidates. He also cautions us against overestimating presidential power.

I’m not the only one who’s surprised at the race NOT tightening.

Nate looks at Virginia’s importance … Obama has what looks like a very secure lead, according to the last five polls.

T-Nehisi points out that Obama is really executing on Dean’s strategy.

Marc has visual evidence of the enthusiasm gap. (He also has a bonus sexy robocall.)

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

It’s David Axelrodapalooza this AM, with pieces in Politico and the NYTimes.

Ben has Obama reassuring folks that there won’t be crazy lurches to the left if he and a bunch of other Dems get the nod in a week.

Andrew thinks that Obama could manage a more moderate Iran, whereas McCain would miss the opportunity entirely.

Marc has some good questions for the near future, including this one:

“4. Do potential Obama voters see the huge crowds and think to themselves, nah, I don't need to vote because he's got it locked up.”

Matt thinks we’re entering the Biden era.

Ezra looks at the Al Qaida “endorsement” of McCain and doesn’t see much irony.

More moderate Republicans moving toward Obama.

TPM has today’s Zogby polls looking good for Obama in Bush states.

Nate argues that reports of a “Bradley Effect” in 2006 were more likely residual “Republican Effects.”

Some folks are wondering, "Where is Condi Rice?"

The cast of The Wire is campaigning for Obama in NC. My head is about to explode due to pleasure overload.

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

Blumenthal reminds us that almost all McCain victory scenarios go through Virginia, and that Obama has a big lead there.

Ben has Obama with 100,000 supporters in Denver.

Andrew has another chapter in the infighting at the McCain camp over Palin.

Marc also looks at the schism, as reported by Ben as well.

Nate gives McCain some unsolicited advice.

Matt is unimpressed by McCain’s failure to remember all of the former Secretaries of State who support him.

Matt to McCain: telling people that voting for their preferred candidates will put those candidates in power isn’t a strong argument.

Ezra has a cool picture of Obama with a little kid. Doesn’t hurt his cred with undecideds to have a WSJ in his hand, either.

About the Pollster Movement

2008-10-24T09:33:00.001-07:00

If you're watching that chart to the right, you'll notice that I keep predicting it will start to tighten, and it doesn't. What does seem to be happening, though, is that undecideds are breaking for Obama at the end. McCain's trend is pretty steady, while Obama's looks to be moving up slightly. Blumenthal thinks that the general trend is "stability," but I can't help being surprised that it hasn't gotten any closer.

-Education Dude

Palin in 2012? Really?

2008-10-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

I'm deeply skeptical of the fact that Palin will be the standard bearer of the Republican party that runs against a theoretically incumbent Democrat in 2012. Andrew has been relentless in criticizing the directionless Republican party, but Marc - among others - makes the case somewhat convincingly.

I think Ta-Nehisi actually has it right. His basic argument - which Ross agrees with - is that the utter ugliness of this campaign makes Palin completely unviable in 2012. In other words, an Obama victory essentially would mean that the fears into which she tried to tap have evaporated. Ta-Nehisi says:

“These cats have to find a new way to sell the package. If you can't otherize the black guy whose middle name is Hussien, who can you otherize?”

It'll be even harder when that guy is the incumbent President.

-Education Dude

Update: Noam Scheiber at TNR turns in a litany of more nuanced reasons why Palin is a bad idea. Suffice it to say, methinks he's right.

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

Politico has this early vivisection of the McCain campaign.

Marc has McCain’s memo calling the Obama campaign the “most negative ever.” I have a team of psychologists calling that “projection.”

Greenspan: “Whoops!”

Ezra has a post on campaign reporting that’s worth checking out, if only to glimpse Newsweek’s Michael Hastings’ raw hate for Rudy Giuliani.

Go here to contribute to El Tinklenberg for Congress. He’s the Democrat challenging Michele Bachmann, that lunatic neo-McCarthyite who made that insane rant on Hardball. He looks like he has a shot at ousting her according to the recent polling.

Bill Weld and Scott McClellan are the two most recent high profile Republicans to endorse Obama.

The Myth of Closeness

2008-10-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

There has been an interesting media dichotomy in this election. The mainstream media has done its best to create the impression that this is a "horse race" and that things are wildly uncertain. In the meantime, the blogosphere basically has resigned to the fact that an Obama victory is a foregone conclusion.

Now, clearly anything can happen, and we cannot predict the events of the next 11 days and how they might affect the electoral map. But, people, please look at the DATA!! Obama is dominating by every useful metric that man or woman has created to evaluate this stuff. Nate's model currently has a 96.3% win percentage for Obama, and over 50% of his total scenarios are Obama landslides. Every recent poll in VA and NC have him leading. He's winning in MONTANA. RealClearPolitics (leans right) and Pollster (leans left) give him dramatic leads as well. The only outlets that are calling this "close" are the mainstream media, where viewership and higher ratings depend upon the illusion of a close election.

Make no mistake, Obama could still lose, but it would require an unprecedented late shift and a remarkable drop in enthusiasm. So, I guess that my message is: "Get excited, Democrats, and leverage that excitement by volunteering and GETTING OUT THE VOTE!!!!"

-Education Dude

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

I get chills about Obama when I read things like this piece of his interview with Joe Klein. He reminds me why I fell in love with him in the first place. Take the time to read Klein’s whole piece in Time. It's worth it.

Nate sees a lot of surprisingly high pro-Obama numbers today.

This story about a burly white dude in Ohio lending his NASCAR jacket to a bunch of old Jewish ladies before switching his vote to Obama at the last minute is unreal.

Yale profs: robocalls don’t work, so stop fretting.

Mike Allen has Republicans expressing exasperation at the wind down of the McCain campaign.

Marc keeps looking to 2012 and seeing an extremely well-dressed Republican challenger.

TPM is almost wetting itself about the Republican congressional candidates aiming at McCain and vice versa.

They also have McCain shifting money around pretty extensively.

Of Democrat Bondage

2008-10-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

I'm certainly not the first person to declare that this election represents a fundamental generational shift in American politics, and I'm sure I won't be the last (especially if Obama wins). Honestly, it doesn't get any better than Andrew Sullivan's piece in the December 2007 Atlantic - Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters - when it comes to explaining this potentially seismic movement.

According to Andrew, this shift obviously is about re-framing American politics around something other than the Baby Boomers' culture wars post-Vietnam. But at a more visceral level I think it's about power. And I don't mean power in terms of international relations, but rather how and why power is wielded electorally and from a policy perspective. Anyone who has encountered politicos at any level in the previous several decades notices the swagger of those on the right and the tentativeness of those on the left. This is obviously a sweeping generality, but I don't think I'm too far off. Post 60s it became de riguer for hawkish conservatives to be tough and for progressives to be - excuse the term - pussies.

This has been reinforced by the incessant nail-biting among Democrats. My father and I had a talk about this last night, and I said "In a month, we're going to look at Obama's pre-election polling lead and wonder why anyone had any doubt." And he reminded me, "Democrats haven't been winners in my lifetime, let alone yours."

It's sort of like high school, really. The fast economic times of the late 70s, 80s and 90s were like the carefree teenage years for the conservative, football-team-captain-like United States of America. Your problems - while seemingly devastating - are really not that big a deal, because how much trouble can you really get in? You have a stand-off with your rival team at a bar, but eventually they stand down and you declare victory (Cold War). The only fights you pick are pretty easy to win, even if you're just trying to impress your friends and shake down some lunch money (oil). But then suddenly, you're a little older, your older brother buys you some beer, and you get the keys to the new car. You start to get reckless, and all of a sudden you've maxed out your parents' credit cards (deficit, financial collapse), the car is in a ditch (Iraq or Afghanistan), and all of the smart kids are going to college (China and India).

I guess the gist is - not to put too fine a point on it - "who looks like a pussy now, conservatives?"

-Education Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-23T06:18:00.000-07:00

Charlie Cook thinks it will take a massive, massive event to change the dynamics at this point.

Nate revisits the Bradley Effect, just for good measure.

The NYTimes has a compendium of former McCain strategist Mike Murphy’s criticisms.

Marc looks at early voting in Georgia and explains why that AP poll calling the race a tie is flawed.

Ta-Nehisi realizes that the real Joe the Plumber incident makes Obama look great.

TPM and HuffPo have Chuck Todd railing on the McCain campaign.

Blumenthal’s morning update has Obama moving positively for the fourth consecutive day. I still think it will tighten. TPM’s morning round up catches the new Quinnipiac polls which have Obama up in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Ohio numbers look too good to be true, so they probably are.

This WaPo analysis of their latest numbers has nothing interesting to say, except I want to give them props for what I hope is a Spinal Tap reference in the title. E-mail me if you know how to get an umlaut over the “n” in HTML.

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

Matt thinks that socialism – at least how McCain describes it – IS American.

He also reminds us that ads must also be persuasive, in addition to inflammatory. Kittens on fire are really sad, but they won’t make me vote McCain.

Ezra wonders if this late in the game Al Qaida reverse-reverse psychology will have an effect. There’s web chatter on Al Qaida sites about how to ensure a McCain victory. He also wonders:

"Meanwhile, can you imagine the outcry if intelligence experts had broken into a locked al Qaeda site and found deep conversations asking how best to ensure Barack Obama's election?"

Ezra also has the fight to define Obama’s parameters as President beginning.

Andrew scorches Palin on intellectual curiosity and can’t believe Steve Schmidt is a “strategist.”

Marc has legal info on the clothing purchases.

And be sure to check out Jon Stewart giving a big “F%$@ You” to Palin.

Annals of DUMB Mistakes

2008-10-22T06:06:00.001-07:00

For the record, this thing with Palin's wardrobe doesn't really piss me off. Sure, she spent $150,000 in campaign money during a recession to outfit herself and her family, but I'm pretty much willing to overlook that. One of Marc's readers has a good perspective:

"Yet for that 150K, what have you got? A Palin who shines, who appears on the front page of every newspaper in the country, whose image lingers on the screen in every newscast, and who dazzles foreign leaders when meeting them in person ... Seriously, what else is the GOP going to be able to capitalize on with her? The wonkish credentials? The well articulated positions? ... For 150K, they bought Extreme Makeover: GOP Edition."

It's about image, and there are many ways in which a campaign can pay for image, this being one of them. Compared to the amount of money the campaigns spend on image via ad buys, this doesn't even register.

But, seriously, how stupid is this? It is ridiculously easy to pile on, because there are so many great visuals. HuffPost's front page has a photo essay of all of her post convention outfits, including a picture of her daughter with a Louis Vuitton bag. They add this:

"During a week in which the Republican ticket is trying to highlight its connection to the working class -- and, by extension, promoting its newest campaign tool, Joe the Plumber -- it was revealed that Palin's fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothess in 80 years. A Democrat put it in even blunter terms: her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people. "

Bottom line: there is not a single positive way to spin this, and it will get a ton of attention for at least a couple of days. And even if we completely forget about this by Friday, which is doubtful (cue Tina Fey at Saks), it will have consumed 15% of the remaining total time in this election (2/13 days). John McCain needs to make up a lot of ground according to polls. This is not the way to do it.

-Education Dude

Robot Laughter

2008-10-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

I really can't say enough about how awesome Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight is. One of the best things about visiting is looking at the fascinating chart in the right margin, where they outline the current probability of various election outcomes, based on the 10,000 scenarios the model processes each day. For example, they look at the probability that (all numbers based on 9:28 EST on 10/21/08):

McCain wins popular vote (9.48%, 948/10000)
Obama loses Ohio, but wins the election (77.69%, 2264/2914)
McCain loses Ohio, but wins the election (0.04%, 3/7086)
Identical map to the 2000 election (0.28%, 28/10000)

My favorite scenario, though, is the one in which McCain wins in a landslide, which is defined at 375+ electoral votes. Right now that is at 0.07%, or 7 times out of 10,000 scenarios. One very funny commenter remarks:

"I wonder if The Model gives a little digital chuckle when it simulates one of its seven McCain landslides."

By the way, right now and Obama landslide is predicted 36.37% of the time.

-Education Dude

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

Ben reports on the continuing scaling back of the McCain campaign. Watch for more oft his in the coming days … as the reasonable paths to 270 become narrower for McCain, it’s to his advantage to focus resources that make such paths happen.

Andrew, the consummate conservative, leaves no gray area. Even when voting liberal: “As I said: it's now a battle between hope and fear. There is no neutral ground any more. Do what you can.”

He also looks at the Pew poll, which gives Obama a huge lead in the top line. The internals are more interesting, though, showing Obama with the leadership edge.

Ezra reminds us that Obama is NOT suspending his campaign and thinks that NYTimes internal polling data points at Palin being a huge blunder. I agree, but I’m not sure any other picks he was considering would have been less worse blunders.

Matt looks at growing inequality and sees that it is a problem. No argument here. Structural issues in our economy make it awfully hard for basic measures of wealth to change much over multiple generations within a family, so the opportunity argument is a little bit of a red herring to me.

TPM composite has Obama moving up. Not terribly shocking news, except that it pretty clearly shows that McCain is not trending up. There are only so many days left for that to happen.

Nate has a nerdgasm and dissects the qualities of all of the national pollsters.

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-21T06:27:00.000-07:00

Thoughts to Senator Obama and his family as his grandmother takes ill.

Andrew has stories of early voting. Nothing terribly partisan, just some hot, person-on-voting-booth popular sovereignty action.

Marc thinks Obama could have trouble with a Dem Congress.

Matt has some good stuff on incentives for pollsters and thinks there’s too much loaded history in the south for McCain supporters to be doing this at polls.

Various folks on whether or not McCain will whip out the “Wright” card.

Nate looks at party fidelity in polling and finds good news for Obama … also, yesterday’s polls show that if McCain has gained at all, it’s been minimal.

3 Votes to McCain!

2008-10-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

Remember this summer when all the political talk was about who would be nominated to be VP? Then, pundits would note that a Vice Presidential choice rarely affects an election. In fact, the last time a VP selection delivered a state was LBJ moving Texas to the Democratic column in 1960.

Well, pundits, meet your next LBJ. Before Palin's selection, Obama planned to compete in Alaska. After the selection, Obama's camp pulled out of the state. That's right, Palin just delivered 3 electoral votes to McCain!

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a bigger than average Sunday ... Obama raises $150MM in September and the country's most popular Republican endorses him. On to the clips ...

Fallows on the character arcs of McCain and Powell and the boring, effective Obama

Andrew thinks Powell is making the argument Andrew has been making for months, and Andrew is right.

Ben has the transcript of Chris Wallace going after McCain on the robocalls. Either McCain is lying or he hasn’t listened to them.

Marc looks at the narrowing permutations of potential victory for both candidates and thinks that the Powell endorsement will hurt McCain more than it helps Obama.

Ezra thinks it’s funny that Palin rails on the liberal media Sunday through Friday, but parties with them on Saturday.

Matt is looking for the next R in line and thinks Huckabee looks like Churchill next to Palin.

He also likes Powell’s take on Muslim-Americans. I was tearing up at the description of the photo essay.

TPM wants us to brace ourselves for two weeks of pure slime.

Nate learns that Palin’s “real” America is way whiter than the actual America. I said it once and I will say it again … McCain is running a campaign that is not afraid of stoking racism.

Hey McCain! The 70s Called. They Want their Robo-Calls Back.

2008-10-18T08:01:00.001-07:00

With less than 3 weeks til the election, McCain is bringing out the big guns. Across the battleground states, McCain has decided that Robo-Calls are a good way to ~~smear his opponent~~ get out his message. TPM has a collection of all of these calls, but here's one so you can get the flavor:

I'm calling on behalf of John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in the Illinois Senate opposed a bill requiring doctors to care for babies born alive after surviving attempted abortions -- a position at odds even with John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama and his liberal Democrats are too extreme for America. Please vote -- vote for the candidates who share our values. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202 863 8500.

Forget about the content of these messages. Here's what I don't get. When a robot calls your house, I can think of two outcomes: 1) You say "hello," realize you're talking to a robot, and then immediately hang up. Or 2) You stay on the line to find out which idiot paid money for a robot to call your house.

On the other hand, maybe not liking robo-calls is just a young person thing? Maybe old people love robo-calls? If so, this plan is genius. With robo-calls going only to landlines, this campaign is perfectly targeted. Young people only own cell phones.

-Law Dude

Powell to Appear on Meet the Press. Will Endorse Obama?

2008-10-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

Colin Powell will be a guest on Meet the Press this Sunday. In the past, he has spoken favorably of Obama. Will Powell take the opportunity to endorse him?

It's a close call, but I'm predicting no endorsement. I think Powell wants another stint in government to make up for his role in the run-up to the Iraq war. An Obama endorsement will likely blacklist him from a McCain administration. He says nothing, and he remains on both Obama and McCain's shortlists for a top position.

-Law Dude

UPDATE: Powell will endorse! Full Disclosure- Education Dude disagreed with my post and predicted the endorsement.

Obama for President. But...

2008-10-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

Since Obama announced his intention to run for President, Two Fairly Liberal Dudes have been unabashedly in his corner. Unlike any other politician, Obama represents most closely our values and policy positions. But as a responsible fake journalist, I'd like to provide a balanced view of our favored candidate.

Today's Washington Post's endorsement of Barack Obama recognizes his two biggest policy flaws: Iraq exit strategy and free trade.

Binding foreign policy should not be developed during campaigns. Obama's Iraq position was developed at the height of civil war in Iraq. Instead of rigidly following his 2006 plan, he should respond to conditions on the ground with the goal of shifting resources away from Iraq to Afghanistan and to restoring a capability to deter current and future adversaries from taking steps counter to American long-term interests.

As for the anti-trade rhetoric, the WaPost is dead on: Obama's criticism of NAFTA and free trade during his primary fight with Hillary was the low-point of his campaign.

Today also brought an editorial memento of a different kind: David Brooks' quasi-endorsement of Obama. This otherwise glowing article contains a caveat that even the most ardent Obama supporters should recognize:

Of course, it’s also easy to imagine a scenario in which he is not an island of rationality in a sea of tumult, but simply an island. New presidents are often amazed by how much they are disobeyed, by how often passive-aggressiveness frustrates their plans.
It could be that Obama will be an observer, not a leader. Rather than throwing himself passionately into his causes, he will stand back. Congressional leaders, put off by his supposed intellectual superiority, will just go their own way. Lost in his own nuance, he will be passive and ineffectual. Lack of passion will produce lack of courage. The Obama greatness will give way to the Obama anti-climax.

Obama campaigns today with the full backing of the entire Democratic party (with the exception of Rev. Jackson?). His campaign has been remarkably disciplined and controlled. But once Obama begins his Presidency, he may find that running the country, even a country with a Democratic, fillibuster-proof Congress, may not be as easy as running his campaign. With members of his own party doggedly pursuing their own parochial interests, Obama's ability to lead the country out of economic disaster and foreign policy quagmire will probably be constrained.

Now that my concerns are out there, I have one more thing to say. Obama for President.

-Law Dude

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-17T10:06:00.000-07:00

Does the right really think that old pictures of Bill Ayers are threatening to undecided voters? A white kid in a hoodie? Seriously?

Ben has the press getting literally physically abused at a McCain-Palin rally.

McCain and Obama yuk it up on stage together last night. Obama is actually funny. McCain is sort of funny like your weird uncle is funny once in a while.

One of Andrew’s readers interprets McCain’s anger. Definitely not totally on the “pro-Obama” message, but worth considering.

Marc sees the NRSC starting to consolidate resources.

One of Matt’s readers does an analysis of population density and voting patterns.

Matt also thinks things are likely to tighten. This is inevitable, I will write more about this in the coming days, and I need ya’ll not to freak out.

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

Nate thinks that Americans are too certain that McCain is running a negative campaign for him to pin that one Obama and he says that his map is almost unchangeable at this point.

Ben has some subtle robocalls from the McCain camp. And by subtle we mean NOT AT ALL SUBTLE.

Marc thinks substance takes a back seat to posture in these debates, so it wasn’t even a contest.

Andrew’s live blog is pretty good and he thinks Palin is now being groomed. Forget McCain.

Matt reminds us that the worst debate commentary comes from pundits, because they’re basically the polar opposite of the intended audience.

Read to the bottom of this Ezra post … he wonders if the campaigns have a “black swan” department that conjures up responses to implausible scenarios.

Greenberg’s focus group in some ways encapsulates the meta-narrative ... people actually like what Obama is saying.

They’re not laughing with you, John McCain …

TPM and Matt think McCain needs an Intrade bailout.

I am so sickened by this, I don’t know what to say.

Marc finds out what people were googling after the debate.

Matt doesn’t think people will suddenly be scared by progressive taxation.

Also, sorry the clips posting has been light lately ... between the Phillies getting to the Series and assorted campaign madness, it's hard to keep up some days!

Toobin Checks Facebook During Debate

2008-10-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

From CEO Dudette via Valleywag:

Yup, that's Jeff Toobin's laptop during last night's debate.

Jon Stewart Gets the Last Word on Palin Puck Drop

2008-10-15T15:51:00.001-07:00

"They weren't booing her, they were shouting questions, 'What happened to tboooooooooper gate, did you aboooooooooooose your power?'"

The fun starts at 4:11.

Rev. Jackson Tries Again to Castrate Obama

2008-10-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

I miss the time when Rev. Jackson only talked about his desire to cut off Obama's n*ts. Now, he's doing his best to follow through.

Jackson reportedly said that under an Obama administration, the "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" will come to an end and as would America's policy of "of putting Israel's interests first."

If Jackson was purposefully trying to derail Obama's campaign, I cant think of a better way to do it. On the other hand, maybe Jackson truly believes "Zionists control American policy for decades." Either way, Jackson is a disaster.

-Law Dude

Bradley Effect Disappearance Hypotheses

2008-10-13T15:40:00.001-07:00

There has been a ton of talk lately about whether or not we can really trust the presidential polls, given the nefarious Bradley Effect that seems to spoil the chances of black candidates. At the risk of being repetitive, the Bradley Effect - named for Tom Bradley, former mayor of LA and one time California gubernatorial candidate - is the phenomenon whereby the outcomes of an election are significantly less favorable to a black candidate than reliable, pre-election polls had predicted. This is more complicated than straight-up racism, because the effect relies upon people being dishonest to pollsters.

Nate has a great analysis of various elements of the effect, and he rehashes a lot of the evidence that it no longer exists, which we have discussed here. Where Nate gets novel, however, is in discussing WHY the effect might have disappeared. There's a lot of good stuff, but here's something that strikes me as very relevant:

4. There may be some relationship to the revival of the religious right in the 1990s. For members of the religious right, there are now ample and automatic reasons to vote against any liberal candidate, a.k.a. their positions on issues like abortion. In addition, the religious right has made voting along cultural grounds (as opposed to policy grounds) more socially acceptable in general. So long as the voter believes he or she can articulate a "valid" reason for voting against an African-American candidate, there is little reason to deceive a pollster about one's intention."

I think this is a brilliant analysis. Rather than having to articulate an electoral preference based on foreign policy positions or fiscal views, folks now have the comfort of saying things like "He's okay with dudes kissing each other, so I hate him," or "He thinks that a teenager who is raped by her father shouldn't have to bring the pregnancy to term, so I can't vote for him," and there is a cultural justification for saying so. It can go the other way too, of course ("He won't let my brother and his partner adopt, so I'm voting against him" ... obviously, I actually think this sounds reasonable, but that's another story.) In any event, it does seem like our modern culture wars make it remarkably easy to find socially acceptable stand-ins for racial preference.

-Education Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

Ben has a striking contrast in the schedules of the candidates. Is McCain even TRYING to win?
If you haven’t yet, be sure to have "The Talk" with your older relatives. Maybe even make them watch The Youtube.

Ezra finds that racists can find social acceptance at McCain rallies.

McCain’s new stump speech – being unveiled today – contains the line “We got em right where we want em.” Where is that exactly? The White House?

Obama overtakes McCain on “leadership” in the internals of the new WaPo/ABC news poll.

McCain wishes he could have this one back.

Only in America: the AP makes sure to ask Levi Johnston the hard questions.

Nate thinks we’re about to see a major McCain “reboot” and looks at what seem like ridiculous odds for McCain (right now, on FiveThirtyEight, McCain has a below 7% chance of winning).

Family Values

2008-10-12T17:55:00.001-07:00

Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau, October 12, 2008

Obamakin

2008-10-12T15:55:00.000-07:00

We've heard a lot about Obamacans (Republicans voting for Obama), but we haven't heard a lot about Obamakins. Well, you heard it here first.

(Sunday) Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-12T06:33:00.000-07:00

Only 90 economists scraped together to sign McCain’s “Letter from 100 Economists.”

McCain finally repudiates some of the truly awful stuff happening.

It seems like every time Nate writes a weekend post about the candidates’ competing ground games in a swing state, Obama has 8 kajillion open, bustling offices and McCain’s only office is closed with two little old ladies loitering outside. This makes me think landslide.

Ben picks up on the Palin-Flyers debacle. The video he links to might exhibit even louder booing than the one we have.

The NYTimes has the GOP getting shaky about McCain.

TIME calls the troopergate affair evidence that Palin’s administration is and was “shockingly amateurish.”

TPM makes a good point … McCain supporters seem genuinely surprised that McCain doesn’t think Obama is a terrorist. Also, there doesn’t seem to be any reason left to vote for McCain.

Hopefully this back and forth will mark an end to the most hate-filled stuff.

Ta-Nehisi has some good, yet scary context on what Wallace was really thinking.

And the Verdict is In... BOOOOOO

2008-10-11T19:09:00.000-07:00

Nice try with the loud music to drown out the boos, Ed.

Update: Now with more booing!

Palin Dodges Even Sports Media

2008-10-11T15:42:00.001-07:00

To continue the Philadelphia sports/politics weekend, this gem from the Inquirer:

"'But since the White Sox lost, I'll go ahead and root for the Phillies now,' Obama said.

Cynics might note that Pennsylvania is a battleground state in the upcoming election while California, home to the Los Angeles Dodgers, will almost certainly deliver its electoral votes to the Democrats. . . .

In the interest of equal time, The Inquirer extended the same invitation - talking sports - to Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who was in town last night to drop the first puck of the Flyers season. That campaign declined the honor."

Vegas Odds on Palin at the Flyers Game

2008-10-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

From the Philly Inquirer:

Here are the odds:
** 10/1 that Palin fall down while dropping the pick. If she falls down, you win $10 on a $1 bet.
** 1,000/1 that Palin will get in a donnybrook with Flyers captain Mike Richards at center ice.
If she gets in a fight, you win $1,000 on a $1 bet.

** Will Palin get more cheers or boos when she is introduced on the ice?
The bet is “even” that she will get more boos. In other words, if you bet, say, $100 that she’ll get more boos, your winnings would be $100 if that happened.
The bet is -130 that she’ll get more cheers; you would have to bet $130 to win $100.

** Will Palin wear a Flyers’ jersey to center ice?
The bet is “even” that she will. So if she wears a Flyers’ jersey, you win whatever you bet. If you bet $100, for instance, you would win $100 if she wore their jersey.
The bet is -140 that she won’t wear a Flyers’ jersey. So you would have to bet $140 to win $100. (Apparently, the oddsmakers don’t think she’d wear a Flyers’ jersey because it would offend New York voters, er, fans.)

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

An actual post on arugula … courtesy of Matt.

Ezra has a Princeton political scientist saying almost EXACTLY what we said yesterday in response to Blumenthal’s analysis. And we ain’t even got no PhD’s.

TPM thinks that, if McCain weren’t a presidential candidate, there might be good reason for the Secret Service to worry about his rallies.

Marc doesn’t think McCain is being serious right now.

Matt thinks Obama is definitely playing mindgames with McCain over the Ayers thing.

Ezra reminds us that the self-interest of all of these failing lending institutions is reinforcing their tendency to fail in tough times(just as their self-interest reinforced their tendency to succeed in good times).

Market performance vs. McCain, a chart.

Mark Blumenthal looks at yesterday’s polls and also is surprised by West Virginia.

The always sharp David Gergen is worried that this nonsense from McCain-Palin could lead to violence.

Republicans and Democrats alike condemn the McCain campaign.

Omaha is in play! Go Huskers!

Ta-Nehisi thinks John McCain is Tyson right before the Douglass KO and ...

… beef is when the working folks can’t find jobs.

Ed Week finally debunks the insane “Annenberg is radical” myth, but the funniest part is that Mrs. Annenberg is a big McCain supporter.

Registration alone could turn this one.

Republican Baltimore Sun reporter connects McCain to right-wing extremist hate. (via TPM)

Sean at FiveThirtyEight lays the smack down on Michael Barone.

Even Fox can’t get Ayers to stick.

Independent Reports Confirm ...

2008-10-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

In response to our last post, Education Dude's favorite activist friend had this to say (slightly edited so as to not offend our more proper readers):

"I was planning on releasing an independent report on the size of my [brain] this morning. It says I have a HUGE one."

We eagerly await the Alaska legislature's independent report of his unedited claim, but a survey of recent girlfriends might suffice ...

-Education Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

The second the “Troopergate” report is released, we’ll post the deets.

The McCain-Palin camp preempts that report with one of their own, and it – thank goodness – clears Palin of any wrongdoing. What a relief. On November 5, when I compile my Top Ten List of the McCain campaign’s insults on the intelligence of Americans, this certainly will vie for top bidding.

McCain is really scraping the bottom of the tactical barrel right now. Per Ben’s report:

“McCain's campaign has stopped putting out statements and ads connected to the economy, and seems focused entirely on Ayers. As one GOP strategest said to me, "He's speaking angry Greek, when he needs to be speaking economic English."

Obama is on a sympathetic conservative talk radio show today to discuss the Ayers thing, which seems like a good way to address it.

Andrew says the whole election, from McCain’s perspective, is now about fear.

Marc reminds us that you can’t spell bad assets without “Bad Ass.” Honestly, that statement has shockingly little to do with the article, but I said it at dinner last night and wanted to repeat it.

He also has Obama on the air in Texas, via a national spot, which means he’s raising a LOT of money right now.

As good an explanation of the ACORN mess that I’ve read.

Matt talks us off the ledge, by saying, “Look at the numbers!!!” Obama is ahead of where even Bush was in 2004 at this time. Message: Barack Obama is NOT John Kerry.

Matt thinks more immigration could help us in a housing slump.

TPM starts an “n word” countdown for McCain surrogates.

Nate thinks the debate helped Obama and looks at the favorables to determine if the Ayers stuff is working. So far, not so much.

Also, don’t fuck with Michigan.

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-09T12:25:00.000-07:00

Must read Ta-Nehisi piece on the racist conjuring going on in the McCain-Palin camp. It is something to be scared of, don’t kid yourself.

On the other side of the coin, Rednecks for Obama!! This is almost as good as my Bubby convincing her entire bridge group to vote Obama (true story). Old Jewish Ladies for Obama!!

Nate has his update of today’s polls, and the shocking one is that, according to American Research Group, Obama is up 8 points in … wait for it … West Virginia. He tempers this with the reminder that ARG is a notoriously uneven pollster, but still:

“there might be some merit in Obama paying a visit to West Virginia -- not because it's quite moved to the point where it's a swing state but because I think the symbolism of all of it would get him a lot of earned media.”

Worst … book … idea … EVER.

Ezra looks at the possibility of a filibuster-proof majority for Dems in the senate and Matt says “it’s not that easy.”

Obama to McCain: “Why don’t you say that to my face, bitch?”

Matt looks at the financial crisis’s impact on soda volume discounts in the Center for American Progress break room.

He also thinks McCain could do himself a favor by looking to rap music for his campaign theme. “Mo Money, Mo Problems,” perhaps?

I can’t understand what McCain thinks he’s doing with this insane mortgage package. You call attention to it during a debate, ensuring that it’s a story. Then you unceremoniously make it incredibly unpopular by changing its provisions to reward the institutions who made the bad loans.

Nate thinks Rove is wrong about swing voters.

Comics rip Palin at a fundraiser for ALS. Crippling diseases and Sarah Palin … perfect together.

Military families supporting Obama more than we might think.

Independents don’t like Palin that much. Anecdotally, the independent I had lunch with today doesn’t like Palin and she’s the only real reason this individual is voting for Obama.

Douthat: The Last of the Reasonable Conservatives.

Palin to Drop Puck at Rangers-Flyers Game. Will Be Booed.

2008-10-09T06:30:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin will drop the opening puck for the Flyers season opener on Saturday.

I'm sure this will go over well in a Democratic city with the politest sports fans in the country.

I've been watching this video of Destiny's Child being booed during the 2001 NBA Finals to prepare myself.

-Law Dude

Spoiling the Polls

2008-10-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

Mark Blumenthal’s National Journal column is a good overview of the potential poll spoilers in this election. In summary, the following things could cause things to go awry in polling: 1) underrepresentation of cell-phone only households in polling; 2) confounds in “likely voter” models due to unprecedented turnout; and 3) respondents failing to tell the truth in surveys due to social discomfort over not supporting a black candidate.

Items #1 and #2 seem to favor Obama. He’s crushing the younger demographic, and according to Marc:

“Since 2004, the cell-phone-only population as a percentage of all adults has more than tripled and now includes nearly a third of adults between 18 and 24.”

That’s a huge number, and it’s been way underrepresented in some polls. Same for the turnout … higher turnout favors democrats, especially this cycle, due to the unusually drawn-out primary campaign. Obama registered tons of folks in late-voting primary states that otherwise might have been somewhat ignored.

Item #3 certainly cuts the opposite way, but Marc points this out:

“Over the last 10 years, according to a paper [PDF] by Harvard post-doctoral fellow Daniel Hopkins that studied 133 statewide races between 1989 and 2006, the apparent polling bias in such races largely disappeared.”

Remember, this doesn’t mean that racial bias in elections has disappeared. It just means that people are less likely to lie about it. The so-called “Bradley Effect” doesn’t mean that folks won’t vote for a black dude … it means they’ll tell a pollster that they will, then do the opposite in the voting booth. Most of the folks who won’t vote for Obama in November because of his race are saying, “McCain” when someone asks them who they’re voting for.

-Education Dude

When We're in Charge, There Will be No Culture Wars

2008-10-08T18:37:00.001-07:00

Here's to hoping 18-34 year olds vote in record numbers this election. Our generation-- both Democrats and Republicans-- is rejecting the culture wars.

We believe gays should have equal rights. Abortion doesn't define us. Pro-life youth also care about issues like global warming and Darfur; they realize that opposing abortion, alone, doesn't make a candidate worthy of their vote.

When we're in charge, amendments to ban gay marriage won't be used to drive voter turnout and distract us from greater issues. A Supreme Court nominees' position on abortion won't be a litmus test, and once again, a jurist with a long and defined record can pass through the Senate.

Clearly, young liberals and conservatives are passionately divided. But our divides are over real issues-- Iraq, the war on terror, economic theory and policy. We aren't distracted with petty, artificial concerns. With our youth vote, Nov. 4 could mark the beginning of the end of the culture wars.

-Law Dude

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

Nate’s models now have Obama winning the election over 90% of the time. The average EV count is 345. The only close battleground state is North Carolina, where Obama was down by 20 points just under two months ago.

Nate also has some sobering thoughts on Obama’s ceiling. In other words, don’t expect him to keep rising in the polls, because that’s nearly impossible at this point. Consequently, statistics basically guarantees that McCain might gain a little back, so don’t fret on that!

Matt has a great explanation of why renegotiating bad mortgages is better than letting the “market” take care of the glut of these things and discusses why deficit spending during financial crisis can head off a worse recession. Matt is really smart.

From Ezra: “A steady hand on the tiller is the sort of thing that would have made more sense a couple generations ago. Sort of like John McCain's candidacy.” Oh, smack! He just said, "You’re old," John McCain.

Ben has a run down of advertising expenditures.

Hacking into Sarah Palin's e-mail was easy, apparently.

Andrew starts thinking landslide and has David Brooks calling Palin a "cancer" to the republican party.

Nixon Sat Down with "Terrorists," Too

2008-10-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

In one of the debate's least surprising twists, McCain once again criticized Obama's willingness to engage our enemies in direct diplomacy. The same criticism came from our conservative doppelganger, R Dude. In his words:

Nevertheless, its comforting to think that a "President" Biden would sit down with foreign leaders and talk--leaders that have publicly stated their ill-will towards American ideals--because its definitely clear throughout American history that doctrine(s) of prevention and cooperation have worked well in our past.

With respect, I don't think history supports this criticism. Throughout the Cold War, we engaged in direct diplomacy with enemies espousing the destruction of America and the nuclear weapons to back up the threat. See Kennedy-Khrushchev and Nixon-Mao. For Nixon, this meeting was probably his greatest foreign policy achievement.

How would meeting with leaders in Iran "to deliver a tough, direct message. . . that, if you don't change your behavior, then there will be dire consequences" any different than the actions Kennedy and Nixon took during the Cold War?

And as a matter of policy, ignoring our enemies hasn't yielded dividends. To see why, look no further than North Korea from 2001-2007.

-Law Dude

Gathering Moss

2008-10-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

Commenter - and ~~former Roommate~~ Spin Dudette - Dorfie requested some LD commentary on the recent Rolling Stone piece, "Make-Believe Maverick," by Tom Dickinson

The basic thesis of the piece is that the "maverick" image is complete bullshit, and that McCain is and always has been an "undisciplined, spoiled brat," in the words of John Dramesi, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was a POW with the Senator. Dickinson's piece paints a bleak picture of McCain's career as one that has been characterized by a series of massive explosions, whose fuses were lit by McCain's insane hubris and fueled by his Oedipal complex. (Did I mention there's a lot of hyperbole and fun figurative language, too?) Yes, it's that brutal. Dickinson really piles it on, and it's hard to pretend that this is anything resembling a balanced piece ... he wanted to make a point, and he made it. It doesn't make it any less interesting to read ... in fact, a piece of writing having an editorial bent makes it quite MORE interesting.

Now, that said, the important thing to take out of this, I think, is that the whole "maverick," "Straight Talk Express" image is something that has been intentionally cultivated for the sake of selling YOU - the voter - on an electoral product. United States Senators don't really want to be "mavericks." All evidence seems to point to the fact that actually BEING a maverick is terribly inconvenient in an institution wherein majority rules, and power is acquired through working with party leadership. Is this a perfect system? Of course not, but there are some good reasons that McCain has a relatively thin record of leadership in the Senate - he pisses EVERYONE off.

That is to say, the "maverick" persona only is useful as something to sell, which is why McCain decided to package it and sell it eight years ago. Let's reflect on that for a second ... this guy got elected to the senate 26 years ago, when he was already in his mid-late 40s. The nation really has only known this guy for about 15% of his professional career ( methodology: 8/[72-18]).

Now he is now being sold to us as a lifelong agitater for change and progress. Agitater? Maybe. For change and progress? The record seems to come up pretty empty, unless of course you're talking about changing/progressing McCain's career and self-interest. He seems remarkably able when it comes to that.

-Education Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

Debate reax from all over … nothing shocking, just the fact that this was another opportunity for McCain to fundamentally change the game, and nothing substantial happened.

Dana Milbank on Palin’s activities … this is sort of terrifying.

Andrew thinks temperament matters. All of this “radical” nonsense sticks better to McCain.

Everybody is pretty pissed about the racist stuff going on. And by the way, I’m not saying that this is all coming from the McCain campaign, but he must condemn it. He must.

Matt thinks we have an unpopular congress with popular members and candidates from the leading party. Good luck, McCain.

Ummm, guilt by association …

The map over at Pollster today has Obama with 320 EVs. That’s the most I’ve seen, by a lot. Even more than Rove!

The moving of independents is what’s driving this race in the D direction right now … the handling of the economy seems to be what’s doing it.

Sarah's Doodles

2008-10-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

This is for real.

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-07T06:12:00.000-07:00

Nate says it’s third and long for McCain. On FiveThirtyEight Obama is approaching 90% likelihood of winning the election.

Andrew is right, this press-free atmosphere around the R ticket is insane.

In response, Fallows writes a proposed 28^th Amendment.

Matt reminds us that Powell and Hagel have not endorsed and TPM covers Mrs. Hagel’s endorsement of Obama.

Ezra shows us more about Palin, metacandidate.

VP Debate Moderator Says Its Biden's Role, Not Hers, to Challenge Palin

2008-10-06T15:20:00.001-07:00

On yesterday's Meet the Press, Gwen Ifill argued that it wasn't her role to make Palin respond to her questions. If Biden wasn't going to challenge Palin to answer her questions, then neither was she:

The moderator’s job is to control their debate. If they have decided, as Joe Biden decided that he was going to debate John McCain, and she decided she was going to give a stump speech to the American people, there’s very little a moderator can do other than say, “No, no, no, listen, I asked a question. Please, please answer.”

It's a pretty fascinating look at how the VP debate moderator viewed the event and worth watching the full exchange:

Not to beat a dead horse, but the notion that people only vote for the top of a ticket is wrong, at least when it comes to this election. Given the debacles of her previous interviews, it's unlikely that Palin will take unscripted questions from anyone who doesn't work for Fox News any time soon. By allowing her to evade Ifill's questions during the VP debate last Thursday, the American were deprived of their best opportunity to learn what a President Palin would really look like.

-Law Dude

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

Ben has a fascinating account from a canvasser and predicts backlash if Wright comes up more often.

Matt finds it strange that McCain would change his tune now on the Keating Five, though admires his “all-in” approach.

TPM has new polls that stun me. Double digit leads in VA … for Obama!!

The Google reveals the strength of Obama’s pre-emption strategy.

Marc reports on young voter preferences, via a new MTV/Gallup/USA Today poll and has David Brooks calling the election for Obama.

Ezra thinks the new Keating documentary is damning for McCain. Also, mega props to the Obama camp’s discipline around this. They clearly didn’t throw this together overnight.

Ezra also thinks that Palin displays an unreasonable amount of hubris for being overly ambitious without knowing her shit.

Disgusting.

Drrrrrty Politics

2008-10-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

Commenter Jeremy makes a good point about the post below:

"I remember Hillary Clinton's last-ditch efforts to smear Obama in the primary campaign all to well. The scariest part of her brutal campaign: her attacks worked. Conventional wisdom was that if several of the earlier state primaries were held again, Hillary would have won the nomination."

I agree that some of Sen. Clinton's attacks may have been detrimental to Obama's campaign, but I don't think that her efforts had much to do with the outcome of the primaries. There were huge structural advantages for Clinton built into the end of the primary calendar, including the late voting of states with the largest poor, white, Democrat populations (i.e. OH and PA). Obama never hoped to win those states. In fact, by the end of the primary season, Plouffe was looking like an oracle, because the delegate projections the Obama campaign had unveiled in February basically came true. (This was documented in a bunch of places, but the only place I could find quickly was this.)

So, while I definitely respect my friend Jeremy's point that nobody should relax at this point, I think that it's worth remembering that Clinton's tactics probably had little to do with the late primary wins. One might even suggest that the current economic zeitgeist, similarly, will prove to be the inexorable force in the general election. But, as he is a Philadelphia sports fan, I know Jeremy won't be convinced of an Obama win until November 9th or 10th, at the absolute earliest.

-Education Dude

Must Read Ezra Klein!

2008-10-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

If you read one thing today, read Ezra Klein’s admonishment of the McCain campaign. It is either a preemptive obituary or an oracular vision of an even sadder America than the one in which we currently live. In the best case scenario, McCain loses, because he’s supposed to lose:

“The problem with elections is that few candidates can accept that there are years in which they should lose. Not because they are possessed of insufficient virtue, or because they would be poor leaders, but because their party has failed, and the economy is poor, and the Iraq War was a mistake. Because they were unlucky, and it is simply not their year, and their depressing job is simply to sustain the continuity of the two-party system.”

Candidates run into trouble when they fight this basic reality. And the problem is, sometimes that fight works, and it does nothing to help America, but rather pushes us closer to the same dark forces that have caused us to ignore the facts and pursue strategies that weaken us, as both a country and as individuals. We have to stop this. Obama '08.

-Education Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-06T06:43:00.000-07:00

Obama pushes for registration on morning radio shows.

Ben and Marc report that Obama is giving the go-ahead to surrogates to mention the Keating Five scandal.

Fun with Google from 10 years ago: Your search - "sarah palin" - did not match any documents.

Andrew wants a president with anticipatory powers … like Obama!

Marc has the McCain campaign’s game plan for the rest of the election. It’s not pretty, and let’s hope it’s not effective either. He also has Rove’s map, which now puts Obama over the top. For the record, I really didn’t want to link to Rove’s site, so I’m glad Marc bit the bullet.

Matt looks at guilt by guilt vs. guilt by association. Does McCain really want to play either game?

This TPM lead hurts. And they report on Palin’s newest speech.

FiveThirtyEight has Obama still rising. And Georgia is an interesting case.

AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka on Racism and Obama

2008-10-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

Good freakin' speech.

Things That Have Changed As a Result of This Election ...

2008-10-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

1) Look to the right of this post. A first term black senator in his mid-40s is right now holding a commanding lead over a five term white senator who is a former POW and Vietnam vet. Whatever the outcome, this is some kind of progress, right?

2) Look at the video below. Tina Fey was already a respected, talented comedian, but this sketch solidifies her as - by far - the most influential comedian of this period in our electoral politics. Say what you will about race differences vs. gender differences, but I am willing to assert that the gender gap in comedy is far more prevalent than the race gap. Tina Fey just drove that gap over a cliff in a burning, runaway freight train full of nuclear warheads.

(Update: Ezra thinks Tina Fey is really influential too.)

-Education Dude

SNL Palin-Biden Debate

2008-10-05T06:25:00.000-07:00

"And for those Joe Six Packs playing a drinking game at home? 'Maverick.'"

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

Everyone has some sort of take on the debate last night. Click through to hear them, although most of the people I link to are progressive bloggers that all say pretty similar things. Despite the fact that Sarah Palin didn’t hurl her feces at the moderator – which is what some folks seemed to have been expecting – Biden, in immediate polls, seems to be the winner. Did substance really just beat style? I like the way Ezra puts it:

“The debates, in a sense, are exposing the bedrock facts of the election. The Democratic case is winning.”

Ezra thinks that Biden earned his nomination last night.

Andrew gives an award to a truthful conservative and sees that the “ready to lead” gap is striking for the veep candidates.

Matt thinks the outcomes of the election will only reinforce the macroeconomic zeitgeist.

Also, he talks about Palin as the ultimate, post-irony metacandidate.

Speaking of meta, I unfortunately didn’t post this yesterday, but Ezra’s take on the metaphysics of debate expectations was genius.

Nate does a good analysis of the big Michigan pullout, which will soon be developed into a Detroit based action-porn.

Guest Comment Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our commenters for providing today's Hors D'oeuvres:

From Jeremy Lavine via CEO Dudette: Lightning!

From Adennak via Andrew Sullivan via Dorfie:

Ifill/Biden Drop the Ball

2008-10-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

Conventional Sarah Palin analysis: The Couric interviews were a disaster; last night's debate was an unmitigated success.

But the same Sarah Palin was on display-- evading tough questions, sticking to her talking points. Only difference? Couric forced her to respond to questions with specifics; Biden and Ifill did not.

The New York Times Editorial Board points to foreign policy examples:

Asked about Israel, Ms. Palin reeled off her support for “a two-state solution, building our embassy also in Jerusalem, those things that we look forward to being able to accomplish with this peace-seeking nation.” Asked about the possible use of nuclear weapons, she declared “nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people and too many parts of our planet.” On Iraq, all she had to offer was the false accusation that Barack Obama wants to surrender.

A domestic policy example may be found in this exchange:

BIDEN: With regard to bankruptcy now, Gwen, what we should be doing now -- and Barack Obama and I support it -- we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to re-adjust not just the interest rate you're paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but be able to adjust the principal that you owe, the principal that you owe.

That would keep people in their homes, actually help banks by keeping it from going under. But John McCain, as I understand it -- I'm not sure of this, but I believe John McCain and the governor don't support that. There are ways to help people now. And there -- ways that we're offering are not being supported by -- by the Bush administration nor do I believe by John McCain and Governor Palin.

IFILL: Governor Palin, is that so?

PALIN: That is not so, but because that's just a quick answer, I want to talk about, again, my record on energy versus your ticket's energy ticket, also.

Yesterday, we wrote:

But this is not a usual election. A 72 year old seeks the Presidency with a running-mate who appears to have never before thought about national or international issues. Tonight is the prime opportunity for the American people to discover just how frightening a proposition that is.

Last night's opportunity was lost.

-Law Dude

Homer Votes for Obama!

2008-10-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

Remember Slick Willy?

2008-10-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

Brian Beutler on Bill Clinton:

"What if Bill Clinton’s apparent hostility to Barack Obama in recent weeks and months has actually been a ploy to draw greater-than-normal attention to his fall campaign events ..."

Matt thinks this has more to do with the fact that Clinton is "two or three orders of magnitude better than anyone else in politics at explaining to the public why it is that the financial rescue package serves the interests of ordinary citizen." So, I agree, Clinton is definitely more in his sweet spot as a campaigner.

I think Beutler has a point though. Here’s a thought experiment: think about the time when you made the most politically (lowercase "p") calculated decision of your life. Even folks without political saavy have done it once or twice, and at the time you’re sort of like “Wow, that was really tricky of me,” and you’re sort of proud of yourself in a weird way for being so strategic and sneaky.

Now, imagine you’re one of the best politicians EVER. In the world. How much more unreal would your quotidian political calculations be? Yeah, that’s what Bill Clinton’s life is like EVERY … FREAKING … DAY.

-Education Dude

Afternoon Arugula

2008-10-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

I know today is veep debate day, and I know that the senate voted on the bailout last night, but I think the big news today has to be that McCain is pulling out of Michigan.

Which Marc sees as McCain moving to defense.

I was going to write my argument for why this debate won’t be nearly as bad for Palin as everybody seems to think, but Anonymous Liberal beat me to it.

Matt debunks the insane idea that McCain predicted the current crisis. Now with video!

Another Rolling Stone piece on our great war hero.

Math nerd brawl … round 2.

Palin’s awesome pre-debate strategy is to direct the conversation toward an area – foreign policy – where there is the greatest competence gap for her. Why are we surprised about this? Isn’t Rovian politics all about turning an opponent’s greatest strength into his/her weakness?

TPM has Obama getting emotional on the economy. This stuff even chokes me up.

Ezra adds more to the earlier earmarks discussion.

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

2008-10-02T08:29:00.001-07:00

Ben helps set expectations for tonight’s debate, and reminds us that Biden is actually really good at debating. Oh wait. We're not supposed to say that! He's a loose cannon!

All-Obama .. all the time!!

Marc is looking to 2012 Republican challengers already … I wouldn’t bet on him being the only one doing this calculus.

He also looks at the McCain as angry narrative, which certainly wasn’t helped by his brusqueness with Obama last night.

Matt wonders if McCain would veto the bill he just voted for, since there are earmarks attached. This just illustrates the danger of demagogic campaign positions like being against earmarks.

McCain repeats a lot of stories that are factually inaccurate. Have we learned NOTHING about campaigning in the internet age?

If you want to watch the adult version of a nerd fight in math class, it doesn’t get much better than Nate’s smackdown of RCP today.