If I Were Bill Thompson

Now that the Democratic primaries are really, truly, and officially over, I want to take a brief foray back to my blogging roots and post on a purely political issue (though I'll mention education a little later on if that's what you care about).

Michael Bloomberg has been running with the tagline that he represents progress, not politics. If I were William Thompson, I wouldn't let him get away with running that line unchallenged. Here's the script of the ad I would run. For visuals, think of less-than-flattering pictures of the mayor in black and white or something. The voiceover would be done kind of like someone reading a picture book to first graders. Here's how it would go:

This is Michael Bloomberg and he sure loves playing politics. He used to be a Democrat. But then he decided that he wanted to be Mayor of New York City. There were a lot of Democracts who wanted to be mayor, so he became a Republican because it would be easier. Then, after he'd been mayor for a while, he decided he wanted to be president. So he stopped being a Republican and became an independent. But people didn't want him to be president so he decided that he wanted to be mayor again. He thought he was doing such a good job that he changed term limits so he could run for a third term. And he's a Republican again. Michael Bloomberg. He sure loves playing politics.

Never one for false modesty, I have to say that I think this is brilliant. The whole Bloomberg-is-totally-above-politics idea is so obviously false that it's child's play to point it out. If that's going to be the basis of his campaign, I would hit that point hard and repeatedly. It's only fair.

And now for my point about education (I told you I'd get there). Over the last few months, Thompson has criticized Bloomberg's handling of the schools under mayoral control. Regardless of the criticism or how valid it may or may not be, the Bloomberg response is inevitably, "Unh uh. And he wasn't a good president of the board of education when everything was terrible." (I'm paraphrasing here, of course.) Here's my response if I were Thompson the next time a reporter asked me about that:

"You know, it's funny. During the fight to renew mayoral control, Michael Bloomberg kept saying that under the old system no one knew who was in charge and there was no accountability. Now that I'm running for mayor, it turns out that I was in charge all along and that I should be accountable. I guess it took me running for mayor to help him figure that out."

In the interests of disclosure, I should say that I'm actually undecided in the mayor's race and that so far I don't think Thompson has actually done anything to influence me one way or another. In my mind, for now at least, this is entirely a referendum on Bloomberg. That said, the dishonesty and disingenuousness of the Bloomberg campaign offends me and it needs to be called out.

P.S. He may have lost yesterday, but this tongue-in-cheek ad for Mark Green is hysterical.

No Surprises Here

Surprising absolutely no one, NYC Mayor and mayoral candidate Mike Bloomberg sent out a mailing (approximately the ten thousandth I've received) hitting newly nominated mayoral candidate Bill Thompson over their compared education records. I got the flyer in my mail on Wednesday, which is pretty impressive when you consider that Thompson didn't win the primary until late Tuesday night. Maybe the mail will run better if Bloomberg is re-re-elected.

The flyer doesn't go in much for subtlety. On the top in huge red letters it says "On Education: The Choice Is Clear." Then there's a T-chart showing Mike Bloomberg's record as mayor compared to Bill Thompson's record as president of the board of education. Unsurprisingly (this is campaign lit after all), Bloomberg looks very good in the comparison. I wish I could show it to you, but I don't have a scanner. I'm sure if you check your mail boxes, you'll be seeing it soon. Even if you don't live in New York.

Not much to say here, but I do have three quick observations.

1. It's nice to see education featured so prominently in a political campaign.
2. It's a shame that the issue is being used as a bludgeon instead of a launch point for real discussion.
3. When one side has billions of dollars to spend on advertising it's not really a surprise that we aren't going to have a nuanced conversation.

Also, in mayor-related news, check out this video. Happy Friday!

Be Nice to Your Friends With Green Sheets

Sorry that I haven't been posting much lately, but campaign season in New York City has officially begun so I've taken to the streets to petition for my preferred candidates.

Just a note on that, if you're walking the streets of the city and someone with a clipboard with green sheets of paper clipped to it, be nice to them. No snide remarks. No haranguing them about how it's early or wet or hot or cold or how busy you are and how much you hate them for interrupting your oh-so-important morning commute. Seriously. Just be nice. It would be great if you signed, but if you aren't interested, just say "No thanks" or "Not now." Maybe even a "Good luck" to give your karma a little boost. The people out there aren't trying to annoy you. They're just volunteers trying to help the democratic process. So cut them some slack. Especially if you happen across a tall thin guy with glasses. I know he'd really appreciate it if you signed his petition.

In the meantime, I'll be out there. I should be back by the end of next week and I've got some things to say about charter schools, school governance, and more. Stay tuned.

Divide or Unify

I think I only have one or two more days of election reaction posts. That's the problem with only writing once a day. It was either cram it all into one really long post or stretch it out over a week. So here comes more of the never-ending analysis.

With the Democrats firmly in control of both houses of Congress and the presidency and with a seeming mandate to run with a very progressive agenda, there's been some talk in the press of a major party realignment that marks the start of a liberal Democrat controlled era. If that's true, so much the better. However, I'm not certain. It seems like not too long ago we were hearing about a permanent Republican majority. You can see how that panned out.

It is instructive to notice, though, the differences between the 2004 Bush/Rove realignment and the 2008 Obama/Axelrod version. We know that the 2004 "permanent" realignment lasted for all of two years. So hopefully that's a big difference between the two scenarios.

Another point to consider is how the majorities were created. The Bush/Rove campaign was one of mobilizing the base at the expense of the rest. It was a 50 plus 1 strategy for control. Especially in 2004, there was no great effort to reach out to the middle. Rather, it was an effort to activate the hard core Republicans and get them to the polls.

In contrast, the Obama/Axelrod campaign (which had a large amount of base activating also) wass focused on reaching out to new voters and red states to build a coalition. That's why you saw Bush in 2004 mainly focus on holding the states he'd won four years ago. Obama on the other hand, turned several swing states and several traditionally Republican states (Indiana, North Carolina, almost Montana). The Democratic method for realignment is to bring everyone together. The Republican method was to pick wedge issues (gay marriage ban amendments), mobilize the hardcore base, and work on depressing turnout for the other side.

I'm in no way saying that the only strategy the Republicans can use for building majorities is this divide and conquer strategy. Ronald Reagan is an obvious counter-example in recent memory. However, that was the strategy that the Republicans did use. It's certainly nice to see that the other way works too.

History vs. Meaning

A huge amount of the coverage I've been seeing about Obama's election has been focusing on the historic nature of America electing its first black president. And truly, that is a historic occasion. However, I worry that in the history of the moment, we're losing sight of the meaning of the moment.

The campaign we just went through was not fundamentally a choice between whether America wanted a black man or a white man to lead the country. Debates did not consist of Obama saying, "I'm black", McCain saying, "I'm white", and Tom Brokaw asking a follow-up question. Rather, this election was about which view of government should have dominance over the next four years. It was a question of whether America wanted to stick with the conservative mode of the last eight years or to try for a more progressive approach. That the progressive approach won is the real meaning of this election.

Years from now, regardless of what happens in Obama's presidency, the fact that America chose to elect a black man president will be a historic point. However, looking to the future obscures the meaning of right now. The meaning of right now is that America wants to move left as a nation. The question for now is will it work?

Yes We Can

I don't even know where to start this morning. Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States. Not only did he win, but he really win. As I suggested might happen, the popular vote was not exactly a landslide, but the electoral college was a blow out.

A lot of attention is being paid to the fact that Obama is the first black president this country has ever elected. John McCain made that fact a central point in his concession speech last night. And clearly, that's a big deal. But from listening to McCain and some of the pundits last night, you might think that this was just the time that America was going to elect a black person to office. As if this moment was destined to be of historical importance and Obama happened to be there. I don't think anything could be farther from the truth.

This became a moment of historical importance because Obama made it a moment of historical importance. He was an exciting candidate with a great campaign promising change at a moment when that's what Americans were looking for. That was his doing.

The amazing thing about the electoral map was not just how many votes Obama got, but where he got them from. According to CNN's map, it looks like Obama is going to win both North Carolina and Indiana. The last time around, North Carolina went for Bush by almost 13 percentage points and Indiana went for Bush by over 20. That's a remarkable turnaround.

I wrote months and months ago in describing the race between Hillary Clinton and Obama that the election of either one would be a historic moment. The difference was that I thought (and still think) that the election of Obama has the potential to start a historic era. With a huge electoral win, increased majorities in Congress, and a mandate for change, we're about to see if I'm right.

Oh Frabjous Day

I just voted. I've officially exercised my franchise and I'm ready for the day. I think. I had trouble sleeping last night because I was so excited. It seems like we're so close to winning and yet I can't help but think back to New Hampshire.

I was there on primary day knocking on doors trying to get out the vote. Obama had won Iowa and the polls showed him far ahead in New Hampshire. The exit polls looked good. So I was standing in the gym of a high school in (I think) Nashua with a ton of other volunteers as we watched the results come in on the giant screens projecting MSNBC. And the results were not good, but it didn't seem very believeable. Sure he was down by 10 percent now, but that margin was bound to close. It never did. All the polls had been wrong and as the night dragged on it became clear that Obama was going to lose the state. It was a rough night made significantly better by the fact that Obama came out and gave a great speech, even in defeat. The point is, I'm having New Hampshire induced stress that's probably going to last through the night until I'm either elated or crushed, depending on who wins.

CNN tells me that the first polls are going to be closing in a little over 10 hours now. Then we'll see if the beamish boy has it in him. In the meantime, I'll be developing an ulcer.

Like Christmas

Do you remember that feeling right before Christmas when you were little? It's like you had all this excitement and you knew that the big day was right around the corner? I kind of feel like that right now. It's going to be a long day today, I can just tell.

At this point, I don't really have anything more to add to the conversation about the election. Barring some sort of major catastrophe today, I think that the die has pretty much been cast. Now it's a matter of seeing who shows up at the polls. Obama is supposed to have the great "ground game" so hopefully we see that in action. Of course, McCain has already come back from the political dead a few times this campaign, so he's not out of it.

From the way it's looking on Real Clear Politics (which I've been checking about 50 times a day to see if polls have been update) it'll be a fairly close popular vote with a fairly large spread in the electoral count.

I just can't wait. Is it tomorow yet?

Going Rogue

I don't know quite what to make of the story that VP candidate Sarah Palin may be "going rogue" from her own running mate. At least, that's what CNN is reporting some McCain aides are saying. It seems like there's a couple of possibilities here, none of which paint a particularly rosy picture of what we're going to see over the next week.

The first possbility is that Palin actually is going rogue and is setting off on her own against the wishes of the McCain campaign. That would pretty much be a sign that the campaign was collapsing. Not terrible news if you're on the Democratic side of things, but it will make for an ugly week of infighting and potential nastiness before it's all over.

The other possibility is that she's not actually going rogue, but that the campaign is trying to set her up that way so that she can really go after Obama while providing a level of plausible deniability to McCain and his campaign. In that case we'll see an ugly week of fake infighting and nastiness before it's all over.

The upside of all this is that in eight days now, this campaign will be finished. After such a long season, it's kind of hard to believe that it will ever end. Depending on how this week goes it may feel even longer.

It's Still Not Over

Shockingly, the race for President isn't over yet. Despite the last few weeks of pundits declaring that Obama was in command and McCain was slipping, the fact remains that Obama is not yet President. In fact, CNN's polls show that his numbers may be slipping somewhat. This is the kind of thing that I was warning about when I wrote on the subject just recently. In the rush to break news, the media often seems to break stories that aren't technically true yet. So while Obama does still have the lead and the electoral count looks pretty promising, there's still some time left. Let's not forget that as we move forward.

Speaking of forgetting, is anyone going to remember that Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama when it actually comes times to vote? It's one of those splashy things that at first looks really good. After all, you have a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State (for the Bush administration, no less) saying that Obama is the best choice for president. Wow! What a coup! Now it's really over. Except that who was sitting on the fence waiting for Colin Powell's endorsement before deciding who they're going to vote for. It certainly doesn't hurt Obama's campaign and it probably will help him a little. But I don't think it's going to be ay sort of "game changer."

Dispatch from Anti-America

Every so often during a campaign a candidate will say something that they probably didn't mean to say but did probably mean. Republicans have been harping on the comment by Obama to "Joe the plumber" about spreading the wealth around. Not to be outdone, Palin came out with her own statement about "the real America." Here it is in her own words:

"We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation."

There's already been a fair amount of outrage tossed around on the campaign trail about this, so I won't go too far down that road (Biden's response was pretty good). I do want to say, though, that in a country in which the majority of the population lives in urban areas (a trend that is growing, by the way) , saying that small towns are the "real America" is a little silly. I have a bit of a personal stake in this as I live in New York City, which is almost certainly outside of Palin's "real America." Frankly, that's just ludicrous. More and more it seems like Palin is playing the role of Ann Coulter, saying shocking things mainly to get attention and rouse a hardcore base. The only difference is that there's no chance for Ann Coulter to be in the position to make actual decisions for our country.

It seems to me that in Palin's estimation, the pro-America areas of this country magically happen to correspond to the pro-McCain parts of this country. If only voting in November was restricted to those areas as well, I'm sure Palin would be pretty happy.

The Final Round

It's almost becoming a cliche, but last night's debate was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. McCain came out significantly more aggressive than he had in the previous two debates. Obama did not rise to take the bait nor say anything that would torpedo his chances (i.e. "You're right! I am a terrorist!"). Given that, it's hard to see much of a change in the race stemming from last night's debate. I think that the dynamic of the last three weeks is pretty set in place at this point and it's just a matter of seeing how everything resolves itself.

That said, of course I think Obama won. That's the advantage of being right on the issues.

Also, a few points that I want to look at a little more. First, McCain tried a couple of times to paint Obama as an extremist. One of his positions put him in league with the extreme environmentalists. Another put him in the extreme pro-abortion camp. But let's look at those positions. Obama says that if we want to use nuclear energy, we need to make sure that it's safe. Apparently that's an extremist position. So a mainstream perspective is that it's okay to use unsafe nuclear technology? I'm not sure who is really advocating for that kind of approach. Same thing on abortion. Being concerned for the health and life of a mother is an extreme position? Maybe McCain and I use that word differently.

Speaking of viewing the world differently, did anyone else hear McCain say that the ACORN voter registration scandal might threaten the very fabric of our democracy? I forget the exact quote, but it was something along those lines. Again, really? The fabric of our democracy? I may be underestimating the problem this poses, but that's definitely overestimating it.

It was also fitting, I thought, that it wasn't until the last question of the last debate that someone thought to ask about education. That could be a metaphor for education's place in this campaign - an afterthought if we have time. In McCain's answer, he stuck to his line that choice and vouchers are the way to improve schools. That would be a fine claim if the evidence actually supported him. However, even the DC voucher system he was so in love with didn't work all that well. The kids who got the vouchers didn't do any better in school than the kids whose parents applied for the vouchers but were not accepted. That's not reform. That's sticking with a failing policy.

And that may be a metaphor for McCain's campaign and platform. He may call it reform, but it's just more of the same.

This is Reform?

If you read a lead paragraph of a news story that went, "Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her power as Alaska's governor and violated state ethics law by trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from the state police, a state investigator's report concluded Friday," wouldn't you think that would get a lot of attention? I'm not saying that it should be banner headlines from coast to coast, but it seems like it should be something that people are talking about. Maybe I'm just out of the loop with the long weekend and all, but I'm not seeing much on this. Very strange.

It's not that the findings themselves were especially shocking. After all, we've kind of known this was coming for a while now. Within about 15 minutes of being announced as McCain's running mate, the news got out that she was under investigation in Alaska for abusing her power as governor. So for the whole time that we in the lower 48 have known of her existence, we've also known of the existence of this investigation.

You would think that a finding by a bi-partisan panel that Palin abused her power as governor would hurt her ability to say that she was running as a maverick reformer who's going to clean up Washington. When that's your only claim to vice presidential worthiness and it turns out to be undermined by your actual actions, that would seem to put your candidacy in a lot of trouble.

Then again, maybe it is. According to Real Clear Politics this morning, Obama is on track to get 313 electoral votes without even throwing in potential toss-up state wins. That's enough to handily win the election. There's still time left, but I like the way it's looking.

It Ain't Over ...

I think my alarm must not have gone on this morning because when I woke up it seemed like the election was over and Barack Obama had already won. Don't get me wrong. This is not an unpleasant thing to wake up to. Hopefully it's true. I just think we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves.

The facts as they stand are looking pretty good. According to Real Clear Politics, the electoral count isn't even going to be close. They have Obama six electoral votes away from winning without factoring in any of the toss-up states. Obama has done an excellent job appearing presidential and in-command at the debates and the main issues facing Americans seem to favor him right now.

Meanwhile, the punditocracy has lost their collective minds in proclaiming Obama the winner. Even Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review, is standing athwart history yelling "Obama looks like he's going to win!" When the National Review is buying into the momentum hype about the Democratic candidate, you know things are looking good.

Yet there's this feeling that I just can't shake. It comes back to numbers again. Namely that two weeks ago this race was pretty much a dead heat with McCain even leading. Now Obama is way ahead. But there's still three weeks left. In other words, plenty of room for yet another wild swing in the polls. I hope that doesn't happen. I really do. But this election has made pretty clear that no lead is safe and there's a lot of news cycles left until November 4.

Debate Thoughts

On the whole, I think that last night's debate (like the first one) was pretty much a tie. Neither candidate delivered any sort of knockout punch that's going to settle this election a month before the actual voting. Obama didn't say anything about bitter, small-minded Main Streeters and McCain didn't go off into a raving rant about Obama being friends with terrorists. Both clearly presented their views, which while contrasting, don't necessarily give one side an advantage over the other.

That said, I think that another tie probably favors Obama. Remember, McCain is the one who's experienced - the "steady hand on the tiller" as he said. But now in two debates, he's not been able to come across as noticeably more presidential or in command than Obama. If the concern with Obama is that he's too "green behind the ears" (a new one to me) then being able to stand toe to toe with McCain and appear plausible as president is a victory. Despite a slow start where my panic level was beginning to rise, I think he did just that. I don't think polls will show one candidate "winning" the debate by any great margin over their opponent. However, I do think that the election polls are going to continue to slide over to Obama's favor.

Now for some random thoughts.

John McCain should stop trying to be funny in the debates. He just isn't and the attempts at it come across as very awkward. Obama isn't an especially funny guy either, but he didn't make as many attempts.

Newsweek's cover a few weeks back showed "Mr. Cool and Mr. Hot." I thought those personalities were on vivid display last night. Where McCain paced around and spoke like he was always pressing an important point, Obama stayed mainly in one place and had a fluid, point-by-point answer. I don't think that either personality - as we saw them in display last night - makes one better or worse suited for the presidency. It was just a clear picture in contrasts.

The exchange on Pakistan was interesting. McCain wasn't saying that he wouldn't launch an attack into Pakistan if Osama bin Laden were there. He was just saying that we shouldn't say we're going to do that. I'm not sure if that makes a whole lot of sense. Also, his assertion that "I'll get bin Laden. I'll get him" would have been more convincing if he'd followed it up with anything to say how.

Lastly, I thought Tom Brokaw was terrible last night. The telling moment came at the end when the candidates went to shake hands and he was trying to read his teleprompter. He basically said, "Hey, you presidential candidates, get out of my way. I'm trying to read something here." The whole debate was kind of like that. He was continually whining (is there another word for it) about the candidates not sticking to time constraints. Also, his "follow-up" questions were overly wordy/complicated and seldom actually followed up on the original question asked or the answers that the candidates gave. It's like he really wanted to be moderating a debate on his own, rather than hosting the town hall debate. Who would have guessed after the first debate that we'd be longing for the good old days of Jim Lehrer moderating?

Guilt By Association

Yesterday I bemoaned the state of mudslinging in the campaign and laid the blame squarely in the McCain camp. While I'm still moaning (and still blaming McCain), I also want to level some criticism at the Obama campaign, in the interests of fairness.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that the Keating Economics video that the campaign is circulating is similar in spirit to the Ayers accusations that McCain and Co. are throwing at Obama. Of course, there are numerous differences. McCain was involved with Keating at the time that he (Keating) was doing bad things. Obama was 8 when Ayers was doing his dirty work. There was an investigation into McCain's dealings with Keating and he was chastised by the Senate Ethics Committee. But that investigation is exactly the point I want to bring up. Remember, the investigation found that McCain did nothing wrong. His judgement was poor and that allowed him to be put in a position where it looked like he might be doing something wrong, but he didn't take part in any wrongdoing himself. As we start throwing criticisms around, we should remember that facts matter. Any unfounded attempts to paint someone with the guilt by association brush are lamentable, no matter which side they come from.

Clearly McCain started this round of character attacks (he even said he was going to be). But saying, "He started it" isn't a great reason for doing something. I'd also like to point out that the "Oh yeah?" response isn't really a recipe for raising the level of political discourse. If I were advising Obama I'd say to focus relentlessly on the fact that McCain isn't putting forward any plans to help the middle class or to end the war in Iraq. Every time McCain says anything I'd say, "Once again, Senator McCain chooses to focus on X rather than present a plan for how he's going to help the middle class and end the war in Iraq." That's a change we can believe in.

On a slightly related note, you should really read this article from the New Yorker. It's their editorial board's endorsement of Obama for president. It presents a comprehensive, thoughtful, and thorough take down of the McCain campaign and at the same time builds up Obama's. It was one of the clearest articulations of the choice in this election that I've seen. Just brilliant. I didn't even know the New Yorker did endorsements.

Of course, for a candidate being accused of East Coast liberal elitism, the New Yorker endorsement may not be the most coveted one out there.

Here's Mud in Your Eye

I'm glad this election is going to be over in slightly less than a month now because at the rate we're going, if it lasted much longer the Republican candidates would really start slinging mud. I mean that literally. I'm picturing a debate where John McCain takes a handful of mud and throws it at Barack Obama. That seems to be the next logical step in the ever-increasing virulence of attacks directly on Obama.

The latest round comes as polls show McCain is getting clobbered in the election. So what's a maverick who pledged to run an honest, positive campaign to do? Well, it must have seemed pretty obvious to the team of mavericks, because they're going for the low blows.

Over the weekend, Palin said, "We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

This is from the campaign headed by a guy who said he would never question his opponent's patriotism. Isn't that what just happened? Isn't she saying that Obama not only hates America but that he's friends with terrorists who target America?

Of course, the McCain campaign sticks by the comments saying that it's a matter of fact. Never mind that the CNN fact check said this claim was false (as does everyone else who's seriously and honestly looked at the issue). What's important here is that people are hearing the words Obama and terrorist in the same sentence. That's not calling into account his judgement, that's just an outright smear. I really hope that people see this for what it is.

As Expected

I just typed out a full, brilliant blog post that my computer decided to replace with the letter C. Hopefully that's not an omen for the day.

Anyway, I thought that last night's debate went exactly as I thought it was going to. I know that people usually see what they think they're going to see, so perhaps my rightness isn't exactly surprising. But I really was right about last night.

First, Biden cam across as calm, prepared, and ready to go. He had the facts ready to go and continually hit McCain as being the second coming of George Bush. For the most part, he pretty much ignored that Palin was even on the ticket, which was probably a smart choice. I thought Biden did a great job presenting his case. His "John McCain is not a maverick" series was just great.

Palin was exactly what I thought she would be. There was never a point where she was reduced to the babbling that has become her hallmark during network television interviews. That being said, I did think she came across as someone who'd spent the night cramming for a test rather than someone who actually understood the basic facts and realities. Her down-homeness was on full blast as every answer seemed to incorporate "ya know", "you betcha", "darn right", and a talking point that had little to do with the actual question being asked.

I liked the moment in the debate where Palin said something along the lines of how Biden kept looking backward to the Bush years rather than focus on McCain. Of course, Palin never once during the debate offered a single instance in which McCain differed from Bush on major foreign or domestic policies. I wish Biden had made a bigger deal of that.

The CNN post-debate poll showed that people mostly agreed with me. A majority said that Biden won the debate, but that Palin was more likable. The most telling detail, though, was that while 87% of people thought Biden was qualified for the job, only 42% said the same for Palin. You betcha there's a leadership gap there. I'm just surprised that she got up to 42%.

Don't Expect Tina Fey

I missed my chance to say this before Sarah Palin's convention speech and was kicking myself for it, so I'm not going to make that mistake again. I'm going on record right now to say that Palin's debate performance tonight is going to be quite strong. Given her recent record at interviews, I know that I'm going out on a limb here, but I really think she's not going to blow it the way that many (me included) are hoping she will.

First of all, as Jack Shafer has pointed out, the debate format for tonight isn't really conducive to an actual debate in the traditional sense where the candidates engage each other on a series of issues. Rather the format is more akin to a dueling press conference where each side gets a sound bite sized length of time to make their case and then it's on to the next point. No question that Palin can hit her marks, it's when she's pushed beyond the usual talking points that she gets into trouble. As Katie Couric has learned, using the phrase "what specifically ..." is pretty much like flipping a switch on the Sarah Palin gibberish answer machine. But again, the format of the debate doesn't really allow for anyone to push for specific answers on things like what newspapers she reads.

The fact is that Tina Fey is not going to be showing up for the debate tonight. Instead, we're going to have a well-prepped, chock full o' sound bites Sarah Palin. Given how low the expectations are for her tonight, pretty much anything other than drooling on herself or removing herself from the ticket in the middle of the debate is going to be considered a victory. That's a pretty low bar to get over.

P.S. My new favorite Palin interview moment is her response to a question about the bailout. Her answer occasionally borders on coherence, but sounds much more like a list of talking points got put into a blender and were then recited in a stream of consciousness manner that would make James Joyce say, "Huh?" Don't expect to see a repeat of that one.

Political Tourette's Syndrome

First of all, I'm pretty shocked that the bailout bill failed to get approval in the House yesterday. When they announced on Sunday that a deal had been struck I just kind of assumed that, well, a deal had been struck. Usually that means that people agree. Apparently, this time it meant something else. So we'll stay tuned and see how things go today, but yesterday was not a glorious day in the history of U.S. finance or politics.

I wish I could say I was shocked (though I'm not) about the McCain campaign's immediate attacks against the Obama campaign. As a McCain advisor said, "This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country." Funny, I thought it was the huge number of Representatives voting against the bill that caused it to fail. But what do I know? Somehow McCain is trying to claim credit for the bulk of the substance of the bailout (despite not really being involved in the negotiations) and then blame Obama for it not passing. I'm not even sure what the supposed logic on this is. And the putting politics ahead of country line is just ridiculous.

It seems lately that the McCain campaign has been suffering from a form of political Tourette's Syndrome. At random times they just burst out with "Obama puts politics ahead of country!" or "All attacks on Palin are sexist!" It's like they can't help it. Facts and circumstances don't matter because "Obama is going to raise your taxes!"

My favorite example of political Tourette's from the McCain campaign is their labeling of the first Tina Fey as Sarah Palin sketch as sexist. As explained by a top McCain advisor, "The portrait was very dismissive of the substance of Sarah Palin, and so in that sense, they were defining Hillary Clinton as very substantive, and Sarah Palin as totally superficial. I think that continues the line of argument that is disrespectful in the extreme, and yes, I would say, sexist in the sense that just because Sarah Palin has different views than Hillary Clinton does not mean that she lacks substance."

To be clear, the argument goes that because Palin is being parodied as less substantive than Clinton, it is a sexist parody. Maybe someone missed the word that Clinton is also female. Saying one female is less qualified than another is not sexist. The argument doesn't even make sense on the face of it. Never mind that there's a pretty good case to be made that in fact Clinton actually is more qualified than Palin.

I write this, but I know that it doesn't really matter. Tourette's is not something that you can help. It just happens. Hopefully when this election is over the McCain campaign will have a nice, relaxing four years to sit back in Arizona and look for a cure.