Get Ready for Several Weeks of Palin Revisionism

This is almost painful to read:

Said one pollster: "The McCain campaign took this person and completely botched her assets." What's more, the pollster said that in Palin, the McCain campaign had an expert on one of the key issues that was on the minds of Americans: energy prices. "They should have used her knowledge and focus on her expertise." And the pollster said on background that the campaign should have played up her reputation as a political maverick.

Instead, the campaign "took her and turned her into an attack dog and she wasn't good at it." And it hurt her national image, with one internal GOP poll putting her positive to negative image at 48 percent to 48 percent.

Is there any reason why Palin could not have been both?

Why of course there is!

The reason why Palin wasn't used in a Energy Policy Expert capacity is because she is not an energy expert.

If Palin would have come out of the gate and wowed the public with her command of the issues, the lack of experience issue would not have weighed so heavily against her. But she didn't. In fact, she didn't really come off as much of an expert on anything, so trotting her around the country to give a bunch of policy speeches was out of the question because she just didn't have the credibility (that's also partly a function of being such an unknown).

Palin wasn't chosen for the ticket because she was an expert on anything. She was picked to appeal to the base. She was picked to be an attack dog and far from being bad at it she was actually quite good. That's why she's viewed as such a polarizing figure in the wake of the election and that's why she has little appeal beyond the most conservative wing of the GOP which tends to value ideological purity over policy expertise and/or experience.

Friday Link Orgy

* John McCain gets closer to opting for public financing of his presidential campaign while Wall Street puts its money on the Democrats, and even GOP 527s seem to be having a hard time of late, but somehow the RNC is doing better than the DNC.

* The merely mildly amusing web site Stuff White People Like has been getting a lot of flack lately, but it's also getting an outrageous advance for a book deal. We can only hope the infinitely superior Hot Chicks with Douchebags got a better deal.

* Hey, now you too can shill for your blog on the pages of the Washington Post! Chris Cillizza at The Fix is looking to round up the best political blogs in each of the 50 states and I see the folks over at RealDebateWisconsin and the BadgerBloggerAlliance have already dispatched their minions. Sorry, folks that's not what he's looking for. My guess is that WisPolitics.com and/or the Wheeler Report will win.

* Explore a lost city on your lunch break today.

* A brief look at how the war in Iraq is dissuading the next generation of military leadership in the Army and Marines from re-upping.

* Bad news for Obama? I would imagine it would be even worse news for the State Dept.

* Silly drunk people ...

* There is still an ungoldly amount of spying going on in Russia ... even in the private sector.

* Ricky Gervais might be in the middle of making one of the funniest movies of all time ... no pressure.

Dirty Trick of the Day (Tomorrow's Dirty Tricks Today Edition)

The GOP vs. Obama. I thought this was rather interesting:

Some Republican operatives say trying to push the idea that Obama is secretly Muslim (or otherwise playing up his foreign-sounding name) isn't just blatantly unfair, it's also ineffective. The party's polling and focus groups show that many voters see those attacks as out of bounds, and they wind up sympathizing with Obama because of them.

Apparently the strategy would mostly concentrate on labeling Obama "inexperienced" and "too liberal," at least in so far as the official McCain campaign is concerned. God only knows what will come from independent groups.

An Ingenious Way to Collect Your Personal Information

Fill out a March Madness bracket, then see if you beat John McCain.

Honestly, give the web master who came up with that one a gold star or something.

[via H&R]

Can We Please Get Over the '60s Already?

Jesus, will that decade never end?

Feminist icon Gloria Steinem took to the stump on Hillary Clinton’s behalf here last night and quickly proved that she has lost none of her taste for provocation.

From the stage, the 73-year-old seemed to denigrate the importance of John McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. In an interview with the Observer afterward, she suggested that Barack Obama benefits—and Clinton suffers—because Americans view racism more seriously than sexism.

Steinem also told the crowd that one reason to back Clinton was because “she actually enjoys conflict.”

And she claimed that if Clinton’s experience as First Lady were taken seriously in relation to her White House bid, people might “finally admit that, say, being a secretary is the best way to learn your boss’s job and take it over.”

Steinem raised McCain’s Vietnam imprisonment as she sought to highlight an alleged gender-based media bias against Clinton.

“Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight years. [The media would ask], ‘What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?’” Steinem said, to laughter from the audience.

I'm going to assume Steinem was making some kind of joke here because the statement is patently absurd -- I don't recall any such questions being asked when Jessica Lynch was taken as a P.O.W. during the beginning of the war in Iraq. Then again, I can't help but get the feeling that Steinem's fictional "Joan McCain" did her hard time during a war that was fought a generation ago and not during any recent conflict.

Incidentally, John McCain has received the exact same criticism that Steinem suggests would be reserved for his alter-ego "Joan."

But Steinem serving as the messenger only adds a feminist icing to the argument's cake: experience. Right now Clinton is having a devil of a time trying to convince voters that she has more experience than Barack Obama -- neither of whom can hold a candle to McCain's foreign policy chops.

Getting a Little Ahead of Ourselves

A SurveyUSA poll available at Pollster.com:

Wisconsin
McCain 49, Clinton 42... Obama 52, McCain 42

The Local Press Corpse

I tend to believe that when the NW is at it's worst, it's not because it's bias, but rather incompetent -- though the disparity in quality between the two photo galleries chronicling the biggest day in Oshkosh-related politics is enough to make me reconsider ...

On the one hand, we have the Sen. John McCain's thing at EAA: 70 minutes and well-attended by about 700 people. This yielded 41 pictures, over half of which were of the candidate himself.

On the other hand, there was Sen. Obama's deal at Kolf: a 45 minute stump speech heard by over 9 times the number of people as McCain's event, yet which produced a photo gallery consisting of 10 -- and let me spell that out just in case the concept of Arabic numerals escapes anyone -- ten photos, none of which were of Sen. Obama.

Perhaps the NW should stick with displaying pictures of cute babies.

BELATED RETRACTION: Alas, I got way ahead of myself on this one. Saturday's print version was filled with several wonderful pictures from both events that didn't seem to make it online.

Doing Anything Friday?

Because you certainly have your options if you want to play hooky ...

Quick question: McCain is now the mathematical GOP nominee, someone who could probably just coast through the rest of the primaries. You'd think he would at least take a few days off after a brutal eight month stretch ... So what's he doing running around Wisconsin -- a state that was going to vote for him anyway?

More importantly, where the hell is Hillary? Recent polling suggests a good size lead for Obama, but not one that can't be overcome with a good fight. We know she really wants to debate (again) Obama in Milwaukee, but it seems she doesn't plan on doing much herself here in the meantime, leaving the state to her surrogates while she stumps in Texas.

I just don't get it, really. This is almost exactly what Giuliani did -- downplay the importance of losing state after state while concentrating efforts on one distant prize only to discover that a long losing streak is almost unrecoverable.

Romney's Done

He's giving what sounds like a cheery concession speech on the TV right now.

John McCain will apparently not be campaigning here in Wisconsin over the weekend.

Zell on Earth

Total Daily Show rip-off, but whatever ...

Joe Lieberman gets his "superdelegate" status stripped because of ... Zell Miller!

I actually thought it would have been because he is technically now a member of a third party, but since we are talking about Democrats here, anything is possible.

[via Eschaton]

Citizen Rush

The internets are abuzz today with news that Rush Limbaugh has essentially told Bob Dole to stick it after the former Senator asked him to lay off the criticism of John McCain. More than a few people (and here, and here) have noted that Limbaugh has a lot to gain if McCain is either not the GOP nominee or if his White House bid fails and that din is only going to get louder the further off the party reservation Limbaugh goes ...

Limbaugh is something of a Frankenstein made by the GOP in so far as he is something the party has built up and now no longer can control. A McCain victory means one of two things for Rush: 1.) he's not as influential as people think he is, or 2.) his message of conservatism is not as influential as people think it is. Either one is a losing proposition for Limbaugh, which can only mean this ridiculousness about "backing" the Democratic candidate by him and the rest of his talk show ilk is about little more than self-preservation.

It's also a helluva lot easier being a conservative blowhard when all you have to do is complain about the person in power instead of having to defend him (or her).

The GOP's relationship with Rush is something Republicans are going to have to figure out on their own. It is no longer a mutually beneficial partnership, but is now a liability. Rush seems content to blame John McCain for the party's inevitable failure this fall, but -- and this is important -- the decline and fall of the Republican party is primarily due to one man: George W. Bush.

Like it or not Bush is the most conservative president in living memory. Let no one tell you otherwise. People who say Reagan was more conservative are people who can't remember what they ate for breakfast this morning. Bush will be the human embodiment of conservatism for at least the next generation and his legacy will be one that is completely rejected by the American people this fall. Just look at the six remaining presidential candidates: not one resembles Bush in any way -- even McCain, who had to swallow hard to support Bush after 2000. Even Romney, who's all about "change" this week. There is simply no positive spin one can put on Bush's presidency. Bush's presidency been a colossal failure.

Most of America knows this. If you want to know the most telling numbers in the Republican party, here they are: Only 33% of all Americans approve of Bush right now, but an astonishing 71% of Republicans still approve of him. That's a staggering disconnect and is emblematic of just how out of touch the GOP is with the rest of the country.

This means that the nation wants something new. They are not happy with this whole "conservatism" business. Now the "movement conservatives" have been arguing (and will continue to do so) that what is needed is more conservatism. That's not how it works. Right now the public is under the impression that Bush is about as conservative as they can handle and since they are displeased with the results they're going to want to shift course and move in another direction. That means the GOP is going to have to moderate itself or face the prospect of irrelevance in the years to come.

I doubt Limbaugh is either aware of this or cares -- he and the rest of his talkers are all looking out for themselves. The frightening thing is that I'm not sure anyone in the GOP punditocracy is aware of this. Right now conservatives seem to be in that phase of decline wherein they simply refuse to believe that they were actually the responsible for their own downfall. We didn't lose Iraq, we were "stabbed in the back." We can't get our people elected because our donors aren't giving as much as they used to and people are retiring. And -- this is my personal favorite -- of course we're losing, the public schools have been indoctrinating our children to be Democrats for the last generation!

Well, thank God they're teaching the kids something! Man, if they could have only indoctrinated me into the mysteries of Algebra maybe I wouldn't have failed that class ... twice.

In other words, it's everyone's fault but the conservatives'. That's just not true. In fact, it's probably almost completely the fault of the conservatives for taking the party so far to the right that most Republicans (especially here in Wisconsin) seem more focused on purging the "RINOs" from their midst than actually winning elections.

This is no time for witch hunts. If I were the Republican Party I would go to bed thanking God for every last person who still called themselves a Republican and wake up every morning willing to everything short of sexual favors to keep them happy ... OK, maybe some sexual favors, but a line would definitely be drawn somewhere. After all, moderate Republicans, those who don't buy into the conservative wing and are never going to, have only one other place to go ...

The GOP has to convince Rush and the like-minded conservatives he represents that they are in serious jeopardy of spending the next generation in the political wilderness. The GOP actually needs to learn from the Democrats. After the 2004, after they invested so much hope and energy into toppling Bush, the Democrats spent the next few weeks crying and drinking, but by the time 2005 started they were ready to do some serious soul searching. With a few notable exceptions, they didn't blame their defeat on the courts or on voting machines, they blamed it on themselves. They went to work trying to figure out what they did wrong and what the GOP did right and by the time 2006 rolled around they were ready for action (with a lot of help from a hapless Republican party).

Hard-core conservatives don't seem like they're ready to do this any time soon and so long as they are unwilling to re-evaluate themselves they'll have a front row seat to watch the end of their empire.

Oh God, is this Douchebag Back Again?

Why can't Rick Santorum (which, as you surely recall, is Latin for Asshole) quietly slip back into his little home-schooling haven in Northern Virginia like any other washed-up politico? There was talk of Santorum running for president after Bush's 2004 re-election, but he quickly fell from Pennsylvania voters' graces and eventually got smoked in 2006 by Bob Casey.

But that doesn't seem to think he knows what's best for the GOP:

So then the guy sitting behind me starts making phone calls on his cell. He's got a fairly loud and authoritative voice, so I can't help but overhear, and he's making call after call after call to tell various people that we've gotta find a way to beat McCain, just would be just awful, and going on and on about how much McCain sucks and that even having Hillary or Obama would be better than having McCain because he would just be horrible for the conservative movement because he just doesn't get the movement and he's always using liberal language to talk about things and how that's a terrible thing. And in one conversation with one person he was talking to, he was trying to talk him into coming out with a terrible story about McCain from five or six years ago, and he's like yeah, what he did to you was just incredible, and you should go public with that story, etc.

After a while I got up to go get something from the café cart, and it turns out the guy sitting behind me was Rick Santorum, which makes it all the more fun and all the more interesting.

Anyway, Santorum is no longer just shouting into cell phones on the AMTRAK, but now he's out there in the world telling everyone's that McCain's not good for the party because "he has a temper."

Please, stop encouraging this schmuck.

Dirty Trick of the Day

Nonsensical (yet still offensive) Homemade Placards:


And if you're hungry for more equally inane examples of Amateur Hour at the Propaganda Club, check out Cracked.

[via Andrew Sullivan]

A Bit Too Cocky

Michael Graham at NRO provides us all with an example of why some people should just keep their mouths shut.

"Communist John McCain"

Dude, calm the fuck down ...

The Perfect Symbol of the Reagan Coalition Crack-up

The Reagan Family itself:

Nancy loves John McCain. Michael hates John McCain.

Most. Awkward. Thanksgiving. Ever.

4Q Fundraising Numbers

Let's just call it an election right now, shall we -- or at least let's wait for the Democrats to choose their nominee and then save ourselves the sturm und drang of the rest of the election?

Just look at some of these numbers:

Hillary: $26.9 million
Obama: $22.8 million

And now the GOP:

McCain: $6.8 million
Huckabee: $9 million
Romney: $6.6 million

The GOP numbers here are just the money contributors gave to each campaign and doesn't include the (at least) $18 million Romney lent to his own campaign or the $19.7 million Ron Paul raised by himself.

Now think about the $32 million Obama raised just in January alone ...

Romney's finished, I don't care about the recent ad buy -- the only person willing to give his campaign any money these days is himself. (I haven't seen one solicitation for money for all the people in Cheddarsphere who have recently started pulling for Romney over McCain, even they aren't bothering to chip in.) McCain won't be able to raise money from the shrill far right who like to bitch about him being a "RINO."

I don't believe I'm saying this, but Freedom Eden finally got one right: this sounds a lot like defeatism to me ... a dirty word the GOP has been flinging at Democrats since, oh I don't know, March of 2003 ... (Which leads me to ask the obvious question: if Republicans are so defeatist in their attitudes about the American election, how can they be trusted to remain confident about the war in Iraq?)

This is going to be an expensive election, everyone knows that, but where are the Bush Pioneers and Rangers? What happened to the vaunted fund-raising machine the GOP developed over the last generation? With numbers this anemic it would appear as if it has just disappeared into thin air.

Here's the good news for the GOP: John McCain is probably the only candidate they can nominate who will fight on through the campaign no matter how depleted his funds are and how far behind in the polls he is. He proved that in the primaries. In fact, if you're so inclined to dip into the collective subconscious of the Republican party, I'd like to think that GOP voters know they're sending a lamb to slaughter this election and that they're picking someone who can do that with a show of honor and a good fight to the end. McCain, after all, has been through a lot worse.

Romney's Done

This as good a white flag as any:

The multi-millionaire businessman has self-funded much of his presidential bid - the full extent has not yet been revealed. Now, however, he’s not buying any advertising for any of the 21 Super Tuesday states.

Fred Heads for Mitt, to whom will you turn now?

NOT SO FAST: This report says otherwise, but the ad buy still seems somewhat underwhelming.

Who is Screwing Up the GOP?

Well, everyone, really ... Talk radio, the evangelicals, FOX, the whole think tank apparatus in DC -- you name it, they are probably doing something stupid even as we speak.

But here's segment of the Grand ol' Coalition that you don't hear about getting much flak: the consultants. These guys have done pretty well for themselves in recent memory but you really have to start asking yourself, "What, exactly, the fuck are they up to these days?"

This was a problem the Democrats had for seemingly ever, but it appears to be endemic among Republicans this year. Here's what John Heilemann had to say about Rudy's demise:

There are two broad prevailing theories about how Giuliani lost his mojo. The first revolves around the campaign that he and his team engineered. It contends that he was nuts to effectively blow off the first month of the nominating process and to place all his chips on Florida. That his operation was insular and parochial, dominated by his old City Hall inner circle. That its expenditures were out of control. As John Ellis asks at RealClearPolitics, “Where did all of Giuliani’s money go? He raised, as I understand it, roughly $45 million. He competed in one primary. He did not spend $45 million in Florida … How much were his consultants paid? The ones who dreamed up the ‘don’t-compete-and-win’ strategy? How much (in percentage terms) went to private aviation?”

[The second prevailing theory is, as we here at the Chief have said before, that Giuliani's a dick.]

Private aviation? That's not a small detail -- and it's important for a campaign to have it's own transportation -- but I'll bet Rudy was flying just as well as he liked to do before he started running. Here's the funny part about the flying business: the guy who's going to win the GOP nomination -- John McCain -- was flying coach just a few months ago. And so was the guy who might be his running mate ...

And perhaps now would be a good time to remind everyone that the reason McCain was flying coach in the first place was because of his ... wait for it ... consultants. They had sucked his campaign coffers dry and then split when the going got rough. In fact, McCain's mid-summer's campaign staff massacre was probably the best thing that happened to him this year, a strange sort of blessing in disguise that forced him to get back to the basics that made him popular in the first place.

Katie Rosenberg was on to something when she pointed out the NY Times postmortem on Giuliani ... it'd be interesting to see if she has anything more to add.

Anyway, there's a theory of warfare that runs something like this: it doesn't matter what the advantages one side might have -- technology, intelligence, even numbers -- they will always lose to an opponent with more fight in their belly. Right now it seems like the size of the fight in the GOP's consultancy class is minimal and that will mean, no matter who the nominee is, Republicans are going to get slaughtered in November.

They Really are from the "'Me' Genration," Aren't They?

By way of Sullivan, an astute point made by Lexington:

The Clintons are in the process of doing the impossible: making the 2008 election a referendum on them, rather than on the Republicans. And the Republicans are inching towards nominating their one candidate, Mr McCain, who has broad popular appeal. If what ought to be a stroll in the park in November becomes a real fight, then the Democrats will know who to blame.