Just received what I consider to be an outrageous campaign email from Joe Biden:
David --
President-elect Obama and I have been assembling our team, and we plan to hit the ground running next month.
We want to be ready to go, and that's why I'm asking you to help us honor an outstanding commitment we made during the election.
Our campaign pledged to help Senator Hillary Clinton -- one of the vital members of our team and our future Secretary of State -- retire her campaign debt. That's the money her campaign owes to the vendors across the country that make our political process possible.
Barack and I had the deepest respect for Hillary as an opponent on the campaign trail. Her undeniable intellect, talent, and passion strengthened Barack as a candidate and tested our movement for change.
We welcome Hillary as a partner in our administration, and I hope you will show your support by helping Barack fulfill our campaign promise.
Will you make a contribution of $100 or more now to retire Hillary's campaign debt?
I saw your generosity and commitment to this team throughout the election, and I know we can do it.
In the general election, Hillary was one of our strongest advocates. She traveled the country and did more than 70 events, raising money and bringing new supporters into our campaign.
As Secretary of State, she will be indispensable in furthering Barack's agenda for change.
Let's welcome Hillary to the team and thank her for her efforts in support of our campaign by helping to retire her debt to the hard-working individuals and small businesses that were a part of the election:
[url removed]
Your support and generosity got us this far, and I know I can count on it now.
Thank you,
Joe
I've never understood this. In the first place, if as a candidate you borrow a whole bunch of money and then can't repay it, that's your problem--it's not your supporters' problem, and it's certainly not your opponent's supporters' problem. Second, it is my understanding that the Clintons are worth tens of millions of dollars. And they want my money? Are they fucking joking?
This is the first email from the Obama campaign that has actively pissed me off.
Just a few hours ago I said that Andrew Sullivan's criticism of the McCain campaign's request to postpone the debate was bunk. Looks like I was wrong; it appears that the whole thing is a ploy to give Sarah Palin more time to cram for the VP debate:
McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there's no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.
In this scenario, the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin would be rescheduled for a date yet to be determined....
I was going to write a post called "Parity" in which I noted that according to the RCP meta-poll, 538, and Intrade, the race was about even--but then I saw that Paul Krugman has beaten me to it with a post called "Even Odds". Then I was going to write another post about how the McCain campaign is lying its pants off when it claims that Obama called Palin "a pig with lipstick", but halftheinternet has got that one covered.
For what it's worth, I think things are about to start turning around for Obama and the Democrats, and that this latest outrageously false claim from the McCain campaign is one outrageously false claim too far. Following Ezra Klein's insightful post the other day, the media renders the continuous onslaught of news data comprehensible to consumers by framing it within running narratives. I would add that--perhaps out of an obligation to "balance", or maybe just because of a bias towards closer and more interesting races--there is a somewhat pendular motion to press coverage, such that a week or two of positive coverage for a candidate tends to be balanced by a period of negative coverage.
I think the press is getting antsy with its rosy McCain-surging-from-convention-and-Palin-pick narrative, which is one that has emphasized Palin's star turn over the steady drumbeat of false claims eminating from the McCain campaign. However, in order for the shift to occur, there has to be something for the media to affix its narrative to. This pig/lipstick nonsense could be it. In the first place, it's a deception that is readily verifiable in print and on video, so mainstream outlets can comfortably show it without fear of seeming impartial: they can just run a clip of McCain people accusing Obama of making the insult, and then juxtapose it with footage of what Obama said in context, with no need for a reporter to connect any dots. Second, it plays into what has become a pattern of questionable or outright false statements from the McCain campaign, giving the story a direction to run in: does the McCain campaign have a truth problem?
Of course, these things don't happen entirely on their own. Obama is going to have to drive the narrative in speeches, through surrogates, and in campaign ads. He is going to have to actively call out McCain and Palin for campaigning on personal attacks, misrepresentations, and outright lies, and for their silence on issues like health care and the economy.
Biden is already sounding the notes (via Fallows):
And looking around the internet, some people have submitted some pretty good-sounding examples of "what Obama should say". From a Sullivan reader:
"Yesterday I talked to a group of voters about how the McCain campaign is trying to call their continuation of just about every single Bush-Cheney policy of the last eight years "change." In doing so, I used a common, hundred-year-old phrase that we all understand: You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Now the McCain campaign demands that I apologize for saying this. Everyone, it seems, wants to hear my answer. Here it is: NO.
No, I will not apologize for telling the American people the truth: That McCain and Palin represent a stunning, and disastrous, continuation of Bush and Cheney's policies. Policies of sacrificing the middle class to give huge tax cuts to millionaires and big corporations. Policies that prevent Americans from getting the health care they need. Policies that would privatize Social Security and take away a woman's right to choose.
[...]
There's a word I've heard from the McCain campaign recently: "deference." No one is going to ask Sarah Palin a question, they say, unless they show her "deference." Joe Biden points out that they oppose all stem cell research, and they are offended he even mentioned it. I point out that their claim of bringing change is ridiculous, and they demand an apology. Apparently we are not showing them enough deference.
Let me explain something to Senator McCain and Governor Palin, as deferentially as I can: This is a democracy -- not a monarchy. You don't get to demand "deference" from the American people as if they were your royal subjects. You -- and I -- and everyone who seeks elected office must defer to the American people, and answer their questions, and fight for them even when it's politically inconvenient. That is what I promise to do. Thank You."
My opponent's chief strategest just said, "this campaign isn't about the issues." Well, I've got news for you, America. The Republican Party is desperate. They are going to do anything to try and hold onto their power, because they know the damage they've done to our country, and they don't know how to fix it. They know that people are out of work, and they don't know how to help them. They know that people are dying because they don't have health insurance, and they don't know to save them. They know that families are struggling to put food on the table, and they know don't know how to provide for them.
So they're going to try and distract you, America, because that's the only thing they know how to do. They're going to try and scare you. They're going to try and tell you stories, instead of offering solutions. And yes, folks -- these are the same people that have been lying to you for the last eight years -- and they're going to lie to you again.
We'll see how it goes in the next couple of days. McCain has been in the driver's seat for the last week or so, but he's sold his soul to do it. If Obama can regain the momentum, he will be in a strong position heading into the final two months.
Sarah Palin has yet to submit to candid and adversarial questioning by the press, and there is virtually no record of her views on governing philosophy, the Iraq War, separation of powers, Constitutional rights during wartime, Guantanamo, free trade, health care, the role of the UN, US geopolitical strategy, China, deficit spending, tax cuts, education, and much, much more.
I wonder what her views are, and what percentage of them were formed in a cram session after she was chosen as McCain's VP.
David Brooks has an advice-columny column about why he thinks Obama should pick Joe Biden as his VP. At one point, he talks about how Biden's loyalty will be good to have:
...there are moments when a president has to go into the cabinet room and announce a decision that nearly everyone else on his team disagrees with. In those moments, he needs a vice president who will provide absolute support.
Does he? It was my understanding that, normally, the VP plays a fairly peripheral role in the White House, and isn't in a position to influence the president's decisions (Dick Cheney was a big exception to that).
So is it indeed the case that Obama will follow this trend of empowering the vice president, such that he/she would be in a position to wield serious influence? I don't think I've ever read anything on this or heard anything about it from Obama that would tell us one way or the other.
