The corporate media are in the tank for a Republican comeback in 2010, and the GOP may in fact pick up some seats in the Senate and the House, though if employment ticks up by the fall, not as many as some are implying. The corporate media made a big deal about two Democrats who are stepping down but not about 6 Republicans who are. But the long-term trends look good for the Democratic Party…

Read More –> Informed Comment: Why Republicans are Worried.

                          

Ed Kilgore expects the Republican Party to pursue a strategy of playing to social conservatives and touting discredited fiscal policies.  Such policy brought the GOP into power, but after suffering losses in 2006 & 2008, pursuing the old game plan amounts to “conservative self-deception.”  A state of mind, “at least partially attributable to the rise of conservative ideological media networks that enable their consumers and producers alike to live in a parallel universe that is largely impervious to adverse information.”

From TheDemocraticStrategist.org 11 November 2008 post, by Ed Kilgore:

There are, however, two aspects of contemporary conservative self-justification that strike me as somewhat new.

The first is the iron conviction that there is a popular majority for core conservative policies at the very moment when they have been repudiated.[snip]

You two on the left, I'm on the fence about, but the rest of you... How do you sleep at night?

In a parallel development, during both the Reagan and Bush years, public support for conservative efforts to make the tax system more regressive has declined steadily once the free-lunch assumptions of supply-side economics proved to be a fraud.
[snip]
If today’s conservatives succeed in convincing each other to embrace a more forthright message assaulting entitlements, progressive taxation, public education, regulation of corporations and Wall Street, just to cite a few domestic policy examples, they are almost certainly cruising for more electoral bruising…

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Esquire‘s Chris Jones offers his assessment of what causes historians will attribute to the collapse of the McCain campaign in 2008.   Of course there are numerous causes for the McCain/Palin loss to Obama/Biden, but Jones tracks a personality transition following the Republican’s surprising primary victory in New Hampsire.

For Jones, who had extrordinary access to the campaign throughout the primaries and general election, the final straw was McCain’s selection of the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his running mate.

From Esquire.com, posted by Chris Jones, 5 November 2008:

(emphasis added)…Then he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. I’d like to think someone else picked her for him, but how’s that the better option? She represented everything wrong with the Republican Party — the same intolerant elements that McCain had fought so hard against years earlier — and now there she was, smiling on the stage beside him. Historians will no doubt cite the collapsing economy and the legacy of George W. Bush as impossible obstacles for McCain to overcome. But for me, he lost the election when he picked Palin, because he lost the last vestige of his former self…

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From The Onion, posted 5 November 2008:

African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America….

As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it…

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Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive…

Mr. Obama’s election amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago…

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Obama’s Victory Speech:  Grant Park, Chicago:

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Visit The Jed Report for full text of the speech, and extensive election coverage.

                          

I’ll have to look into it, but I’m quite certain that this is an American – if not worldwide – first.  Stay tuned.

International Space Station - NASA

Note to those considering skipping next week’s presidential election from the fellas’ in orbit:  “If we can do it so can you.”

From rawstory.com – Oct. 31, 2008 post:
…Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff, who are working aboard the International Space Station, are to vote by secure electronic ballot uplinked by Johnson Space Center in Houston, according to NASA.

Their votes will be submitted by secure link back to Earth, and recorded by local voting officials in Texas…

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In my imagination:  One astronaut said to the other, “If Obama loses, I’m not going back down.”

                          

Meet the Press – 19 October 2008

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Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president on Sunday, criticizing his own Republican Party for what he called its narrow focus on irrelevant personal attacks over a serious approach to challenges he called unprecedented.

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The third and final debate between Barack Obama and John McCain was certainly the most entertaining of the three. However, the most memorable aspects of the debate had little to do with perceived rhetorical punches thrown or landed by either candidate. Rather, it was the demeanor of John McCain that – much to his detriment – stole the show.

McCain’s exasperation with Obama wasn’t worn on his sleeve, but on his face:
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The obviousness of the Arizona senator’s irritation was also betrayed by his audible sighs, bringing back memories of Al Gore’s lack of breath control in 2000 while debating George W. Bush. As Gore lost that debate, McCain certainly lost last night.

While the third presidential debate may have been an improvement for John McCain, his enhanced performance had more to do with him being seated behind a desk rather than the content of his arguments. Being seated prevented McCain from awkwardly wandering around the stage as he did during his second face off with Barack Obama.

Who looks more presidential?

I urge you, don’t take my word for it that Obama won. The “read more” link below leads to the October 16, 2008 Americablog.com post, aptly titled by John Aravosis: McToast. The post consists of blurbs from the Detroit Free Press, Des Moines Register, Duluth News Tribune, Columbus Dispatch, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, NY Post, Boston Globe, LA Times, NY Daily News, TIME, Washington Post, Newsweek, The Hill, Politico, & NY Times. All declared Barack Obama the victor.

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Raw Story has provided a succinct set of highlights from last nights debate along with a couple of CNN video clips.

From the October 7, 2008 Raw Story post:

Senators McCain (R-AZ) and Obama (D-IL) sparred on issues such as government spending, war, the environment and health care Tuesday evening at the second presidential debate at Nashville’s Belmont University, moderated by Tom Brokaw…

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From Pollster.com

Saturday’s Gallup tracking poll revealed two big numbers for Obama. Obama hit 50% in the tracking poll and took an 8% lead over McCain…

Using Gallup’s compendium of presidential trial heat polling since 1936, I counted16 candidates who received 50% support or higher in an October Gallup poll. Hitting the 50% mark was a very good predictor of victory. Of those 16 candidates, just two failed to win the general election–Al Gore and Thomas Dewey…

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Like many political addicts/observers, I was shocked when John McCain hastily selected Sarah Palin as his running mate.  I totally lost sleep the night the Alaskan Governor gave her acceptance address at this year’s RNC in Minneapolis.  Between her naming and acceptance it was already clear that Palin’s resume was -putting it kindly – thin.  The speech was pure political theater, packed with crap designed to rally the base, and it was delivered in a – again, kindly – sarcastic tone. (continued below Daily Show clip)

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I’m sleeping better now that the Palin/convention bump in the polls has faded, and while the McCain team has effectively sheltered her from MSM scrutiny, the top of the ticket is keeping the campaign compettitive, they are only doing so by spouting half-truths and outrigt lies.  It is not a sustainable strategy.

Now my sleep will improve further thanks, mostly, to the below article (excerpt below).  Paul Gough describes Burns, whose comments were solicited at panel discussion associated with this week’s Emmy Awards, as appearing firm in his assessment.  I don’t always buy in to historian commentary when present or future events are at issue, but in this case, I believe Burns is spot on.  Historians - or any astute observers willing to focus beyond the MSM lens – are perfectly qualified to recognize that Sarah Palin is not the caricature presented and protected by the GOP.

From the hollywoodreporter.com September 22, 2008 post by, Paul J. Gough:

“He (McCain) selected someone who is so supremely unqualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency and he has turned the selection process into a high school popularity contest and an ‘American Idol’ competition,” Burns said. He said that McCain made a “cynical” pick in what he said was the most important decision of his presidential candidacy.

Burns, whose lifelong work is in American history, said that “in the whole history of the Republic there has been no one with as thin a credential” as Palin. He said it was, for McCain, a “Hail Mary pass” that will be decided in November…

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Related Video:  If you have 12 minutes to spare, view the below clip.  In it, Lawrence Lesig compares Palin’s experience to every American Vice President.

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From the suntimes.com, September 22, 2008 post by, Abdon M. Pallasch:

The map hasn’t changed all that much in 148 years. But the political parties have switched places. The northeast part of the country, from Illinois to Maine — along with California and Oregon — likes the tall, skinny lawyer from Illinois.

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