Lincoln Mitchell

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Posted in: US Politics

Joe the Plumber, Smokey the Bear and Alexander the Great

Sarah Palin and John McCain are beginning to remind me of an old, and dumb joke, that I remember from my childhood which goes something like "What does Smokey the Bear and Alexander the Great have in common?" The answer is, of course, their middle names. It seems like everybody in Sarah Palin's world has the same middle name. On the one hand, it is easy to laugh at the vice-presidential nominee's ability to take the politics of George Wallace and put it in the language of Richard Scarry, but the Republican focus on the Joe the Plumbers of America would not help that party win this election, even if they were running a better campaign.

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Looking Backward-McCain Style →

The Republican campaign has collapsed among a sordid and backward looking combination of incompetence, red-baiting that feels bizarrely anachronistic and almost quaint, the growing acceptance among many in the Republican establishment that Sarah Palin is about as qualified to be president as I am to play first base for the Yankees, an adolescent, but deeply disturbing attempt to fake a racially charged attack on a McCain supporter, attempts to suggest that the Democratic president is a supporter of terrorism essentially because he has an unusual name and through ugly anti-Muslim bigotry. Lastly, the dreaded October surprise that many Democrats feared would turn this election upside down and defeat Obama turned out to be a shopping spree in which Republican handlers bought Sarah Palin $150,000 worth of clothes and makeup.

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Rethinking the American Electorate after an Obama Victory →

We are on the cusp of a very special moment in the US. Barring extremely unusual or dramatically unforeseen circumstances, we are less than two weeks away from a great day for the United States as we definitively close the book on the dishonesty, incompetence, belligerence and ignorance which has characterized the Bush administration. Election Day will not just mean the end of almost a decade of dysfunctional Republican governance, but will also show that Americans are ready and anxious for progressive and thoughtful leadership.

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Bill Ayers, Blackberries and John McCain →

That is not, however, the reason, I hope McCain dwells on this issue. The Bill Ayers issue underscores just how out of touch John McCain is with the country he seeks to lead. To McCain's ears, Bill Ayers and the Weatherman conjure up images of dangerous radicals seeking to overthrow the American government, which is, to a large extent, what the Weatherman were. However, for many Americans, Bill Ayers and the Weatherman are something from the history books, and probably from a chapter they didn't bother to read. The Weatherman were, after all, a fringe group and largely a footnote to the history of the late 1960s and 1970s.

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Putting What Where? Trying to Understand McCain's Slogan →

Political slogans are usually vague and devoid of any real meaning. Neither Obama's nor McCain's slogan are any real exception to this. However, there is something particularly disturbing about the slogan "putting country first." When I first saw it I winced, but attributed that to the slogan being so embarrassingly childish, although in fairness I don't think any of the students in my son's 4th grade class would come up with something quite so meaningless. It also struck me as a bad riff on Bill Clinton's 1992 slogan "putting people first."

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Making an Obama Presidency a Success →

An Obama presidency will, almost no matter what, be a welcome relief and major improvement on the current administration. The impact of that alone should not be understated. If, however, Obama is a four year interlude between Republican administrations like Carter was, or if, like Clinton, he fails to pass any major legislation or build the party, Obama will have been a disappointment. Moreover, a truly successful Obama administration will not only succeed legislatively, but strengthen the Democratic Party moving forward.

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The Debate, the Pundits and the Voters →

Interestingly, pundits focused on expectations while voters focused on mundane things like positions on issues and knowledge of these issues. While the punditry seemed to agree that Palin did not verbally implode and therefore had exceeded expectations, a CNN poll showed that voters viewed Biden as having won the debate by a margin of 51%-36%. A CBS poll showed that among uncommitted voters, Biden won by a substantial margin of 46%-21%. Tellingly, the same CNN poll showed Palin won the all important likeability question by a margin of 54%-36%. This demonstrates that a fair amount of voters like Palin but don't want to see her in national office.

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I'm Not Naive Senator: You're Just Wrong →

These are the words I kept waiting for Barack Obama to say while I listened to Friday night's debate. I lost track of how many times John McCain called Obama naïve, but it seemed like at least a dozen. You can be certain that some Frank Luntz type within the McCain campaign did focus groups and other tests and determined that voters could be persuaded that Obama is "naïve." The Republican logic behind this is understandable. After all, Obama is a skinny 47 year-old who looks younger than his years, has never served in the military and seems to believe that we should take an approach to foreign policy that is less militaristic and confrontational. In McCainland, this makes you naïve.

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What if it Doesn't Come Down to Turnout? →

To some extent describing a campaign as "coming down to turnout" is a polite way for pundits to say they have nothing left to say about an election. More seriously, in every election it is easy to find people from both campaigns predicting record turnout because of an array of reasons. Democratic operatives in 2004 were promising record turnout among the Democratic base for John Kerry, in 2000 for Al Gore and so on. Republican operatives made similar claims for Bush in both those campaigns.

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Why This Election Is So Close →

This ideologically driven and deadlocked electorate means that this election will not just be decided in a handful of swing states, most of which, were also decisive in 2004 and 2000, but that the same types of swing voters in these swing states will determine the next president. While turnout will be important, it will probably be high on both sides due to the closeness of the race and excitement about Obama on the Democratic side and excitement about stopping Obama on the Republican side. This election, which in many respects is like no other in American history, is turning out to look quite a bit like two others, at least in terms of voting patterns and is likely to come down efforts to persuade the same fraction of a fraction of the electorate as in 2000 and 2004.

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Has Sarah Palin Really Shaken Up the Race? →

In the last few weeks the Republican Party has gone back to its base by nominating a right-wing extremist with reactionary views on a range of social policies. They have sought to represent John McCain, of all people, as an agent of change in Washington, tried to build an appeal to voters based on the notion that they are the regular Americans and the Democrats are out of touch elitists, accused Senator Obama of being a sexist for using a common figure of speech and more or less lied about their records and that of their opponents.

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Cynical and Divisive Chutzpah →

You have to give the Republicans credit-if nothing else for sheer chutzpah, albeit a cynical and divisive kind of chutzpah. Facing a tough election campaign with an uninspired base and an uninspiring candidate, John McCain made an extraordinary vice-presidential choice and then rallied the Republican Party to shift their message from experience and character to a nasty campaign that seeks to frame the election, yet again, as being a battle between Americans against elitists.

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Swing Hard in Case You Hit It →

John McCain's decision to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate indicates that his approach to making this decision falls into the category of "Swing Hard in Case You Hit It." Clearly McCain made this decision based on being taken with the possibility, albeit a somewhat remote one, that Palin be able to somehow change the dynamics of this election and put a fresh, young, female face on what has become an increasingly older, grumpy and male Republican campaign.

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Obama, McCain and Russia's War on Georgia →

While I have lived, worked and frequently visited Georgia since 2002 and have written extensively on Georgian politics, I am not going to address the specifics of the conflict here. Instead, it might be useful to explore some of the questions which the conflict between Georgia and Russia raises for domestic politics in the US. The conflict has, appropriately, led to debate online and elsewhere about the limits, impact and attitudes of American power foreign policy. It has also, again not unsurprisingly, become an issue in the presidential race as Senator McCain has responded with blustery statements stressing Russian aggression and the need to defend Georgia, while Senator Obama has emphasized these points, but also stressed the need for partnership with Europe on this issue.

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This Was Never Going to Be Easy →

During the last week or so it seems like the frustration with Obama's inability to expand his lead in the national polls has spread to pro-Obama quarters where supporters are getting nervous as the election approaches. The election is far from over; and it would be surprising if there are many people left who still think Obama has this wrapped up. However, the news is not all bad. Obama, while unable to move decisively ahead, still leads in most national polls, while the state level data still indicates that Obama will likely win the election.

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McCain's Most Absurd Week Yet →

In the last week the McCain camp has run a strange add attacking Obama for being a celebrity and linking him to the likes of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, accused Obama "playing the race card from the bottom of the deck," suggesting that Obama is both a racist and a cheater, because the Democratic nominee suggested, in rather innocent language, that the Republican Party might make try to scare voters away from voting for a Black man, and now run an even stranger advertisement that, as far as I can see, uses faux religious imagery to suggest that Obama believes himself to be some kind of religious figure or savior.

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Will Obama's Trip Have an Impact

The presidential campaign has begun to fall into a recognizable pattern. Every week, Obama seems to begin to appear more presidential and generate good news for his campaign, while McCain seems less able to handle the task of running for president. Each week he seems to make a few more gaffes, get a few more details wrong and generally fail to generate much excitement. Yet, the poll numbers remain stubbornly close. The newest national polls continue to show this race as almost a dead heat while statewide polls show Obama and McCain splitting the likely battleground states. The good news last week for McCain was that he was pulling ahead in Ohio and in a dead heat with Obama in Florida, while Obama had slight leads in key states such as Virginia, New Hampshire and Colorado. Obama is still the favorite but the poll numbers seem to be moving a lot more slowly than the campaign narrative.

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Take Me Out to the Vice Presidential Nomination →

I try not to be a myopic New Yorker who sees the world entirely through the lens of New York City, but when I saw Rudy Giuliani and John McCain together at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, it occurred to me that McCain could make a lot worse choices for running mate than our former mayor. Giuliani, is a compelling mixture of positives and negatives and would be a risky pick as vice-president. However, lost in all the obvious negatives is that there is a potentially very large upside to putting Giuliani on the ticket.

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Not Getting Late Early Enough →

This presidential election is beginning to have a strange feel to it. All the big picture signals, the weak economy, frustration with the war in Iraq, dissatisfaction with President Bush and Democratic strength in congressional contests across the country indicate that Barack Obama should be able to win, if not in a landslide, than at least decisively.

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Three Mistakes the Democrats Shouldn't Make Again →

In a highly contested political campaign, four months can seem like a lifetime, or it can seem like just a brief moment. Usually it feels like both. There are a lot of things which could happen over which Obama and the Democrats have little control. McCain could suddenly get back some of his old magic and become a strong candidate again. An event could serve as a rallying point for conservative forces who seem unexcited about this year's campaign. Voters could begin to view the surge and the efforts in Iraq as successful and support McCain's argument that somehow this makes him the candidate best able to finish the job in Iraq. While these are all things that are largely out of the control of Obama's campaign, the campaign can make its work a lot easier by learning from, and not repeating, mistakes from their party's very recent past.

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