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2008 Presidential Election Post Mortem - Page 3

post #101 of 149
11/6/08 at 1:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
That's probably a more self-defeating thing to say than you realize.
Why? I know it's unlikely but it would be a great story in the vein of "even if it's not true it oughtta be."
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post #102 of 149
11/6/08 at 1:23am
Thread Starter 
I think the one thing Obama didn't do that really impressed me was that he never went into the gutter or had to sell off his dignity. I can't think of anything Obama has done this campaign where he had to explain to his daughters that "politics is a rough game" and not to think less of him. Maybe once with that "1982" commercial but even that was generally harmless. I think that Obama has alot to be proud of for not only what he did but also for what he refused to do.
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post #103 of 149
11/6/08 at 1:36am
JUst catching up on this thread.

For what it's worth here are my thoughts:

1) McCain made a strategic mistake in not using Rev Wright issue. Making it off limits was the noble, honorable think to do. It was also the one smear issue that had legs and could be effective. Ayers is so obviously a nonissue that he could not be effective. Obama attended Wright's church for 20 years so the relationship was solid. I'm not saying this is a real concern (since I voted for Obama) I'm saying from the standpoint of running a typcial GOP campaign it should not have been off limits

2) As in 1992, so in 2008, it's the ecomony stupid. Any fears people had about voting for Obama were outweighted by fears about the economy and

3) McCain's erratic behavior. Clearly he had no clue about the economic troubles that people (in CA at least) have been living through for years. That one week where McCain stated a) nothing was fundamentally wrong with the economy b) there was trouble and he was stopping the campaign to fix it then c) didn't and d)looked like an ineffective jackass while (not) doing it

4) Palin. 'nuff said

5) Obama: He just did everything right. Right strategies, incredible organization (who's laughing at "Community Organizers" now?), right approach, right words, right presentation, right (not Right) ideas.

It will be fascinating to watch him put his Cabinet together
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post #104 of 149
11/6/08 at 1:51am
Campaigns always attempt to define their opponent unflatteringly... erratic is how the Obama camp defined McCain. McCain's camp was incredibly disjointed and ended up going in every direction at once. Still, this doesn't provide evidence that McCain himself was erratic, just his campaign.

It's not dirty, but it's not entirely clean, either.
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post #105 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:02am
Comparing his concession speech to his campaign:

We may be able to say McCain is not, in and of himself, erratic; the campaign definitely had that effect on him (the Senator). It's nice that he tried to assume the mantle of the bi-partisan, thoughtful McCain from 2000. He should have ran as that.
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post #106 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:04am
"Erratic" = so not the same as "terrorist"
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post #107 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:08am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by myk View Post
Campaigns always attempt to define their opponent unflatteringly... erratic is how the Obama camp defined McCain. McCain's camp was incredibly disjointed and ended up going in every direction at once. Still, this doesn't provide evidence that McCain himself was erratic, just his campaign.

It's not dirty, but it's not entirely clean, either.
The thing is, McCain WAS erratic. Of course some people heard a dog whistle with that phrasing so it might have been a subliminal smear campaign on McCain's mental facilities. Who knows? I'm not saying Obama was squeaky clean but in relation to most campaigns, it was pretty high minded.
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post #108 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cylon Baby View Post
1) McCain made a strategic mistake in not using Rev Wright issue. Making it off limits was the noble, honorable think to do. It was also the one smear issue that had legs and could be effective. Ayers is so obviously a nonissue that he could not be effective. Obama attended Wright's church for 20 years so the relationship was solid. I'm not saying this is a real concern (since I voted for Obama) I'm saying from the standpoint of running a typcial GOP campaign it should not have been off limits
I think the point Obama made loud and clear is that the time for slime machine politics is over, so I don't think Rev Wright (or any of the other smears the McCain campaign came up with but didn't use) would have made any difference in the outcome.
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post #109 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schwartz View Post
"Erratic" = so not the same as "terrorist"
That's correct. "erratic" is analgous to "naive" and "inexperienced"

Quote:
Originally Posted by dynamotv View Post
The thing is, McCain WAS erratic. Of course some people heard a dog whistle with that phrasing so it might have been a subliminal smear campaign on McCain's mental facilities. Who knows? I'm not saying Obama was squeaky clean but in relation to most campaigns, it was pretty high minded.
We really don't have evidence of McCain himself being erratic. We have lots of evidence for his campaign being completely erratic and we have evidence of McCain listening and following the advice given by his staff (which in itself is a failure of leadership).

Erratic stuck because it was backed up by what people saw. McCain calling Obama naive and inexperienced didn't stick because in every debate it wasn't backed up by evidence. Once the definition stuck, McCain couldn't mount an offensive because it was just him being erratic again.

I'm not saying Obama was wrong to do it. You absolutely have to define your opponent and it was undeniably effective. And in no way do I think the Obama campaign sunk to the depths of the McCain campaign. But it's wrong to think they were 100% squeaky clean.
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post #110 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:29am
Thread Starter 
That is an important distinction but whether it was the campaign or McCain, it came out as McCain being erratic to the voters especially during the first two weeks of the financial crisis. Was it squeaky clean? No. Was it in the gutter? No.
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post #111 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:31am
Thread Starter 
For what it's worth Obama defining McCain as a third Bush term was the real master stroke in negatively defining the opponent. That one stuck like a motherfucker.
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post #112 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
Not at all; as I recall, they went nuts when she was mentioned. All of the negativity was purely directed at Obama.
That reminds me of a fascinating contrast; I could swear that I heard cheers go up from the crowd in Grant Park when Obama mentioned McCain...
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post #113 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
Not at all; as I recall, they went nuts when she was mentioned. All of the negativity was purely directed at Obama.
I think we're using two different definitions of catcalls here.
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post #114 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Napoleon Rodriguez View Post
That reminds me of a fascinating contrast; I could swear that I heard cheers go up from the crowd in Grant Park when Obama mentioned McCain...
To be fair, it is easier to be gracious when you've just won. I'm not making excuses for the people booing Obama but they did have reason to be unhappy.
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post #115 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by myk View Post
But it's wrong to think they were 100% squeaky clean.
Yup. Let's not forget that shameful ad in Spanish they had of McCain and Limbaugh.
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post #116 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cylon Baby View Post
JUst catching up on this thread.

For what it's worth here are my thoughts:

1) McCain made a strategic mistake in not using Rev Wright issue. Making it off limits was the noble, honorable think to do. It was also the one smear issue that had legs and could be effective. Ayers is so obviously a nonissue that he could not be effective. Obama attended Wright's church for 20 years so the relationship was solid. I'm not saying this is a real concern (since I voted for Obama) I'm saying from the standpoint of running a typcial GOP campaign it should not have been off limits
I'm not sure about that one, since McCain's pandering to the base led to crazy pastor issues of his own, and while it would have run counter to the tone of the Obama campaign, the McCain campaign might not have wanted to take the risk that Obama would unilaterally disarm on the issue.
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post #117 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:54am
Unlikely that Hagee was a factor at all.

Beyond decency, he opted not to go there because of the obvious racial implications. It would have also backfired.
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post #118 of 149
11/6/08 at 3:00am
Thread Starter 
To be honest, Hagee and Parsley(?) wouldn't have hurt McCain one single bit with the base. That kind of crazy is okay with Republicans and even an asset.
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post #119 of 149
11/6/08 at 3:05am
Hey, the base got out there. Every person that's whining that McCain didn't attack enough and didn't rally the base enough is missing the much larger picture.

The Republican base has shrunk, thanks to Bush, and the Democratic base has grown, thanks to Obama and Dean's 50 state strategy.
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post #120 of 149
11/6/08 at 3:14am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by myk View Post
Hey, the base got out there. Every person that's whining that McCain didn't attack enough and didn't rally the base enough is missing the much larger picture.

The Republican base has shrunk, thanks to Bush, and the Democratic base has grown, thanks to Obama and Dean's 50 state strategy.
That was the problem. McCain ran a base oriented campaign when his strength was in his appeal to the middle. Also it's obvious only one side knew this was a '92 election rather than an '04 election and that guy wasn't McCain.
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post #121 of 149
11/6/08 at 4:20am
The Newsweek article is up. Still reading it but just wanted to share this gem:

Quote:
Staffers dryly referred to the private plane owned by supermarket magnate and playboy Ron Burkle, Bill Clinton's friend and traveling buddy, as "Air F––– One."
Oh Bill.

ETA:
A little further down there's this:

Quote:
The Obama war room responded with a not-so-subtle crack about selling the Lincoln Bedroom in the Bill Clinton administration.
Which is funny to me, because part of what always turned me off about the Clintons was the fact that they invited a (non-biological) relative of mine to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom and referred to him as a personal friend (a minor scandal developed over his fund raising). He's a crook and one of the biggest scum bags I know. He also gets hookers for Bill when he's in Chicago, or at least he used to (he might be going to jail for tax evasion).
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post #122 of 149
11/6/08 at 6:07am
Check out the Larry King interview with Bill Maher, it's pretty sweet.

ETA: the video at CNN is called 'Larry King: Obama reactions'
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post #123 of 149
11/6/08 at 6:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JuddL View Post
The Newsweek article is up.
Both that one and the one on McCain are pretty amazing reads.
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post #124 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:09pm
Just got to the "Air Fuck One" part. Everyone needs to read this, it's utterly fascinating.
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post #125 of 149
11/6/08 at 2:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bitch Leave View Post
Check out the Larry King interview with Bill Maher, it's pretty sweet.

ETA: the video at CNN is called 'Larry King: Obama reactions'
I watched a few minutes of it, but Bill was in his usual douchebag mode.
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post #126 of 149
11/6/08 at 4:40pm
Another great bit from the Newsweek article:

Quote:
At the end of August, as Hurricane Gustav threatened the coast of Texas, the Obama campaign called the Red Cross to say it would be routing donations to it via the Red Cross home page. Get your servers ready—our guys can be pretty nuts, Team Obama said. Sure, sure, whatever, the Red Cross responded. We've been through 9/11, Katrina, we can handle it. The surge of Obama dollars crashed the Red Cross Web site in less than 15 minutes.
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post #127 of 149
11/6/08 at 5:31pm
That Newsweek stuff is great.

Quote:
It wasn't as if it was a slam-dunk for me," said Obama. "I think part of the reason she agreed to do it was because she knew that she had veto power, that she and the girls ultimately mattered more than my own ambitions in this process, and if she said no we would be OK." Michelle was able to extract a promise: if he ran, her husband would have to quit smoking.
Quote:
"Y'know, yesterday I went and bought a Christmas tree with my girls, and we had about two hours before I had to fly back to Washington to vote …" Valerie Jarrett, the family friend who had become one of his closest political advisers, thought Obama was going to tear up. She had seen it before, at a book party for "The Audacity of Hope" in 2006, when Obama had started to say he was sorry to have been away from his family so much during his campaign for the Senate, and began crying so hard he couldn't go on. Obama was remarkably self-contained, but he was also palpably emotionally attached to his family. Jarrett knew that he had not been able to keep his promises to Michelle about getting home to see her and the kids, and that the strain was starting to show.
As if we needed more reasons to root for this guy. God I love that family.
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post #128 of 149
11/6/08 at 6:10pm
Man those articles... I hope somewhere a screenwriter is getting all this down. They'd make a terrific film.
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post #129 of 149
11/6/08 at 6:27pm
I've only read the first part so far but it's great isn't it? It's a great story and it's nice to get a more "whole" picture of everyone involved.
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post #130 of 149
11/6/08 at 6:30pm
Jesse Jackson sounds like Darrell Hammond doing Jesse Jackson.
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post #131 of 149
11/6/08 at 6:45pm
Thread Starter 
I remember reading one of these right after the '92 election and found it fascinating. Glad Newsweek still does this. I wonder if a documentary crew was along for the ride as well. Would love to see a documentary on all this.
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post #132 of 149
11/6/08 at 7:08pm
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post #133 of 149
11/6/08 at 7:21pm
Is that Newsweek out on newsstands?
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post #134 of 149
11/6/08 at 7:22pm
I'd like to know that too. Sounds like great reading for my loooooong trip tomorrow.

This is another great article, from wash. post about the McCain campaign.

Right Turn in July Put McCain on Unfamiliar Path
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post #135 of 149
11/6/08 at 7:50pm
the newsweek stuff is fantastic.
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post #136 of 149
11/6/08 at 7:51pm
Son of a bitch. I never buy newspapers, but couldn't find one yesterday to save my life. I never buy magazines, but couldn't find this issue of Newsweek ANYWHERE today. Ugh.
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post #137 of 149
11/6/08 at 9:34pm


Just sayin.
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post #138 of 149
11/6/08 at 10:52pm
Wow - the first six chapters (chapters!) of that Newsweek article were fucking fantastic. When is Ch. 7 supposed to be posted?
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post #139 of 149
11/6/08 at 11:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan "Nordling" Cerny View Post
Man those articles... I hope somewhere a screenwriter is getting all this down. They'd make a terrific film.
Agreed. I spent way too much time reading through every article in this series this afternoon. But it was the very definition of a "page turner"
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post #140 of 149
11/6/08 at 11:45pm
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post #141 of 149
11/6/08 at 11:53pm
Is that Senator Biden's homeboy?
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post #142 of 149
11/7/08 at 12:49am
The sixth chapter of that Newsweek article says that Palin is the reason we got the Ayers attacks, or at least when we did (a week early and before McCain had agreed). It suggests that Palin thought it was fair game because of the rumors about her daughter.

It says that harping on Joe the Plumber was the result of a 4:30 a.m. inspiration of Cindy McCain and Lindsey Graham.
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post #143 of 149
11/7/08 at 12:53am
One of the many admirable things about Obama's campaign is that he never pulled out Palin's crazy witch-hating preacher, or her secessionist husband, or Bristol in a big way. I'm disappointed the rape kit issue wasn't brought up more, but I feel if Clinton had been running, we would have seen a much dirtier and disheartening campaign than we did from the Democrats. (I should really post about movies to make up for all the time in this forum. )
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post #144 of 149
11/7/08 at 12:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by myk View Post
Hey, the base got out there. Every person that's whining that McCain didn't attack enough and didn't rally the base enough is missing the much larger picture.

The Republican base has shrunk, thanks to Bush, and the Democratic base has grown, thanks to Obama and Dean's 50 state strategy.
Winner!

What we have now is essentially one legitmate politcal party with various factions vs. a largish party of wingnuts, and various tiny wingnut politcal parties like the Greens. Short term this is a good thing because we need unity. Long term we need mutiple political parties with real power and leverage in the system.
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post #145 of 149
11/7/08 at 4:48pm
Thread Starter 
BTW, a film crew was following the Obama campaign since '06 so we're going to get an inside look at the Obama campaign just like we did in "The War Room" Whether it will be as good or not remains to be seen. Here's the story.....

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6612416.html


Also, I just finished the Newsweek article on the election (all 7 parts) and it's a pretty fucking amazing read.
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post #146 of 149
11/7/08 at 4:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by yt View Post


Just sayin.
The best thing to come out of the election besides Obama's nomination is THIS VIDEO. I love how Bill put a pick on Hillary. I also love the Biden high-five.
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post #147 of 149
11/7/08 at 5:06pm
Watching Obama's press conference now. Shit just got real. It's finally settling into my conciousness as a reality that this guy will be leading us. So relieved. So excited.
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post #148 of 149
11/7/08 at 5:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by yt View Post


Just sayin.
Dayum, Obama's got game!
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post #149 of 149
11/7/08 at 5:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eyeball Kid View Post
Watching Obama's press conference now. Shit just got real. It's finally settling into my conciousness as a reality that this guy will be leading us. So relieved. So excited.
Felt like the way he personally engaged the press was a very definite statement. Couldn't be more different from Bush on that front.
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