Just like (yet, by definition, not at all like) in Iraq, the key is counterinsurgency.
An absolutely essential read over at Foreign Policy shows how General David Petraeus’ counterinsurgency strategy can lead to victory, including these so-called “paradoxes:”
Peter Berkowitz of the Wall Street Journal wants to remind both social & economic conservatives of the power of the Constitution…
“…a constitutional conservatism provides a framework for developing a distinctive agenda for today’s challenges to which social conservatives and libertarian conservatives can both, in good conscience, subscribe.
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If they honor the imperatives of a constitutional conservatism, both social conservatives and libertarian conservatives will have to bite their fair share of bullets as they translate these goals into concrete policy. They will, though, have a big advantage: Moderation is not only a conservative virtue, but the governing virtue of a constitutional conservatism.”
…while Paul Krugman recommends throwing out the GOP’s divisive strategy for success for the past 40 years:
Check out Marc Ambinder’s analysis on which GOP fights in the 1st year of the Obama administration are worth picking, including:
“The thing to do is give the automakers the money to buy some time. This is obvious to the current administration, the incoming administration, a majority in the House of Representatives and the Democrats in the Senate — but not to the Senate Republicans. They killed the bailout measure by demanding that the United Auto Workers agree to sharp, almost immediate cuts in wages and benefits.
Funny, I don’t recall a cry from Senate Republicans for salary caps on the stockbrokers whose jobs were saved in the Wall Street bailout. Nor, to my knowledge, have they demanded that white-collar workers in the auto companies take pay cuts. I do recall lectures from some Republicans in the Senate about how inadvisable it is for government to meddle in the workings of the free market. In my book, renegotiating labor contracts qualifies as meddling.
Some of the most vocal critics of a Detroit bailout — Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), for example — happen to have foreign-owned auto plants in their home states. This has led to accusations that they are deliberately trying to sabotage the Big Three to help foreign automakers, but I think it’s more likely that they’re just being doctrinaire and ultimately self-defeating.”
Emphasis mine.
I suppose that viewpoint is expected from the left-leaning Robinson, but I was surprised that someone on the right shares his view, someone who has a Midas-like knack for being wrong on just about everything:
A concise & fantastic piece from Richard Posner dissects not only the recent splintering of the Republican party, but also what led liberals astray during the Reagan era; he offers excellent advice for breaking the chains of dogma:
This is part of why I was so perplexed when Sarah Palin mocked ‘community organizing’ in her convention speech last September; does she not realize how it’s leading us down the path to victory around the world?
David Brooks elaborates:
Could Neal Gabler have just hit the nail on the head when it comes to the reason the GOP had such a crushing defeat this year? I do believe so. He charts a different course in the rise of conservative success not with Barry Goldwater, but with Joe McCarthy:
“Reagan’s sunny disposition and his willingness to compromise masked the McCarthyite elements of his appeal, but Reaganism as an electoral device was unique to Reagan and essentially died with the end of his presidency. McCarthyism, on the other hand, which could be deployed by anyone, thrived. McCarthyism was how Republicans won. George H.W. Bush used it to get himself elected, terrifying voters with Willie Horton. And his son, under the tutelage of strategist Karl Rove, not only got himself reelected by convincing voters that John Kerry was a coward and a liar and would hand the nation over to terrorists, which was pure McCarthyism, he governed by rousing McCarthyite resentments among his base.
The latest installment of our listening in to the discussions among conservatives about the future of the conservative movement, after the jump.
Ross Douthat gets it exactly right:
“This problem is not, repeat not, a matter of conservatives needing to abandon their core convictions in order to win elections, as right-of-center reformers are often accused of doing. Rather, Read the rest of this entry »
1. Avoid mindless opposition. We should support President Obama when he is right (Afghanistan), persuade him when his mind appears open (trade) and oppose him when he is wrong (taxes). It is the Republican Party’s job to hold him accountable on the merits only.
4.Republicans must regain ground among critical voting groups. Voters ages 18–29 voted Democratic by a 2-to-1 margin. A market-oriented “green” agenda that’s true to our principles would help win them back. Hispanics dropped from 44 percent Republican in 2004 to 31 percent in 2008. The GOP won’t be a majority party if it cedes the young or Hispanics to Democrats. Republicans must find a way to support secure borders, a guest-worker program and comprehensive immigration reform that strengthens citizenship, grows our economy and keeps America a welcoming nation. An anti-Hispanic attitude is suicidal. As the party of Lincoln, Republicans have a moral obligation to make our case to Hispanics, blacks and Asian-Americans who share our values. Whether we see gains in 2010 depends on it.
& probably what I think is the most important:
[above: Snakeranch, Missouri, January, 1978. photograph by my father.]
Intriguing idea from Jesse Walker:
“Expel your base or retreat into an echo chamber: If those choices seem dispiriting, Republicans can take heart. Read the rest of this entry »
Republicans: if you are interested in finding your way out of the wilderness, a good place to start is GOPAC (the GOP’s political action committee) chair Michael Steele, writing today in the Wall Street Journal:
The future White House Chief of Staff helped the Democrats gain ground in western North Carolina’s Congressional district, with some relentless pressure applied to former Vols quarterback Heath Shuler.
What can the GOP do to recover?
Here’s what some conservatives are saying:
Although John McCain’s loss was not as numerically stunning as the 1964 defeat of Barry Goldwater, who won 16 fewer states and 122 fewer electoral votes than McCain seems to have won as of this writing, Tuesday’s trouncing was more dispiriting for conservatives. Goldwater’s loss was constructive; it invigorated his party by reorienting it ideologically. McCain’s loss was sterile, containing no seeds of intellectual rebirth.
Some of you will say “we have learned our lesson“, and then try to pass off cosmetic changes as Reform. You are the problem.
Some of you will say “Republicans need to fight/hold Democrats accountable“, as if it is sufficient to be against Democrats. The pendulum may eventually swing back to you, but you won’t know what to do with it.
Some of you will say “Republicans need to carry our message to the American people“, as if the problem is that Republicans haven’t been saying “tax cuts and limited government” loudly enough. The problem is not the inability to communicate; the problem is that you have no idea how to actually deliver on those ideas.
Others will say “Republicans need to be more principled“, as if the problem is a mere lack of personal courage and principle by Republicans. Even the best people can’t limit government if there is not an effective strategy for implementation - for getting “from here to there”. You don’t need better people. You need a better strategy.
People have been focusing on whether the youth vote was up. It was — slightly: going from 17 to 18 percent. But the real story about the youth vote is not how many “new” voters Obama got to show up. It’s how he produced a gargantuan 25% swing among existing young voters, or those who were sure to vote for the first time anyway.
How big?
18 percent times a 25 percent increase in the Democratic margin equals 4.5 points, or a majority of Obama’s popular vote margin. Had the Democratic 18-29 vote stayed the same as 2004’s already impressive percentage, Obama would have won by about 2 points, and would not have won 73 electoral votes from Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, or Indiana.
So, to clarify here: Obama’s youth margin = 73 electoral votes. Without the economic crisis, this would have been the difference.
Above: NewsChannel9’s Derek Dellinger speaks with Zach Wamp.
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Early voting’s been extended, too; read more about it here.
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Above: Columbus, Ohio, last night.
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Above: a home-video from Latrobe, last night.
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Above: Joe Biden in Delaware, at his alma-mater
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The Tennessee Senate race (between Alexander & Tuke) has nowhere near the excitement as Georgia’s or North Carolina’s on Tuesday night.
But you should pay close attention to the degree of GOP losses in the Senate.
The more losses there are, the more freshman Tennessee Senator Bob Corker has to gain on the Senate hierarchical ladder. He has the potential to climb a few ‘bonus’ rungs if experienced GOPers like Alaska’s Ted Stevens or NC’s Elizabeth Dole or KY’s Mitch McConnell find defeat.
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Senator Saxby Chambliss, (R) Georgia, yesterday:
“There has always been a rush to the polls by African-Americans early,” he said at the square in Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate Republicans to turn out. “It has also got our side energized, they see what is happening,” he said.
Careful with that “our side,” Senator.
Check the latest polls in the GA Senate race here.
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Read Rick Davis’ memo here, with Marc Ambinder’s observations in italics.
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Charles Blow recaps.
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Several pollsters weigh in here.
Keep in mind the impact of any “late surprise” is diminished by early voting.
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Above: Dick Cheney stumps for McCain in Wyoming.
I thought it was well-done. It certainly beats Ross Perot’s informercial from 1992.
He kept it positive - didn’t mention the word “Bush” once.
Watch & tell me what you think.
Read McCain’s ‘prebuttal’ to the infomercial here.
A lot of you have voted already. As of Monday, more than 50,000 people have voted in Hamilton County.
Which way are early voters leaning? Marc Ambinder:
Obama leads by 16 points among likely voters, by 17 points among independents, by 13 points among men, by 20 points among women, is tied among whites, and is up eight among white Catholics. Of the 15 percent of the sample who’ve already voted, Obama leads by 19 points (although this subsample has a fairly large MoE). 74% of Obama’s backers say they support him “strongly,” which is 20 points higher than the percentage who say the same about their support for McCain.
Click here for the full Pew results, as of Tuesday.
Here’s a site where you can see the early voting numbers already in from around the country. Very useful.
From that site I glean:
The Peach state is turning into one of THE states to watch this year - & I had written that state off months ago, back when Bob Barr’s Georgia support started dropping off.
& not just the presidential race. The battle for Saxby Chambliss’ Senate seat remains intense.
The two latest polls come from polling firms that lean either way.
The left-leaning InsiderAdvantage poll has Saxby Chambliss & Jim Martin at 46-44%, That same poll also shows McCain leading by just 1 point).
The right-leaning Strategic Vision poll has Chambliss up by 2, & McCain up by 6.
& it’s possible that Georgia may be the last Senate race called - as in called several weeks after election night. MSNBC’s First Read blog explains:
“If Martin wins, he’ll have Obama to thank because the surge in African-American turnout is clearly benefiting the Democrat. By the way, Georgia could be the state that is the final race called in the country. Why? The state has that quirky runoff law, and a third-party candidate in the race might hold one of the major party candidates under 50%. The last time Georgia hosted a Senate runoff was the last time the country elected a new Democratic president: 1992, when the election of Clinton ended up helping the Republicans pull the Senate upset (Paul Coverdell defeated Wyche Fowler). This time, however, Republicans fear that an Obama victory will only energize African Americans in the runoff and make Chambliss’ path to victory even more difficult.”
Speaking of African-American turnout, it’s huge in Georgia - check it out. Georgia’s Secretary of State reports that 35% of early voters are African-American - more than double the percentage of the state’s population.
& there seems to be a correlation between a state’s African-American voting population & percentage of early voter turnout. FiveThirtyEight.com’s Nate Silver has the details here. In short, the higher the percentage of blacks in a state, the higher early voter turnout is. The states with the highest turnout are Georgia, North Carolina & Louisiana.
Can McCain count on voters who make up their minds in this final week? The trends (from Pollster.com) from past Presidential elections, in terms of their numbers, don’t look promising:
Click this link (again, to Pollster.com) to find out which way those last-minute voters swing.
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But still, interestingly, yet probably unsurprisingly, Obama still faces a major disadvantage with voters down here in that long-GOP stronghold, the South, per ABC News:
Obama is outperforming any Democrat back to Jimmy Carter among white voters, getting 45 percent to McCain’s 52 percent. But in the South, it is a very different story. Obama fares worse among Southern whites than any Democrat since George McGovern in 1972.
Whites in the East and West tilt narrowly toward Obama (he’s up 8 and 7 points, respectively), and the two run about evenly among those in the Midwest. By contrast, Southern whites break more than 2 to 1 for McCain, 65 percent to 32 percent.
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Above: wet, wet wet conditions in Chester, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Doesn’t look fun at all.
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Above: Obama making calls to undecided voters in Colorado.
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Michelle Obama appeared on Jay Leno Monday. Click here to watch.
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From the Toot:
“…once you’ve made a narrative choice, you do have to stick with it - you can’t just keep bouncing around, or people become confused. If you are telling the story of a scary vampire, you can’t decide in chapter 2 that he’s also 500 feet tall and radioactive and bent on destroying Tokyo, in chapter 3 that he is actually a giant man-eating shark, and in chapter 4 that he is all this and a super-terrorist trying to plant a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. All of these things are, indeed, scary, but taken together they add up to a muddle.
This is the problem. It’s not just the McCain campaign’s problem - although their inability to pick a narrative and stick to it is a special kind of inexcusable - it’s a problem for the entire wingnut noise machine. Obama is a Marxist Muslim Arab Jesus Black White Terrorist Technocrat Racist Do-Gooder Liberal FDR Stalin Hilter Commie Fascist Gay Womanizing Naive Cynical Insider Noob Boring Radical Unaccomplished Elite Slick Gaffe-Prone Pedophile Pedophile-Seducing Liberation Theology Atheist Etc. & Anti-Etc. with a bunch of scary friends from - wait for it! - the Nineteen Hundred And Sixties. It makes no sense. It’s a jumble sale of fears and scary associations from 50 years of wingnut witch hunts and smear campaigns, a flea market of pre-owned and antique resentments, and if one does detect a semi-consistent 1960’s motif running through it all, that’s because that’s when most of these ideas were coined.”
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Above: at a joint rally with Sarah Palin in Hershey Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
He also appeared in North Carolina..
…but, interestingly, without incumbent GOP Senator Elizabeth Dole. (this may be why)
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It’s the major card McCain has left to play. But Newsweek’s Andrew Romano is pessimistic. Former Bush staffer Peter Wehner hsays the party needs to return to its reformist roots [which, I'd add, is what John McCain should have pushed harder for - challenging his party to return to its fundamental principles - instead of blatantly pandering to its base, which has spent the past year essentially rooting for the status quo, or at least is blind to why the status quo is in such a sorry state].
Single-party government rarely works for very long. It tends to overreach when there are no limits to those in power (see Congress/President Bush, 2002-2006). If this plays out, that will bode well for the beginning of a comeback for the now-battered GOP. [though I will say that if you sat on your hands & approved of how things were run under Republican leadership, you have a smaller rhetorical leg to stand on.]
['divided' here being less than a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate]
If this crazy year ends the way the trends are looking - that Obama will be elected - Obama’s historical standing would improve if he brought about change with the help & support of the minority party.
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Why is McCain behind Obama in the Pennsylvania polls? Michael Barone hazards a guess:
“My hypothesis is that that is because places like the Philly suburbs are places where the recent decline in household wealth has been most conspicuous. Housing prices mean a lot more to you when your house started off at $400,000 and declined to $290,000 than they did when you started off (as may be typical of Scranton or a blue-collar town in metro Pittsburgh) at $140,000 and declined to $110,000. Newspaper coverage of our current economic distress focuses on the very poor (like a recent Washington Post story on North Carolina, which focused on an ex-convict in a cheap motel in Charlotte), but the people who are getting hurt most visibly in their lifelong project of accumulating wealth are the more affluent. They’re the ones whose house values have most visibly and spectacularly declined, and whose 401(k) accounts and stock portfolios have tanked in the last few months as well. Folks in Scranton or in the cheap motel in Charlotte didn’t expect to live comfortably ever after off their increased house values, 401(k)’s, and Merrill Lynch accounts; a $700 monthly check from Social Security is about what they have long expected and that’s not in danger (yet). Folks in the Philly suburbs did expect to live comfortably off such assets.”
& he concludes
“The irony here is that voters motivated by anger at the decline in their wealth seem about to elect a president who has promised to embark on wealth-destroying policies.”
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The exodus of a chunk of voters - Libertarians - who traditionally vote Republican, that’s what.
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Here’s a view-from-the-crowd at a Joe rally in New Port Richey, Florida on Monday. He remained in Florida on Tuesday.
Above: at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, appearing with McCain.
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Sadly, there appears to be quite a few reports of ‘ugly Americanism‘ at her rallies, & that’s a shame for Palin & her supporters, who in my opinion should quickly & forcefully speak out about those who would tarnish her image, especially if you are hoping she becomes the Republican party’s standard-bearer after the election.
That’s it for now! I know it’s a lot to digest, but please feel free to comment on anything mentioned above. ALL views are welcome here.
& check back later in the day, as I’ll provide more info in this post. Let me know what you think of the ‘one-post’ format. I think I’ll stick to doing it this way through the home stretch.
[above: Obama the Cabbage Patch candidate]
Above: the “One Week” closing argument speech given in Canton, Ohio yesterday.
The Weekly Standard’s Arnon Mishkin dubs it “the Obama Effect” in an attempt to crack the nut that is this year’s undecided voters:
Where there is a perception that there is a “socially acceptable” choice, respondents who do not articulate it, are likely not to agree with it. Are they lying? Or just genuinely torn about taking that route or another? I am not going to psychoanalyze what is going on in their heads, but in the end, the pattern tends to be that those undecided voters vote against that “socially acceptable” choice.
Nate over at FiveThirtyEight.com refutes this theory by Bill Greener at Salon.com, who says Obama cannot win if his numbers are under 50%, & he uses Tennessee’s 2006 Senate race as an example:
“Problem #2: Greener cherry-picks his data in literally every race. He isn’t even subtle about it. Here is a good example:
How about Tennessee, where black Democrat Harold Ford was up against white Republican Bob Corker for Republican Bill Frist’s old U.S. Senate seat? Harold Ford did slightly better than Steele and Blackwell. The day before the election, he was within a point of Corker, 47 to 48 with 5 percent undecided, according to OnPoint Polling. On Nov. 7, Corker got 50.7 percent of the vote, Ford got 48 and an assortment of independents took 1.3 percent. Ford was able to pick up one out of every five undecided voters.
OnPoint was the only polling firm to show the Tennessee race within 1 point on the eve of the election. Meanwhile, Gallup showed a 3-point lead for Corker, Rasmussen showed a 4-point lead for Corker, SurveyUSA and Pollmetrix showed 5-point leads, and Mason-Dixon showed a 12-point lead. Corker eventually won by 2.7 points, smaller than the margin predicted by all firms but OnPoint.”
If you’re interested in trying to figure out 2008’s undecideds, I recommend clicking on all the links provided above.
What do you think?
Today’s most interesting writings about the future of conservatism - by conservatives - in the blogosphere:
“the problem is real: the mechanisms for acceptable self-criticism on the right aren’t very good, especially in election years. Any institution, even one with noble intentions, that dedicates itself to simple self-preservation without the added step of self-monitoring is bound to face corruption, disarray, and discontent. Do I have a grand, systematic solution? No, but a little more honesty and public self-questioning from any somewhat influential conservative who can afford to do so would certainly help.”
Patrick Ruffini, the Next Right:
“Like Mark McKinnon I too feel the McCain camp could probably have done some things differently, but it probably wouldn’t be enough to save them. What is striking about 2008 is how little the campaigns have mattered in comparison to the fundamental nature of the two men running.
Nothing the McCain campaign did could change the reality of McCain the candidate’s poor management instincts and his tendency to fidget around and not stay on message. When the economic crisis hit, this reality flew in the face of the McCain campaign’s message of steadiness versus inexperience. Whether by design or the candidate’s nature, Obama’s caution and deliberation was a living, breathing talking point against the experience card.
Likewise, I think it will be said that the McCain campaign has yet to really lay a glove on Obama character-wise because Obama himself simply does not project the cloying, insecure, effete tendencies of past nominees like Gore and Kerry, though the only two times he’s come close (Wright and bitter/cling) have barely figured in the general election campaign. I do think “celeb” was the best chance we had to define Obama personally, but again, though there is something to be said for attacking a guy’s strength, Obama’s grassroots appeal was a legitimate strength, not a hidden weakness.”
Whatever direction you think conservatism should be going in from here on out, the absolute worst thing the members of a losing political movement can do - if they ever want to win again, at least - is attempt to pre-emptively close off debate about the movement’s future. Conservatives need to have arguments, not promise excommunications, or else pretty soon there won’t be very much worth arguing over.
Daniel Finkelstein, the (London) Times Online:
“I was in Conservative Central Office in May 1997, on the night the Tory Party lost power after 18 years. I saw friends, and people I liked a little less than that, lose their seats or scrape home. And then the Prime Minister, John Major, returned and took his friends and advisers to a private room where he talked to us of his plans to resign as Conservative leader the next morning.
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There was a feeling of euphoria in Britain that morning, a feeling of freshness and change. Even people who hadn’t voted for Blair were caught up in it. Many of them wished that they had, and his poll rating soared. Much of the good feeling about new Labour was generated in the months after their landslide, oddly, rather than in the months before it.
And here’s the lesson for Tories. The hardest thing to absorb was this - we didn’t matter.
For the first time in years the story wasn’t about us, and our squabbles and intrigues seemed oddly silly and pointless. And we, especially those of us who had worked on the losing campaign, felt excluded from a great national party. It was a little bit like sitting in the gloomy train Woody Allen films in Stardust Memories, while in the happy train everyone is popping champagne corks.
The first step towards recovery for the Conservative party was to stop thinking that we were the centre of the universe and that what we thought mattered more than what others thought.
The Republicans are about to go through a period of self absorption and will think it is all that matters. They will only recover when they start to understand that no one is watching and that no one, except them, cares.
That realisation will be more painful than the battles themselves.”
What do you think?
Above: “I Am Joe,” a new supporter-submitted video campaign that you can see at the John McCain website blog. Click here for more, & watch a clip from Nashville after the jump.
Above: in Denver, before a crowd of 100,000 people on Sunday.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says it’s broken up a plot by skinheads to launch an attack on a black high school and to assassinate Barack Obama.
According to court records, two neo-Nazi skinheads planned to rob a gun store and target an unnamed high school in Tennessee. There, it’s alleged, the two planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are said to have significance among white supremacists.
The two then allegedly planned to kill Obama, despite their doubts they could pull off an assassination.
They’ve been identified as 20-year old Daniel Cowart of Bells, Tennessee, and 18-year-old Paul Schlesselman, of West Helena, Arkansas. Both are being held without bond. They allegedly had a rifle, a sawed-off shotgun and three pistols when they were arrested.
The Obama campaign hasn’t commented on the arrests.
Thank goodness for the ATF.
One tidbit from the news release, which I just read: AFTER they shot up a school, killing 102 people, AFTER they spray-painted their car with racist symbols & slogans, they were going to get to Obama as fast as they could, & kill him shooting from their car’s windows - all while wearing top hats & white tuxedos.
Above: last night’s Georgia Senate debate.
This race is incredibly close.
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: Based on what I’ve seen in this debate, I predict Chambliss will win. A close race, to be sure, but he’ll win. Watch how he easily is able to fend off not one but two challengers on the stage. The man appears far more comfortable in his skin than the other two. Jim Martin continually lets himself be interrupted, & he doesn’t convey a good speaking style that says “I’m in control.”
Of course, I could be wrong.
But if Chambliss wins, remember where you heard it first.
Above: a rally in Cincinnati two days ago (the YouTube clips from his speeches from the past 2 days that I’ve found are less than 1:00 long)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - John McCain has been campaigning energetically in the Western states, claiming a home-court advantage in the region.
The Arizona senator is stumping through New Mexico and Texas, pointing out that he understands the issues the West faces.
He’s also been portraying Barack Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal interested in “redistributing wealth” than creating it. At an outdoor rally in New Mexico, he said “We’ve seen that movie before in other countries. That’s not America.”
McCain also made note of the Obama campaign’s huge financial advantage. He told the crowd not to let Obama “buy New Mexico.”
[this post originally appeared July 24th, when Obama was on his 'world tour']
What’s on McCain’s schedule today that attempts to compete with Obama’s mega-headline-getting speech in Berlin?
He’s apparently meeting with business leaders in German Village, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, at some German restaurant:
Know what he SHOULDA done?
Come to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where one of Germany’s biggest companies has just announced it’s setting up shop!
Think of it! He could have said "My friends, while my opponent is over in Germany making I-Love-Europe platitudes to adoring crowds, I’m here in the heart of America where German industry just made a decision to invest time & money in something that creates thousands of jobs & improves the economy, which by the way is what voters are telling me is their #1 issue this election."
(*sigh*)
Sometimes I think I’m in the wrong business.
UPDATE: Furthering my point.. here’s Obama yesterday…
..& here’s McCain yesterday:
"FUDGE HAUS ?" Come. On.
Also in the running for worst backdrop of the week to talk to the media: the cheese aisle :
"Mac & cheese?" Uh-uh. Shoulda come to the Scenic City, Senator.
(this post originally appeared on April 23rd of this year)
John McCain can’t win the general election .
No, Barack Obama can’t win the general election .
No, seriously, John McCain can’t win the general election .
That may be true, but Barack Obama can’t win the general election .
What do you think?
(above: McCain as a baby)
What do you think?
Mikhail Emelianov writes a defense of the flip-flop:
“…if a politician changes his mind on the issue, then he is “for it before he was against it” and it’s a horrible thing. TV commercials are reciting a specific point of view over and over again, candidates give the same speech over and over again, proposals are made - repetition is the k
