In Memoriam - 9/11/2001

Not to get all Rudy Giuliani on everyone today, but I wanted to take a moment to remember those Americans who were killed on 9/11. Regardless of your political leanings, the fact is that those innocent lives taken were both male and female, young and old, Democrat and Republican, all ethnicities.

9/11 will always be a day where I will remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. I was less than a year removed from active military service in the United States Air Force. And I’ve gotta say, if I could have gone back in to help “smoke them out of their holes”…

Blessings!

Country First, Country Music, Country Club

You know, in watching the Republican National Convention last week, I could not help but marvel at how offensively homogeneous the party constituency appeared. Can everyone truly identify with this party? Does the shrinking Republican Party truly believe it is representative of a 21st century America? CNN senior analyst Jeffrey Toobin was even moved to comment, "The country is changing; I'm just not sure this party is changing with it."

And as these party insiders were waving their "Country First" placards amidst a barrage of character assaults on Barack Obama by the likes of Rudy "9/11" Giuliani and Fred "Droopy" Thompson, I couldn't help but reflect on how effective the party has been in hijacking certain themes from the American vernacular and branding them as their own. These brands - personal responsibility, small government, family values, party of the military, party of religion, etc. - have been very effective political tools for the Republican Party. Now they are so arrogant as to go after Barack Obama's theme of "change." Brilliant.

I do not believe, however, they have the patent on these ideologies, and in a year of critical mass and yearning for true change in this country, these brands are up for grabs. And Barack Obama had an opportunity to seize them, redefine them and use them as tools to further promote his candidacy, or at the very least inoculate himself from the standard GOP attacks that utilize many of said themes. He did not.

One particular theme the Republicans have been exceedingly successful at hijacking as their own also happens to be one of Senator Obama's greatest missed opportunities in this election cycle - patriotism. Patriotism has been bandied about by the Republican Party as a unilateral tool to question one’s love of their country if you don't fall into form behind their ideals and party platform. They have used it with so much exclusion that you wound up with a republican convention that looked more like a Carolina country club than a party of America. But Country First was their call to arms.

To Senator Obama's credit, he did briefly touch on some of these themes during the campaign but he never stuck with one and hammered the point home. Patriotism desperately needs to be redefined in this country. It certainly could be expanded to be more inclusive of disenfranchised non-voting Americans from all cultural and religious backgrounds who have come to feel as though they simply aren't 100% part of the club. Patriotism should not be defined by whether one wears a flag lapel pin on one's suit or not. Patriotism should be defined as a compendium of very different people united to serve one purpose. Those things that divide us serve only to make us stronger. Patriotism has to be progressive and graduate to the 21st century. Its definition must now include environmental consciousness. It must now include global awareness and an understanding of global interdependence. Patriotism must embody a humanitarian spirit.

The Country First definition of Patriotism has always seemed to suggest that either you are with them or against them. We can no longer afford to allow that definition to persist. The stakes are now too high. And the country is changing.

With eight weeks left, I don't believe Senator Obama can effectively seize any of these themes from the republicans. My guess is that for now, "It's the economy stupid."

I do have a few ideas on what Senator Obama can do to help his candidacy in these ensuing eight weeks and I will discuss those in my next entry. So, until then...

Toss Up Race?

Coming out of both conventions, the race is very close again. John McCain has taken a statistically insignificant lead over Barack Obama in almost all the national polls. However, if you take the state by state tracking polls out today and average them out, two states have the race polling with less than 3% separating the candidates- Colorado and Virginia.

In order to win, John McCain would have to take both states. Either state going to Barack Obama would secure him the nomination. Both states went to George Bush in 2000 and 2004. However, Virginia is looking pretty good to Democrats right now.

The race continues...

Why John McCain will win the 2008 Presidential Election…

Sarah Palin

On a day where Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, he with 9 months of political experience and a message of change, becomes the President of Pakistan, it is clear that John McCain, and not Barack Obama, is surprisingly on track to become the 44^th President of the United States. In the aftermath of the last two weeks of national political theatre, the Republicans seemed to one-up the Democrats message of Change with the unlikely and controversial choice of Sarah Palin, ostensibly the female John McCain- version 2.0, who has burst on the scene as a self-styled maverick newcomer-outsider and fired up the Republican conservative base. The Democrats rolled out Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden.

Mr. McCain’s surprise announcement of Mrs. Palin as his running mate and self described soul-mate, the day after Mr. Obama’s historic acceptance speech, has markedly narrowed the race and created an opportunity for Mr. McCain to stay competitive in a race that was headed for being a blowout. While the assumption in the Media was that after Mr. Obama’s speech, the post-convention bounce would carry him out to a 10-12% lead, McCain-Palin both energized and shored up the base while completely stepping on any Democrat bounce and tied the race again. And don't discount the contrast of Mr. McCain's having put a women on the ticket vis a vis Mr. Obama's concerted effort to keep one off his and how that could play in the mind of some female swing voters, especially those for whom the issue of abortion is not significant in their decision making process.

It should be noted that Democrats have had renewed fundraising vigor after the announcement of Mrs. Palin. However, where veep choices usually have marginal impact on presidential campaigns, none other than Oprah Winfrey proves the impact Mrs. Palin has had on this race. Ms. Winfrey recently backtracked on having Mrs. Palin on her very popular talk show, right after Mrs. Palin’s speech, saying that she may come on after the election. One can reasonably infer Mrs. Palin’s potentially favorable impact on undecided female voters vis a vis Ms. Winfrey’s support for Mr. Obama as a reason for postponing the interview. Also interesting is a Rasmussen poll out today that says Mrs. Palin’s favorable ratings are 18% higher among men than among women. So, maybe everyone has the wrong idea about, in choosing Mrs. Palin, who Mr. McCain’s target actually was.

John McCain

John McCain has rightfully conceded that Mr. Obama’s Change is the operating verb of this campaign. People are unhappy with the current state of the country. Unemployment and gas prices are way up. Almost all economic indicators are down. The War on Terror is out of sight and out of mind now that the casualties have decreased so much. Both the current Republican President and the Democrat led Congress enjoy approval ratings about as poor as they can get. In this political environment, after eight years of Mr. Bush in the White House, a Republican running for the White House should be a non-starter. And yet the race is essentially tied. For independent minded voters, there is a lot to like about both Messrs. McCain and Obama.

While Mr. Obama’s campaign has been mostly unsuccessful with anyone other than other Democrats thus far in trying to conflate Mr. McCain’s campaign with a 3^rd term of George Bush, despite a laundry list of differences and a very uncomfortable relationship between the two men by any objective observation, by seriously flirting with Joseph Lieberman, the Independent Democrat from Connecticut; Tom Ridge, the Pro-Choice former Governor of swing state Pennsylvania; and settling on Sarah Palin, Mr. McCain sent signals for more than a month that his campaign would not be the traditional “two old rich right-wing white guys” ticket. Mr. McCain can fill that bill all by himself. Mr. McCain really wanted to choose his good friend Mr. Lieberman, who was the Democrat Vice-Presidential nominee in 2000, but caved to pressure from the Republican plutocracy.

While Mr. McCain will never have the eloquence and stage presence or the delivery of Mr. Obama, Mr. McCain honored the history and formidability of his opponent Mr. Obama, provided red meat to the Republican base without the rancor and vitriol of say Rudy Giuliani or Freddie Thompson’s speeches earlier in the week, and succeeded in wrapping himself in the American flag as a true Patriot in a way that seems considerably overdone to me but I keeping hearing and reading over and over how well that plays not only with his base but also with undecided voters who have fears, whether real or imagined, about Mr. Obama.

Race. The unspoken word.

Yes, I said it. There will be people who will not vote for Mr. Obama because he is a black man. There will also be Democrats who say they will vote for Mr. Obama, go into the booth and not pull the lever for him, and then come out and say that they did. This is commonly referred to as the Bradley Effect, named after former Los Angeles Mayor Thomas Bradley who lost to future California Governor George Deukmejian in 1982 by 1.2% and again in 1986 despite being well ahead in the polls leading up to election day.

The fact that Mr. Obama is in an essentially tied race is an ominous sign, given the very real impact of the Bradley Effect. Mr. Obama’s race was an issue in the primaries, even in solidly Blue states, where Hillary Clinton was able to achieve great disparities in percentages of the Hispanic vote as well as working class white Democrats. There is real risk of Mr. Obama losing enough of those votes, which should otherwise be solidly Democrat, to swing the election to Mr. McCain…especially in Michigan, Ohio and Virginia. Those appear to be the battleground states in this election.

What’s Next?

This is a fascinating election for political junkies like me. My next blog will be called “Why Barack Obama Will Win the 2008 Presidential Election…” and will be posted after the post Republican Convention polling is done. We look forward to your comments.


Related Post: Why Barack Obama Will Win The 2008 Presidential Election

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