This once looked presumptuous... now it's looking like a pretty sure bet.

Despite how close the presidential race has been (yes, past tense, you’ll see why in a moment), for months I’ve been predicting a Obama victory, quite often with the words “I don’t see how the guy can lose.” I know, I know… Racism still exists, sure, and plenty of people still buy the notion that Republicans are the only people who can manage the military. But it’s just seemed, to me, a stretch that Americans by and large are going to vote for a man who’s so old and so utterly Washington (despite his somewhat plausible increasingly hollow claims to the contrary) when they have a chance to vote for another whose image, at least, is diametrically opposite of the lowest-approval-ratings-since-the-Nixon-era President Bush. Intellectual instead of bumbling? Check. Digests information instead of relying on an empty gut? Check. Fresh-faced and full of vigor instead of grey-haired and increasingly harried? Check.

So far, however, I’ve been mostly in the wilderness on this. So imagine my surprise to find that Daniel Larison over at The American Conservative — a man who’s voting Baldwin, no less, and has very little nice to say about Obama — has predicted the same today.

Now that it is becoming increasingly clear that McCain is going to lose in a blowout (and here I must acknowledge that I never imagined this would happen and assumed the electorate would remain evenly divided), what will be the aftermath within the GOP?

(His answer, by the way, is worth reading in full.)

Doom and gloom, say you McCainiacs reading this? I’m sorry to have to tell you this… well, I’ll just let today’s electoral count from Politico tell the tale:

(See also The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, “ObamaPollSplosion: He Breaks 50 Everywhere”)

…instead of real-ity.

Some 52.4 million people watched Friday night’s debate. That may seem like a lot, but it’s actually 16 percent fewer than watched the first debate between President Bush and John Kerry in 2004 — and despite the fact that 12 networks (all the majors, all the newsies and a few you probably don’t get) aired it live.

Why the drop? It could be because more people chose to enjoy their Friday nights out on the town, planning to watch it via Web the next day. (As far as I know, there’s no data on how many have watched it this way, nor even a way to accurately compile such data. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that Bush-Kerry debate was on a Thursday night.)

But still, the numbers are surprising. Isn’t this “the most important election of our lifetime”? Isn’t this supposed to be the most exciting election in the history of the universe? More to the point, about 38 million watched Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, and about 500,000 more than that watched McCain’s.

Let that sink in for a minute. Assuming that two-thirds of the people who watched one candidate’s acceptance speech did not watch the other’s — and, based on my totally unscientific discussions with partisans on both sides the days after each acceptance speech, that’s a pretty good guess — it’s likely that fewer people watched the debate than watched at least one of the acceptance speeches.

Real questions by a real person, vs. speeches given via TelePrompTer. Do we really care where they stand?

Recent events lead me to think otherwise. Consider how much the debate coverage focuses on personality/image/composure (McCain didn’t look at Obama! Obama didn’t have any good zingers!), while policy differences are simplified and utterly false statements are just left hanging in the air (Pakistan was not a “failed state,” as McCain chastised; Obama and Michelle are coming up on their 16th anniversary, not 15th… I bet he’s in the doghouse!).

Debates are boring. I get it — I’m not even excited about Thursday’s between Palin and Biden, despite the fact that it’s bound to be rife with comic value on both sides. But seriously! The day we’d rather hear a prepared speech than an actual spontaneous discussion on the issues is the day we’ve lost the right to complain. (Re: Bush 2000′s “steady hand” vs. Bush 2008′s stubborn refusal to consider things commonly known as “facts.”)

P.S.: This should tell you a good deal about the intelligence of the average voter. (VodPodded at right, but bigger-screen here.)

I always forget how boring these things really are. But seriously…

First off, I was pleasantly surprised on the format. So much better than the standard “90-second response, 60-second rebuttal” than we’ve seen so much of in the past. Barack Obama was definitely cooler, but was he too cool? If you’d been watching with the sound off (as Sarah Palin does with “SNL”), you’d have thought John McCain was a bit deranged… the strangely Joker-esque smile that seemed to pop up every time Obama issued some sort of criticism.

On substance, Obama was doubtless the winner, if only because he kept steering McCain’s criticisms back to relevant facts. But he never had a real body-blow against McCain, at least not the kind that politicos like me get excited about. McCain is still throwing a lot of chips on the notion that voters really care about The Surge® (which definitely is/was a tactic, not a “strategy”), and I thought Obama’s relentless refocusing on Afghanistan showed him as a new kind of Democrat, one who’s not going to be bowled over on national security as Kerry and Gore before him.

McCain was much more on the attack; for almost every question, he seemed to have a prepared zinger about some thing that Obama “supported” or “opposed” — most of them distortions, especially that bit about “negotiating without preconditions” and whether Henry Kissenger favored such a thing or not. (He does… Sullivan quickly up with this.)

I’ve got to put together the newspaper now… but a few other notes: Olbermann notes McCain wore no flag pin! … Jim Lehrer is great, even if he does look like an owl … McCain still using old lines (“I don’t know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue”) … McCain implicitly admits what neither he nor many of his GOP colleagues ever has, which is that the U.S. has tortured people.

In the midst of a very long, very funny and sometimes very harsh reaction to John McCain’s last-minute pullout from appearing on “The Late Show,” David Letterman made this astute point:

Here’s what happens. The economy is about to “crater,” and you’re a senator, a fourth-term senator from Arizona. You go back to Washington, you handle what you need to handle. Don’t suspend your campaign! You let your campaign go on, shouldered by your vice presidential nominee. That’s what you do.

The conservative pundits who don’t spend their time “spinning” everything, but who simply analyze objectively through Republican visors, are seeing this move for what it is: A stunt, and one with no obvious upside.

(Watch a condensed version of Dave’s rant here, or scroll further for the rest of the blog entry. Note particularly, late in the clip, when they grab the live feed from CBS Evening News, where McCain found time to go on with Katie Couric. Hmmm…)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjkCrfylq-E[/youtube]

Obama got in a great dig yesterday, saying a president will need to do “more than one thing at once.” Andrew Sullivan notes that most Americans want the debate to go on:

A majority of Americans say the debate should be held. Just 10% say the debate should be postponed. A sizable percentage of Americans, 36%, think the focus of the debate should be modified to focus more on the economy. 3 of 4 Americans say the presidential campaign should continue. Just 14% say the presidential campaign should be suspended. If Friday’s debate does not take place 46% of Americans say that would be bad for America.

What, realistically, is McCain going to do, other than vote? Neither he nor Obama are on the relevant steering committees for the legislation, and their presence will only bring a lot of photographers into an already hurried and frantic situation. It’s not as if you can’t vote, then go debate.

The most straight-up, honest opinion of this I’ve read came from Politico’s Arena, where each day a number of notables, intellectuals, pundits and personalities comment on an issue of the day. This was the response from a guy named Mickey Edwards, a Princeton lecturer and former Republican congressman:

Oh, brother. What idiot came up with this stunt?

It ranks somewhere on the stupidity scale between plain silly and numbingly desperate. McCain and Obama are both members of the senate and they’re both able to help craft a solution if they wish to do so without putting the presidential campaign on hold; after all, I’m sure congressional leaders would be willing to accept their calls if they have some important insights to impart. And while one of them will eventually become president, neither one is president yet, nor is either one a member of the congressional leadership; I’m confident that somehow the administration and the other 533 members of congress will be able to muddle through without tapping into the superior wisdom and intellect of their nominees. Sorry, john; it really sounds like you’re afraid to debate. This sounds like the sort of ploy we used to use in junior high school elections. [bold mind-R]

P.S.: Apologies to any McCain-loving readers out there; I’m honestly not trying to rake your guy over the coals on a regular basis. But he (or more accurately, his campaign) continues to engage in dishonest behavior, press-bashing and cheap stunts, which happen to be a big part of the vision of this blog. When Obama’s campaign pulls this stuff, I’ll have harsh words for them, too. In the meantime, check out this clip of Joe Biden, who obviously has gotten a little dusty on his American — and technological — history:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noIfl1UcCZE&eurl=http://vodpod.com/watch/1032501-biden-rewrites-history[/youtube]

Add Christopher Buckley, effete Republican and son of National Review founder and conservative icon William F. Buckley, to the list:

I’ve read Obama’s books, and I have been struck by how good a writer he is. I would be tempted to vote for him on those grounds alone, because someone who writes that well also, I think, thinks clearly. Now, Mr. Obama is left-wing. I am not left-wing. But I am probably going to vote for him on the grounds of his thoughtfulness, my hope being that once he inherits this mess—and it’s going to be a mess: he inherits a country at war and in its worst financial crisis since 1929; are you really sure, Mr. Obama, you want this job?—that his instincts and his thoughtfulness will lead him toward creative, non-ideological solutions. If he comes in and simply adopts a standard left-wing agenda, raising taxes and increasing tariffs, then I think we’re going to be in very deep trouble.

This has been my thinking exactly… after eight years of a gut-level decider with little interest in real analysis or debate, shouldn’t we ignore our tendency to run from know-it-alls and, for once, elect the smartest guy in the room? That was the rationale of fictional President Jed Bartlet on “The West Wing,” and while it’s just a TV show, it really inspired hope in me when I saw it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUa9NFBTngM&feature=related[/youtube]

Come to think of it, Bartlet recently had a talk with Obama about the strategy for the rest of the campaign. It wasn’t much reported on, except by the Times’ Maureen Dowd (read it all here):

BARTLET Well, it seems to me your problem is a lot like the problem I had twice.

OBAMA Which was?

BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them.

OBAMA And?

BARTLET I was.

OBAMA I mean, how did you overcome that?

BARTLET I won’t lie to you, being fictional was a big advantage.

OBAMA What do you mean?

BARTLET I’m a fictional president. You’re dreaming right now, Senator.

OBAMA I’m asleep?

BARTLET Yes, and you’re losing a ton of white women.

OBAMA Yes, sir.

BARTLET I mean tons.

OBAMA I understand.

BARTLET I didn’t even think there were that many white women.

OBAMA I see the numbers, sir. What do they want from me?

BARTLET I’ve been married to a white woman for 40 years and I still don’t know what she wants from me.

OBAMA How did you do it?

BARTLET Well, I say I’m sorry a lot.

PS: Sheen as Bartlet took a pretty cheap shot at Buchanan on the Emmys Sunday… surely Sorkin didn’t write that script.

Add a former National Review publisher (i.e. the big dog at the most widely-read conservative magazine) to the list:

As a cause, conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama.

The full monty is here, and worth reading for those of us who are suspect of a rather modern so-called “conservatism” that may not be worth conserving.

This really amuses me. There’s something sad about how easily the “conservative” movement — for all their “big tent” talk — tosses aside people who have been major players in the movement if they breach any one of a certain set of unwritten “rules.” One of the rules: Unwavering and extreme support for the state of Israel.

Now, how any objective person can look at the Israel-Palestinian situation of the past decades and come to the conclusion that it’s all the Palestinians’ fault is beyond me. But, that is part and parcel of the unwritten rule. Pat Buchanan — top advisor to Nixon, sometimes adviser to Reagan, and a hard-nosed defender of Republicans to this day in his common TV appearances — holds that Israel has done its share of bad, and that we as a nation have given too much help and gotten too little benefit.

That Buchanan is now posterboy in an anti-Obama ad probably amuses him too.

He’s given credit to the campaign when it’s made a good move, and lavished praise on Obama’s victory speech. Yet these are the sorts of comments he usually has for Obama — despite the fact that on foreign policy (which is a specialty of his, and with an eye toward history as a foundation), he’s far closer to Obama than McCain:

No candidate has ever been nominated by a major party with fewer credentials or a weaker claim to the presidency, or more doubts as to his core beliefs. If Obama wins, the country could be in real trouble.

… if, as Catholics believe, abortion is the killing of an unborn child, and participation in an abortion entails automatic excommunication, how can a good Catholic support a candidate who will appoint justices to make Roe v. Wade eternal … [the answer to that question is here, by the way--R]

After all, Barack did dump the flag pin. Michelle did say she had never been proud of her country before now. Barack did don that Ali Baba outfit in Somalia. His father and stepfather were Muslims. He does have a benefactor, Bill Ayers, who said after 9-11 he regrets not planting more bombs in the 1960s. He did have a pastor who lionizes Black Muslim Minister Louis Farrakhan. Put glasses on him, and Barack could play Malcolm X in the movies.

Democrats, at least, are allowed to disagree on foreign policy, disagree on gay marriage, disagree on levels of abortion procedure (and, yes, abortion generally, though pro-life Dems don’t see as much TV time). But raise legitimate questions on America’s overseas overreaching, as Buchanan does and continues to do, and you’re not welcome at the GOP’s Hannukah party.

Even if you spend most of your time trying to help John McCain get elected president.

A similar meme popped up, briefly, a couple weeks ago when Buchanan mentioned on MSNBC that Palin has been a “Buchananite,” i.e. a supporter in his attempts to get the GOP nomination in the 90s and his third-party attempts when that was denied him. Well, the right-wing blogosphere went nuts, seeking ways to “defend Sarah” against that claim. Why? Because Buchanan is not staunchly pro-Israel, which is now part of the by-laws (and a major reason conservatives would have been somewhat OK with a Lieberman pick), and so maybe Palin wasn’t ultra-pro-Israel, too… is it really about conservative principles?

Go to wikipedia and search the term “neocon.” It will truly enhance your understanding of the real Republican power players, the ones behind the scenes, the ones who turned Bush’s “we won’t get into nation-building” into “we’re going to spread democracy across the globe.” It’s these people Buchanan’s pissed off, and nothing but full recantation will appease them.

P.S.: Buchanan’s latest is an interesting read for all you Palin fans out there (he’s one of you, by the way).

No, this is not an adult-oriented post. It’s just another look at how strangely dishonest the McCain campaign has become.

Listen, when Obama said “this is the moment when the earth begins to heal and the tides begin to recede” (something like that, anyway), I was aghast and made mention of it. But in the race to see who can tell the biggest whoppers, Camp McCain is winning in a landslide. The latest? Blatant exaggeration of crowd sizes. Rachel Maddow (avowed liberal but clever, funny and relatively fair commentator) reports:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REUr6ppR_MM&eurl=http://vodpod.com/watch/1012714-the-gop-keeps-lying-and-lying-and-lying?pod=rjustin]

Housing is down. Wages are down. Gas prices are through the roof. Democrats, predictably, are set for gains in the House and Senate. 

So, why is Obama behind? 

Go elsewhere to find the answer, as that question has been a hot topic in recent weeks. But if ever there was an opportunity to be grabbed, the Dow’s huge drop today in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ fall is it.

For all Sarah Palin’s attractiveness — both as a fetching woman and as a conservative firebrand — she doesn’t bring any substantial economic prowess; John McCain infamously quipped that he doesn’t know much about the economy, and today uttered the bold claim that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong.” 

If Obama can hammer this, via ads and stumps and especially in the debates, I don’t see how he loses. Carville’s “It’s the economy, stupid” was potent in Bill Clinton’s day, when the economy was in significantly better shape than it is today. 

So forget lipstick on pigs, experience, reform, funny names and old age. Here, now, is the formula for an Obama victory in November. Either way, though, let’s hope these candidates don’t shrug off the issues any longer.

The average voter may not know that a recent John McCain ad, claiming Barack Obama sponsored legislation to teach sex education to kindergartners, is entirely false (even the cut-throat GOP operative Karl Rove said so). She may not know that Sarah Palin’s claims about her opposition to earmarks and the infamous Bridge to Nowhere are stretched truths, to say the least. The average voter may have heard Barack Obama’s promise to cut taxes to most middle-class people, and McCain’s own promise to cut taxes and his insistence that Obama’s claims are untrue — but it’s unlikely they know which (if either) holds more water.

The reason? “Objective balance.”

For years (maybe decades), it’s been widely held in journalistic circles that the proper way to approach a story is to get all sides of a story, and pay equal attention to all the sides. But there’s an obvious flaw in this approach: Namely, that the reader is given no indication of which side is more correct. That’s beginning to change, however, thanks to a bustling blogosphere/new media that has no such convictions. It must be taken with many grains of salt, sure, but as Fox Mulder would say, “The truth is out there”… somewhere.

Ex-Clinton campaign co-manager Paul Begala recently mocked this approach as the Neil Armstrong situation. (I’m paraphrasing from here on.)

Candidate A claims the moon is made of green cheese, while Candidate B claims it is made of rock. Most news channels would call it “Candidates Clash on the Moon!,” invite representatives from each campaign and let them yell at each other for a few minutes. 

Instead of just calling Neil Armstrong and asking him which one is right.

As I mentioned above, the McCain campaign ads this cycle have been SO false, and the campaign’s claims SO absurd, that even the “old guard” media is starting to play truth detector. 

Meanwhile, I’ve been particularly upset with a days-long debate over whether or not Barack Obama called Sarah Palin a “pig.” (I’d be shocked if you haven’t heard too much about this already, but if so, click here and here and here.) The way this thing has been covered, you’d think this is a really important factor in deciding our votes! Yet the issues of the day (Fannie Mae? Lehman Brothers? Going into Pakistan to find bin Laden?) have been ignored. 

This thread from a feature called “The Arena” on Politico was particularly apt. Various experts were asked the question, “Why does the press cover seemingly trivial matters like the ‘lipstick on a pig uproar’? (Or name your own trivial uproar.) Is the press complicit — or even the principal engine — in making politics so conflict-driven and superficial?” A particularly apt bit of discussion is below.

Steven G. Calabresi, Professor of law, Northwestern University:

This story was newsworthy because Obama had promised to lead us to a new post-partisan politics of hope and has instead resorted to partisan attacks.  What other promises will Obama break?

Lawrence Lessig, Professor of law, Stanford (responding to the above):

The press is trapped by the view that it can’t say what’s true if that would be seen to have an effect on an election. Think about the New York Times’ decision to withhold what it knew about the Bush Administration until after the 2004 election, for fear that if it had revealed that before the election, it would have been called “biased.” Somehow we need to elevate the idea that truth is a complete defense to the charge of bias. Armed with that complete defense, I suspect more would be willing to call the McCain campaign on this shameful misuse of what Obama said. Talk about a question of judgment: If a student of mine had read what Obama said in context, and then suggested he was really talking about Palin, I would seriously worry about whether we should arm that student with a law degree. But a law degree is a much less dangerous power than the Presidency. [bold mine-R]

And come on, Steve. A “post-partisan politics” can’t possibly mean you’re not allowed to criticize the policies of your opponent. It should instead mean you don’t make truth a function of which party it happens to benefit. That ideal should begin with us. The “interpretation” of Obama’s statement offered by the McCain campaign is absurd. If we can’t say that, then how can we expect anyone to be able to speak it?

For my part, I think the media is complicit: Not just because it pays too much attention to the sensational and not enough to the substantial (old media, including cable news, is losing ad revenue at an alarming rate, and it shouldn’t be surprising that these people air the stuff they think is exciting, which seems to bring in more viewers/readers), but also because it tries TOO HARD to be “objective,” when really it is only being “balanced.”

Balance, however, tells you nothing about the actual merits of something, unless you already know the underlying issues well. And it doesn’t take an avid viewer of Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” to know that, well, maybe a lot of us don’t know all that much.