Proof that Obama Won

Three things to read/watch:

1. Nate Silver:

2. Talking Points Memo:

and then watch this (and remember that this is Fox News.)

3. Video from a Fox News focus group

The Precursor To Intrade

120 years ago.

My Debate Reaction

I think Obama was strong--didn't crush McCain, but came out ahead.

This, however, is a devastating result for McCain for two reasons:

1. McCain is behind and needed a game-changer.
   
2. This debate will be the most watched, and was on McCain's presumed turf: foreign policy. Consequently, it was his best chance for a big win. I also think, after three weeks of devastating media coverage, there was an opportunity for a narrative shift, which does not seemed to have happened.
   

On the non-substantive issues, I think McCain lost as well. His churlish, angry behavior will be mercilessly mocked on Saturday Night Live tomorrow, and the CW will be set from this debate. As some have noted, McCain's sneer = Gore's sighs. Obama seemed calm, cool and collected.

The snap polls from the networks seem to indicate a universal opinion that Obama won this.

Personally, I think Obama won this narrowly. But he won it on the road, and now the series shifts back to Barack Field.

For the record, this debate series most closely resembles the old 5-game MLB playoffs. The worse team got the first two games at home, but the better team would get game 3, and then 4 and 5 if necessary.

McCain lost his home field early, and now cannot regain the advantage. He could always win on the road, but that is going to be much harder for him.

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Wolfson Repudiates Wolfson's Strategy

Is it me, or is this nothing short of amazing coming from former Hillary Clinton communication czar Howard Wolfson:

John McCain's reversal of his pledge not to attend tonight's debate unless there was an agreement on a Wall Street bailout illustrates the dangers of chasing news cycles.

[...]

This is a campaign flying by the seat of its pants, chasing news cycles without a real plan once it has caught them.

The Obama campaign gets up every day and asks themselves how they can make the case for change vs more of the same, just as they did yesterday, and they will do tomorrow.

The McCain campaign wakes up and figures out how to try to win the day.

Its the difference between strategy and tactics, between a message and a war room, and it is among the reasons why Barack Obama, and not John McCain, is the clear favorite to be our next President.

Find and replace "John McCain" with "Hillary Clinton" and Wolfson is blasting the exact tactics that Wolfson himself was employing four months ago.

Princess Palin

A very smart reader writes:

Did you ever think that the

McCain/Palin/Lieberman triad

is similar to

Charles/Diana/Camilla?

Palin pulled media attention completely away from McCain...

Did you see the COMPLETE COMFORT in McCain's body language in DC, yesterday, with Lieberman by his side?

GOP Chickens Are Coming Home To Roost

Remember when I argued that Palin was going to be a disaster because too many forces within the GOP would now be rooting against John McCain?

Enter Mike Huckabee:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday that Sen. John McCain made a “huge mistake” by even discussing canceling the presidential debate with Sen. Barack Obama.

[...]

Huckabee said he still backs McCain’s candidacy, but said the Arizona senator should not have put his campaign on hold to deal with the financial crisis on Wall Street. He said a president must be prepared to “deal with the unexpected.”

“You can’t just say, ‘World stop for a moment. I’m going to cancel everything,”‘ Huckabee said.

And then the coup de grace:

“I don’t have any immediate plans to seek office,” he said.

Suuuuuuure....

Alia Iacta Est

At this point, with no deal to be struck before the markets open tomorrow morning--and presumably crater, isn't it completely in the Democrats best interests to stonewall the Republicans and force John McCain to either show up in Mississippi, eat crow and lose face, or cede 90 minutes of free media to Barack Obama in front of 40 million people?

McCain has brought this on himself.

Prediction

If McCain signs on to the bailout bill, he's going to start referring to it as a $700 Billion "economic surge."

Forget 3 AM

Would you want Sarah Palin to answer a 3 PM phone call?

Somebody pinch me

Marc Ambinder on what McCain proposed today:

One the proposals -- favored by House Republicans -- would relax regulation and temporarily get rid of certain taxes in order to lure private industry into the market for these distressed assets.

Wait a second. John Sidney McCain III, who has been pilloried over the past two weeks for being an architect (or at least an enabler) of the massive deregulation that has gotten us into this mess, and seen his popularity and poll numbers plummet as a result, goes to Washington D.C. "to save the bailout plan" and proposes more deregulation?

The Chewbacca Defense looks like the Allegory of the Cave compared to this insanity.

If John McCain is a Wookie, you must spend $700 billion.

The Irony of McCain 2008

Has anyone noticed how ironic it is that after basing his entire candidacy on the success of the surge to break the back of the insurgents in Iraq, John McCain is now running his entire campaign essentially as a guerilla insurgency? Shock tactics and stunts to scare the populace.

Weird times.

Baseball

I hope everyone hates baseball as much as I do right now.

If not, read this and at least you will hate baseball players.

A Broken Record

Ok, posting all of the articles and opinion pieces where McCain gets blasted is becoming a bit repetitious. But, I thought this one was particular good:

Joe Klein:

John McCain faced another crisis yesterday--a political one, not the financial emergency he used as an excuse for his rash actions--and once again he overreacted. This is becoming a pattern (as is his "greatest crisis since..." formulation: yesterday, since World War II; previously--on Georgia--since the end of the cold war), and it is not very reassuring behavior in a potential President.

[...]

And that raises an interesting question: Why was McCain so quick to pull out of the debate? After all, with the momentum slightly in Obama's direction, he needed a game-changer--and foreign policy is, allegedly, his area of expertise. His peremptory actions yesterday was not the behavior of a confident man. It was the behavior of a man uncertain, despite all the macho bluster, about his chances in the most important theater of battle in any presidential campaign, one where gimmicks, diversions and untruths can be directly countered by his opponent. McCain may clean Obama's clock in the coming debates--but it seems entirely possible that the old fighter jock may be frightened that he's about to ditch another plane.

McCain's Alpha and Omega is David Letterman

No one probably remembers this, but John McCain actually began his 2008 campaign by announcing on Letterman's show:

(CBS won't allow this video to be embedded)


Last night, a furious Letterman may have ended it:

Darth Vader Tweets

Vader:

Did I call a time out after my stupid son blew up the Death Star? Hell no! I took the boys to Hoth and laid the smack down. Feh.

Reagan and Bugs Bunny

Nate Silver says one of the reasons that he became a Democrat was:

When I was a kid, once every now and then, they had Bugs Bunny specials scheduled for prime time ... I looked forward to these for weeks. But invariably, invariably! -- or so it seemed when I was six years old -- they'd be preempted by Ronald Reagan giving a speech. I was sure what Mr. Reagan was saying was very important ... but I absolutely hated him as a result.

Oddly, I had exactly the same experience, though I remember specifically being incensed that Bugs Bunny was preempted the night that Reagan was shot.

Will McCain "Win The Week"?

We're waiting, Halperin.

Intrade Correction

Seemingly on the order of 8 points (+4 Obama, -4 McCain):

1. Nate Silver Transparency effect?

2. ABC/Washington Poll effect?

3. McCain's debate gambit judged to be a major blunder?

Some combination of all three?

John McCain is like Bush

(warning: may contain obscure 1980's Seattle Seahawks reference.)

As Josh Marshall says:

What's changed today in the financial crisis other than John McCain's poll numbers tanking? Isn't this the campaign equivalent of faking an injury when you're down late in the 4th quarter? Note too that McCain was in the midst of debate prep when he made this decision.

This makes McCain more like Bush than ever before.

Blair Bush.

Rats. I just remembered that it was actually Joe Nash who used to fake injuries.