McCain Campaign strategy: a series of gimmicks.

Seriously, Palin worked kind of well because people finally started to pay attention to McCain in a what the hell is doing kind of way. However the whole hiding her away and refusing to talk with anybody kind of think is irksome. Now, his plan is to shutdown his campaign during the economic crisis. Because nobody has the power to have advertisements run in their name and have other people hammer out the specifics of a plan and then have a debate. McCain can only do one thing at a time.



Hiding does not make for a successful campaign and neither does shutting down your campaign.

John McCain polling well, economy plummets... McCain says economy is doing well.

It could be a good and nuanced argument to suggest that the government could have perhaps stopped the damage at the housing market by making some steps in the right direction when the first bits started to trickle like the Danish boy who put his finger in a dike (that's not how dikes work and its a myth and only an American myth at that). However, I'd like to make another argument...

The economy hates John McCain. It wants regulation and somebody to stop the losses and when it became possible that there would be more hands-off and deregulation (to solve the problems caused by deregulation), which reminds me of Enron claiming that the California brownouts were caused by too much regulation rather than Enron manipulating the market to steal lots of money, being able to because there was deregulation, just as Bush took office to remove the protections against price gouging Clinton put in before he left.

Deregulation causes a problem, the solution is clearly more deregulation. I think the market is suffering heart attacks and wants more red meat but really wants a nurse to regulate its diet and make sure it doesn't die. When red meat gets potentially back on the menu, it becomes obvious that you're going to die and it causes depression. There might be hope under a Democratic administration. Under a Republican administration lead by lobbyists and self-admitted economic novices it's pretty much game over.

I give up. John McCain is a scientologists.

I have this on good authority. How do we start sending this around as an email? He's an OCII which is before you learn about Xenu. He'd probably deny it knowing that's it's probably politically costly.

Understanding Palin.

* -- Please note nothing about this post is meant to be pejorative. I actually really like that song. Redneck pride has actually been coming up a lot in recent years. I don't like Palin, and figure this might put her in better light than she deserves. I'm pissed that all my politics talk about policy debates and national conventions got turned into the Jerry Springer show upon the unvetted whim of somebody who crassly thinks that women really wanted to vote for just some woman on a presidential ticket (if it was that simple Kathleen Sebelius might have got the Dem's nod, but they actually wanted Clinton herself).

You know they are digging when they pad the resume.

Sarah Palin lived really close to Russia.
Sarah Palin stopped in Ireland for half an hour last year.
Sarah Palin has executive experience in the PTA.



Even with that gone I think Obama should just stick to the message he outlined in the convention because this plays into his hand so well. John McCain doesn't have the judgment or temerity to be president. He agrees with George W. Bush 90% of the time. On Iraq he was wrong. On timetables he was wrong. On energy he was wrong. On healthcare he was wrong. On veterans issues he was wrong. Contrast with correct choices made by Obama on those issues. Then bring up the first presidential decisions each of them made. Obama picked Joe Biden as VP who has more foreign policy experience than anybody in Washington and who nobody would doubt for a second could be president at a moments notice (even though Obama is perfectly healthy) whereas McCain picks the most inexperienced person possible while his health and age isn't that great. Really?

The republicans still aren't done with the convention stuff. They could still say "Psyche! It's Romney!"

John McCain Was In Cone Of Silence.

If you've never seen Get Smart then you'd know the Cone of Silence is a common joke where the cone doesn't do anything. It leaks soundwaves like a sieve. So in the Saddleback church forum where the candidates discussed their love of pixies. The point of cone of silence is to allow everybody to hear em.

There's some pretty strong and fun suggestions that McCain had a heads up on the questions. Which is a great talking point if you want to gloss over the fact that he was in a very pro-McCain situation and not want to focus on the subjects of the debate. Which to Obama was just to state repeatedly that he was Christian.

In case you're stupid and think McCain is the lesser of two evils

Unneeded Followup

The response to the below McCain Ad. All of which seems a little pointless.

When you spend years being tortured you want a pretty wife.

I know the campaign is getting into full swing but that's an impressively depressing story. Before McCain was released from his POW camp his wife got in a car accident and was hurt, crippled, and put on some weight... so when McCain came back he started stepping out on her and married his new wife 18 years his junior and with considerable wealth about a month after divorcing the woman he came home to.

That's kinda cold.

Why won't she quit? Because she's not stupid.

As much as she's lost, she's also tantalizingly close.

Anybody who wonders why Hillary Clinton hasn't quit needs to take a couple seconds in her shoes. She's 160 delegates down with 400 delegates left. But, she knows as well as anybody else that the Democratic Nominee is going to be president. Either of them would probably win with ease. That said, would you ask that McCain stop his campaign in October? All your really mean ads are going to hurt the unity of the country and you don't stand a chance as you're polling down 15 points! Do you think McCain could or would stop? Now look at the primary again. Either one of them would probably easily trounce McCain, who eeked out a win against a pathetically weak bevy of opponents ranging from Sleepy McEatTerrorists to Rev. LetsRewriteTheConstitutionIntoTheBible and nobody should forget PayeeMcCash MagicUnderpants.

I doubt even the worst she could toss at Obama would damage him enough to lose. As much as people love to say they wouldn't vote for the other person in the primary, the alternative is to vote for a third term for Bush in a much more decrepit packaging.

If she drops out she'll have to wait until 2016 to run again and even then Barack's VP would be presumptive and she'd be downright old.

One shot, and you need 300 of 400 delegates... to become president or you very well might never have another chance. Would you quit? What if you were probably going to lose?

-- That said, she should totally drop out. She's become the creepy ex-girlfriend of the Democratic party. Sorry Hillary, stop calling... we're with Barack now.