If only there was a video.

Yeah, we shouldn't elect John McCain because he can't keep track of how many houses he has.  Really a damning argument.  I mean, yeah, his healthcare plan is horrific and his tax plan is even more dramatically tilted toward the wealthy than Bush's was, but really it's the houses that count.

This isn't a "topic."  You don't hold a press conference just to talk about McCain's inability to remember how many houses he has.  You hold a press conference to talk about the economy and work that in to reinforce your broader message.

There is audio at least: www.politico.com/.../12685.html

What's good about this is not just how Obama may be able to neutralize the elitist tag, but that it allows them to get off their heels and play a little offense, like intercepting a touchdown pass from the opposing team.

Actually that's pretty much a huge gift to Obama - It plays into multiple memes. McCain is out of touch, McCain is too old and it neutralizes the elitest tag. It's a threefer and judging by the response at the National Review, they know it. Most of the responses at the Corner are Tony Rezko, Tony Rezko  which means it stung a bit.

I disagree AlanP, something I rarely do with you - this is perfect.  It's not high minded, but its fair.  

It's still the economy stupid.

The last bit  "I will have my staff get back to you" almost has a Montgomery Burns feel to it, namely that John McCain can't be bothered to remember how many houses he owns.

No offense to you purists that believe that "change" can come about by strictly high road politics, but it is necessary for Obama to pursue this course of drivel-rhetoric.  It's what they did to Carter and the cardigan and to Kerry and the Purple Heart.  They tried to do it with tire gauges already this cycle.  In employing this offensive, Obama is not grossly distorting or oversimplifying the reality or policy suggestions of his opponent, much as the GOP has no qualms with doing; it is a recording of a very real gaffe that will assure Americans that this is a man who is incapable of accounting for our large and sordid economy because he cannot even keep tabs on the properties he owns.

If you think this election will be won by shining through the dreary darkness of Rovian politics by utilizing nothing but complex policy proposals, you need to bunker down for the next two-and-a-half months until the election is over, less your head explodes.      

AlanSP,

In theory I don't disagree with your point, but in reality, Obama does need to change the narrative and this is helping him do it without climbing into the gutter. (After all, these are McCain's own words and perfectly fair. Certainly every bit as fair as Obama's "bitter" remarks.)

For anyone who missed the link to the TV spot that seizes on this issue, here it is again:

www.youtube.com/watch

oops!  Sorry AlanP, it looked like I was calling you stupid :)  I was not...

I agree mattnewman, this is what everyone wants to see: offense.  It was also a gimme from McCain, what a lame thing to say!  To a reporter!

Jeez Alan, you're sounding like a true blue Democrat :-) ...

First, with a million homes in foreclosure, this is a legitimate attack.  As Joe Cuomo says on the other thread, it is possible that McCain refused to answer because he thought it would look bad, which is worse than if he had just forgot: the latter is senility (we're not talking about the difference between five hundred and two versus five hundre and five), the former is dissembling.

Second, McCain's camp has made ARUGULA a campaign issue for Heaven's sake.  Now, which is the more damning, Obama's choice of weedy greens on his plate or McCain's asking his "staff" to get back to a reporter on how many homes he owns?  Well, I think they should revive his stupid answer on the Carly Fiorina question as well: "What is your position on XXX?" "Um, ah, er, uh, euh, [pause] I'll get back to you on that."  Who are we electing?  If Shrub was the "Decider in Chief", is McCain going to be the "Forgetter" or the "Ask my staffer" in chief?

This is where you can and ought to throw the kitchen sink.  Well, all seven sinks.

Please Obama, Hit Back Hard.

From the McCain campaign:

“Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?

Next step is start picking on McCain's pastors.

Obama is on hte suicide mission.

Is the Keating Five/ S&L Scandal too far in the past to be useful anymore?  It seems to me that any accusations from McCain re Rezco should immediately be countered by the McCain's membership in that select group of corrupt legislators.  And surely there are other things they can pin on McCain given how long he's been suckling at the public's teat.

Any way, he could have said, "I'm a public servant; but my wife owns several houses, as we have already disclosed in our tax returns.  You can get those details from our disclosures."

And leave it at that.  He is either senile or cynical.  Either way, this is exactly where he should be hit.

dylanposer  said

"No offense to you purists that believe that "change" can come about by strictly high road politics, but it is necessary for Obama to pursue this course of drivel-rhetoric."

Don't worry, No offense to me. Bring it on. Just don't whine when McCain hit back.

BHLnyc  said

"After all, these are McCain's own words and perfectly fair. "

I hope you wouldn't mind reminding voters about:

" let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country."

After all, these are Obama's own words and perfectly fair.

"After all, these are Obama's own words and perfectly fair."

If by "Obama's own words" you are referring to his wife, Michelle, you are correct.  But she isn't running for President.

"Just don't whine when McCain hit back."

You are a hoot, jacobt1. McCain has already hit much lower blows with the tire gauge and several other things. In case you haven't noticed, McCain has been throwing the low blows for quite a while. If he tries to hit any lower, he'll be scraping his knuckles on the ground. Your buddy does not hold the high ground here.

And if he wants to attack on Hawaiian vacations, or claim Obama is out of touch for buying a house, he's welcome to try. It would be even more petty than the Britney and Paris stuff, but he's welcome to try.

"If you think this election will be won by shining through the dreary darkness of Rovian politics by utilizing nothing but complex policy proposals, you need to bunker down for the next two-and-a-half months until the election is over, less your head explodes."

It doesn't have to be about complex policy proposals and it doesn't have to be nice.  To use jhildner's formulation: "I want to lower your taxes and make health insurance affordable for everyone.  McCain doesn't."  15 words.  Simple as that.  Attack, sure, but frame it as part of your bigger message.

I haven't seen/heard the press conferences.  Really I'm just going by the little blurbs.  Most seem to be centered around the gaffe itself.  The only one that sounds like it's tying it back into the bigger message is the one in Montana

Speaking of which, when did the mortgage crisis stop being an issue.  It was huge just a few months ago.  Did we solve it while I wasn't paying attention?

And no, you don't have to fight sleaze with more sleaze. There are plenty of real, legitimate attacks that would resonate, starting with healthcare.

jacobtl,

Those were Michelle Obama's words.  And they have been used.

I've always been in the "we're above htis nonsense camp".  But I'm glad Obama is willing to sling some mud.  And if you listen to the audio, McCain just sounds tired and lost.  I'm glad to see all this, no matter that it's theoretically pointless.

Jacob,

I think I am making it clear that this is the year for Democrats NOT to whine, but to be on the offensive.  That the GOP will fire back (or fire first) is inevitable; if DEMs can get GOP blood boiling at a high enough degree, their attacks will surely boomerang and hit them harder, because most of the things the GOP are passionate about are vastly unpopular with the majority of Americans right now.

Jacobt1,

Get your facts straight.

These weren't the candidates words, they were his wife's. She later clarified exactly what she meant. If you don't wish to accept her explanation, that's fine, but most reasonable people will.

As for McCain, if you think that his inability to recall the number of homes he owns -- and having to turn the matter over to his staff -- isn't relevant to a discussion of who's best able to address the needs of working Americans, you're out of your mind.

jacobt...

Michele Obama said " let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country" not Barack. If we're going to go tit for tat at least be consistent. Perhaps we can ask Cindy how many homes John has since he can't be bothered to remember.

And this issue speaks more to the false pretense that GOP is the party of the average working man. Hate to say it but it ain't so and hasn't been for a long time. So when John McCain waxes poetic about his "feeling" the pain of the average Joe about them loosing their home or not affording health care we can all feel better knowing the McCain's got more homes than he can remember. Because, you know, the average Joe lords over a real estate fortune too. Oh wait...McCain's talking about the average real estate tycoon's pain he's "feeling".

To clarify a bit more, I'm not saying they shouldn't use this.  I'm saying they should use this to reinforce a bigger issue, or even better, resurrect an old issue from the dustbin like the mortgage crisis.  Hopefully this is exactly what they're doing (can't watch the ad at work so the disappointment on my part may be a bit premature).

BHLnyc

I doubt that Kerry or Ted Kennedy or FDR knew how many homes they owned.

Everything is  relevant to a discussion of who's best able to lead the nations, including friends, pastors and wives's comments.

We'll have such discussion, just please don't whine,

Alan: agree totally.  And they are using this not in itself, but rather, to reinforce the fact that McCain is out of touch: "John McCain said 'I think the economy is fundamentally strong'. [forclosure sign on a house] ... he does not how many houses he has ... [picture of the White House; text: "we can't afford more of the same"]" and something along the lines that we cannot afford to let him have this one other House.  

Pretty well done, and goes back to the basic message: McCain is out of touch and he does not understand the economy.

jacobt

Not wanting to burst your bubble, but those are actually his *wife's* comments, not his.  And who are you to judge how she feels?  Perhaps she's always been "proud", but now she's "really proud".  

Are you black?  Did you grow up as a poor minority in a fairly ordinary part of a major city?  Do you have any frame of reference for her life experiences?

Alas, I wish this argument could have been made on policy differences and the world situation and the integrity of the two men. And I think Obama held his punches maybe too long. But the poll yesterday giving McCain the highest rating ever for a negative campaign makes the whole POW argument start to fade. And the arguments are still fair if a bit extreme because they go to the ability of the President to identify with the voters. To me, it is a slam dunk that Obama should own that topic, but McCain has been whittling that away with arugula and Celebrity to the point that the polls are even. Alas, negative campaigning works. And McCain dragged the campaign here after promising something else. It has finally gotten to the point that if Obama doesn't get into this street fight, he ends up looking exactly like McCain claims. At least I can no longer blame him for going negative. At least the attacks are still largely true if personal. McCain has made stuff up out of whole cloth (taxing those making over 40k for instance...)  I want to see Obama hit back hard, and run into the convention with a head of steam, instead of a whimper!

Nari224,

" Perhaps she's always been "proud", but now she's "really proud"."

 Perhaps, McCain will report, voters will decide.

As icarusr  said,

And they will use  this not in itself, but rather, to reinforce the fact that Obama, his wife and his pastor  hate  America.

This will be pretty well done, and will go back to the basic message: Obama  is out of touch and he does not understand US.

Jacobt:

First off, what makes you think that FDR couldn't keep track of his homes? Or Kerry for that matter? Even if they couldn't, they'd guess at it and wouldn't be STUPID enough to say anything as arrogant as "I'll have to let my staff tackle that one."

But more importantly, the difference here -- as I pointed out to another poster who attempted to use the same false argument -- is that Kerry, Kennedy and FDR never attempted to portray their opponents as elitist. PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN TOO MANY HOUSES TO KEEP TRACK OF SHOULDN'T THROW STONES.

jacobtl - your effort to spin McCain's inability to count how many houses he owns as some sort of common failing is pretty lame.  Perhaps you are as out of touch with reality as he is.  Furthermore, you provide no basis for the your "doubt" that Kerry, Kennedy and FDR were also so house-rich they couldn't quantify it all.  Between this house gaffe and his claim that wealth starts at $5MM/yr, there really is no way to spin this as anything other than the honest rambling of a doddering old fart who is completely clueless as to how the average person lives.

I think losing track of how many homes you own is a particularly unwise error in an economy in which ordinary people are losing their actual homes.  They need to hit home on that angle, too.

This is particularly unfair. It's obvious that McCain is aware of homes, and has staff on hand to look into the issue of them.

McCain's houses = George H. W. Bush at the supermarket

BHLnyc ,

PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN HOUSES  BOUGHT with help of criminals SHOULDN'T THROW STONES.

I'm not sure what we are arguing about.

We all know who we are going to vote for.

We are too biased to know which line of attack will move undecided voters.

You hope that Obama smear of McCain will prevail, I hope that McCain fair criticisms of Obama will prevail.

Csmiller: Re Jacob's "Jacomments", "Perhaps you are as out of touch with reality as he is."  No "perhaps".

Incidentally, as you can see above, a "Jacomment" is a copy and paste of someone else's comments, with the names changed, in the place of an actual argument, supplemented by gratuitous, irrelevant and mostly wrong assertions about US history, and augmented, for additional authority, by basic grammatical errors and logical faults that would not escape an average 12-year old.

Where a Jacomment is remotely coherent, it resembles an argument by Daffy Duck: "Rabbit Season""Duck Season" ad verbal diarrheum.

Please don't encourage him.  He has not got over Wright or Ayers or Obama's wife - he has no arguments, and makes no sense.  Arguing with a concrete wall over where to go for vacation is more rewarding than responding to Jacob.

"jacobtl - your effort to spin McCain's inability to count how many houses he owns as some sort of common failing is pretty lame."

I'm not spinning. Obama has to do what he has to do. I'm just not sure that giving McCain opening to bring up Obama's Chicago mafia friends is a such a smart move.

The Chicago political stories are really starting to appear all over the place--the stuff about sealing off archival material on Obama's connections to Chicago's political figures at the Richard Daley Library at the University of Illinois, Chicago, is especially disturbing. (See John Kass's story in the Chicago Tribune).  He has so much support among college faculty, but they really value keeping archives open to public inspection.  Beyond causing a kerpiffle with that small group, the average American voter always likes stories of backroom dealings in the Daley machine.  Hold on to your hats, the ride is just getting going.

Let's fun begins,

marcambinder.theatlantic.com

Though McCain is widely perceived to to drawn first blood by attacking Obama's character, the official said that the difference between Obama's mocking McCain for his wealth and his shaky answer on the number of homes he owns was that McCain's charge "reflects an existential reality," where Obama's charges "attack Cindy. She owns the homes. I thought he said the wives were off-limits."

Except of course Jacobt1, it's old news and it's apparent that the Rezko angle has had ZERO play with the undecideds and Rezko was far from a friend to Obama.

bdespain1,

I't old news for you but not for many undecideds. You are correct, Rezko was far from a friend to Obama.

He was a business partner, in the business of corruption, Chicago style.

Sorry, but the "McCain As Out-Of-Touch Rich Guy" meme won't win many Undecided Independent votes.

First, McCain didn't grow up rich, he _became_  (ie married) rich.  Not knowing the exent of one's wealth could just as easily signal a complete lack of preoccupation with it.                    

Second, despite a childhood of uncommon privilege and a guaranteed gig on Wall Street, McCain's son is serving in Iraq.  Speaks volumes about what was more highly valued in the McCain household.      

Lastly, it's a little rich to point fingers at McCain's wealth when Michelle is sporting a $60K strand of South Seas around her neck.  

Non-starters for the Undecideds:  McCain's first marriage,  McCain as Bush Clone,  and McCain as Typical Rich Republican Guy.

McCain as clueless on Pakistan?  China?  Fiscal policy?  Now you have my attention.  

Unsavory associates?  Does McCain really want to go there?

www.slate.com/.../1004633

waynejm  ,

Let's go there. Nothing can be worse than Bill Ayers .

Jacob,

Ever hear of Charles Keating?

In any event, I wanted to ask you if you heard that the Iraqi government and the Bush Administration agreed on a withdrawl timeline? Does this mean that the Bush Administration has surrendered? Less than a month ago, you, John McCain and GW were declaring a withdrawl timeline represented surrender, but now, not so much. I know, I know, consistency and facts run counter to your worldview, but even you have to admit that this is stunning.

mpatrickhendri  said,

I've heard of Charles Keating. Let's war begin. Bill Ayers+pastors+Resko against Charles Keating.

The latest development in Iraq is a triumph of McCain courageous , bold position that were very unpopular at the time.. Only crazy lefties would deny it.

"Some in Maliki's camp, emboldened by Iraqi military successes this spring, believed they could make do without American forces if push came to shove, according to Western and Iraqi officials familiar with the talks."

It's a great news. McCain policies made this possible,

Dems don't win mudfights. We win by neutralizing nat-sec'y and shifting the conversation back to the economy. Obama won't convince anyone that McCain's not a normal guy. He's going to have to do better than this.

celine, no offense but there are a lot of evangelicals who are deeply disturbed by McCain's behavior to his first wife, they also don't believe he has any understanding of them at all. I doubt McCain could quote a single passage of scripture correctly.

Everyone seems to be forgetting we live pretty much in a 51-49 country with Republicans having the natural advantage electorally, yet McCain hasn't been ever able to crack 45%, and this against a black man with the Muslim sounding name of Barack Obama. The only thing that will close the deal for McCain is if America is more racist than I think it is. It is McCain's whose support is a mile wide and an inch deep. Even his own mother said many people will just have to hold their nose when they vote for him.

McCain will win the Rezko/Keating war.   The Keating saga is old news and McCain used it to demand campaign finance reform.  He makes the argument that he learned from his early mistakes with Keating and wants to rectify the problem (you don't have to believe that, but it is always good to talk about learning from your mistakes in a campaign, especially when they happened several decades ago.  It really fits in with that experience theme that he has been pushing).

Keating's out of jail and Rezko is still in. Rezko is recent and we don't know all the details.  This story is fresh and new and the journalists will swarm to it, while dreading having to rehash the Keating 5.

jacob, for heaven sake learn grammar. That posting is just an embarrassment.

And the notion that you have that the Iraqis were incapable of government then, but capable now is ridiculous. If the Bush administration had properly trained and equipped the Iraqi army years ago we could have long been gone. But of course McCain never said anything about that. When Gen Shinseki said we had no where enough troops, McCain shot him down. McCain, more than anyone in Washington, could have stood up for General Shinseki and changed history. As a Republican, a veteran, a war hero, an ex-POW, a longtime member of the Armed Services committee, and a supposed maverick, McCain had unique moral authority to step up and insist that we go to war with enough troops. But the maverick didn't step up. Given a choice between General Shinseki's professional judgment and Rumsfeld's amateur judgment, McCain picked the amateur. Rumsfeld's gone now, discredited.

How many soldiers died needlessly because of this jacob? Answer that.

No one cares about Rezko and Co or ever will.  They can bang the gong all they want, but they know it's a dead ender.  They watched Hillary crash on the rocks wasting time and effort on it, they have to be smarter than that, especially since they've done so well with thinking up their own sludge.

No one cares about Rezko mostly because it doesn't translate easily into four or five words like "Obama is a celebrity like Britney."  Going there also opens up McCain to things he doesn't want revisited, like Keating.  Hillary dead enders and Republicans may think Keating has no juice, but Republican corruption was the number one reason given in exit polls in 2006 for voting against them.  It's very very risky to them to open this one up.

This housing meme does have lots of totally fair yeah-buts around it just like the celebrity thing, but the main reason its going to stick is because its so easily put in to four or five words "McCain doesn't know how many houses he has."

What cal said. Obama will rap McC's wrist on this, but Schmidt & Co. will draw blood with Rezko, Ayres, U Illinois archives etc.. Pretty dumb to go negative right now-- unless Team Obama's so traumatized by their guy's "nauseating", as one pro-Obama liberal Dem put it, performance at Saddleback that they feel the need to do something, anything, to distract people from the Obama's floundering meme.

blackton ,

You have a point. McCain could be more forceful earlier.  However, in 2006 Obama was totally wrong and McCain was right.

jacobt1: "Let's war begin. Bill Ayers+pastors+Resko against Charles Keating."

Stay classy, jacob! You're the best surrogate any candidate has had since, well, Harriet Christian lost her shit for Hillary.

I almost spit this tasty bourbon (The darkest of dark liquors...what? You want me to drink you?) all over my computer.

McCain was a steadfast supporter of the Bush "Plan" in Iraq and singled out Rummy for special praise. This during the period when the insurgency was in full swing. It wasn't until everything had basically fallen to pieces that they put enough boots on the ground to bring the violence under control. A position advocated by John Kerry during the 2004 election and dismissed by the Bush Adminstration as unnecessary.

As for the Surge representing a "profile in courage," please excuse me as call bullshit. McCain has been tied to the war from day one - even advocating military action on the Letterman Show - and he had nothing to lose in advocating an uptick in forces. Zip Zero. He wasn't running for Senate and his chances of making it the White House were zero if things didn't improve. This was not a heroic moment.

Sorry, I almost forgot to respond to your last point - the one where you said the conditions a month ago were such that a timeline represented surrender and today represent success. That's what you were suggesting correct? If so, ugh, give me a break. The original "plan" was a disaster and that was obvious from day one. It took McCain 3.5 years to discover what everyone already knew; that there were not enough boots on the ground to bring the violence under control.

This inability to grasp the obvious is hardly surprising considering McCain was telling the VFW two days ago that a timeline was a surrender just as the Bush Adminstration was ironing out the final details of our withdrawl. The guy isn't that sharp.

And yes, I know he was POW.

"Obama's campaign just sent out a list of sixteen "McCain losing track of how many homes he owns" events, which it calls just "a few" of the hits planned on this topic for today."

I bet, right now, McCain is regretting his decision to inject "humorous" attack ads into the election cycle; it looks like Obama is going to out-humor the funny boy.

The best part, is that all Obama has to do is repeat McCain's excuse about it being funny and growing a sense of humor.

As for Rezko and Ayers, Hillary already went there, full bore, and came up short. Unless McCain finds out something that no one else in the world already knows, their response is going to be still-born (except for the hardliners, who never stopped bringing up the subjects on a daily basis).

Gs:"Unless McCain finds out something that no one else in the world already knows, their response is going to be still-born (except for the hardliners, who never stopped bringing up the subjects on a daily basis)."

As the new ad on Ayers demonstrate, McCain and the Republicans - and Jacob - don't actually have to *find* anything, as long as they can invent, insinuate, malign, lie ... The Ayers ad demonstrates that there *is* nothing to find, otherwise, instead of 9/11 shots, they would have shown something more substantial.

Tep: "unless Team Obama's so traumatized by their guy's "nauseating", as one pro-Obama liberal Dem put it, performance at Saddleback that they feel the need to do something, anything, to distract people from the Obama's floundering meme."

Yeah, that's right.  Obama's attacks on McCain definitely demonstrate a "traumatised" campaign marked by a "floundering" candidate.  Right.  But go easy on the Pauillac next time.

"Dems don't win mudfights. We win by neutralizing nat-sec'y and shifting the conversation back to the economy. Obama won't convince anyone that McCain's not a normal guy. He's going to have to do better than this."

He can't convince anyone that McCain's not a normal guy? Was "normal guy" ever part of McCain's image?  It seems sort of incompatible with "war hero" or really any other moniker most people would use to describe him.   Is there a single part of McCain's life that could accurately be described as normal?  Not that I think it matters. Normal guys don't become President.

I agree with tep's main point though.  He's got to incessantly bring this back to the economy, not just sling mud for the sake of slinging mud.

GSpinks  said

"As for Rezko and Ayers, Hillary already went there, full bore, and came up short"

Not true, After she went there, very mildly, she won most of the Democratic primaries.

Jacob, no one cares about Rezko.  Hillary won because she started screaming N**** N***** N***** everywhere she went, something even the Republicans won't touch anymore.  As Hillary well knew, it does work every time so we'll see - some outside group may try it yet.  I do know McCain won't.

ick  - did you read the article in the SF Chronicle today? www.sfgate.com/.../article.cgi

Bad news should wake up Obama, experts say

Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer Thursday, August 21, 2008

At the Saddleback forum with Pastor Rick Warren on Saturday in Orange County, the Republican presidential candidate delivered on-the-money messages and answers so effective they were "scary to me," said George Lakoff, a renowned author and UC Berkeley linguistics professor who has studied how the human brain absorbs and processes messages.

Lakoff, whose work has helped shaped numerous Democratic candidates' campaigns, said that "right through the motivational campaign theme, they were doing everything right."

By contrast, Obama was "overconfident ... and certainly not prepared" before the evangelical audience with definitive answers to clearly explain to voters his world view, values and vision, Lakoff said.

Lakoff isn't alone in his assessment that Obama needs to step up his game, hone his message and sharpen his contrasts with McCain....A national poll released Wednesday by Reuters/Zogby showed McCain beating Obama 46 to 41 percent, an advantage that also shows that voters now see McCain as stronger on economic issues. The latest poll erased the strong seven-point advantage held by the Democrat just last month. Other polls had the race statistically tied. Moreover, some recent polls indicate that some red states that Democrats had hoped they could flip to blue - like Indiana and Virginia - are tacking back slightly to McCain.

The latest polls show that even with gas prices rising precipitously under a Republican administration, the candidates are unusually close on whom Americans trust to deal with the issue.

Some Democrats - Lakoff included - say it's clear Obama needs to sharpen his message and get tougher on beating back attacks from McCain's campaign, which has suggested that Obama is elitist and even unpatriotic.

"John McCain is jujitsuing Obama's strengths," said one leading California-based Democratic strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his work with a nationally known party figure.

The strategist said many Democrats witnessed their candidate's performance at the Saddleback forum with "a feeling of vague nausea" because "the stature gap (between Obama and McCain) widened dramatically in the mind of any viewer who watched."...

Nauseating? Just when I was starting to think you were being reasonable again, tep, you go and make this weird, over-the-top assertion. No one reasonable -- and certainly not someone who was actually a "supporter" of Obama -- would describe his Saddleback performance as "nauseating."

I was one of the talkbackers who readily admitted, that night, that McCain had "won" Saddleback if wooing average voters is the game (which it is.) He won because his answers were short and punchy -- and despite the fact that they were completely simplistic and contradictory. But even though Obama lost the game, there was certainly nothing "nauseating" about his performance. He was intelligent, articulate, clear, conversational, and reasonable. And many of his answers would have resonated even with "average voters"; they just wouldn't have had the punch that McCain's did, thanks to the fact that McCain foreswore all depth and complexity.

Anyway, your weird assertion is a small thing; but it annoyed me enough that I had to respond.

I see. It wasn't a pure assertion on your part. ("The strategist said many Democrats witnessed their candidate's performance at the Saddleback forum with "a feeling of vague nausea" because "the stature gap (between Obama and McCain) widened dramatically in the mind of any viewer who watched."...)  

It's still a totally weird reaction to Obama's performance and I suspect the "strategist" is mischaracterizing Democrats' reactions somewhat.  I can understand it if they were vaguely nauseated by the contrast between the superficial/surface-level impression that the men's respective performances were obviously going to leave average voters with (i.e. if they were nauseated, as I was, by the recognition that voters would inevitably take away an impression of McCain as "decisive" rather than as simplistic, and of Obama as "nuanced" (in the strange sense in which the word is used as an insult.)

Well, all 149 of the people who watched that event can vote for McCain then.  I thought Obama was wonderful as did my nice white Christian lady Mom who was with me, but what do we know compared to Professor George Lakoff of UC Berekely, no less - now I do recall now how immensely helpful he's been to Democrats with his special brand of advice.

I was busy cheering on Michael Phelps as was the vast majority of the American people.

Most people won't even tune in until after Labor Day.

Wandreycer1  said

"Most people won't even tune in until after Labor Day."

Good, They'll have time  to learn about Resko, pastors, Chicago Annenberg Challenge records and Bill Ayers as well as true story about McCain daughter adoption and number of his houses.

Bring it on, just please don't whine.

hemlock I watched it, I find McCain's view of Christianity as a transaction (believe in Jesus, get your ticket punched to heaven) to be borderline idiotic. Christ suffered so as to be an example that we must suffer for each other, in his name. McCain couldn't quote scripture to save his ass. There was zero insight from him religiously, and his most gut wrenching decision (not betray his fellow soldiers as a sign of his immense moral courage) was self-serving as to be obscene. Granted what I would have hoped to be his real gut wrenching decision, leave his first wife and kids, wasn't something he would say but it scares me that that was not a gut wrenching decision at all on his part, that it was a casual decision.

I imagine Tep is not religious in the slightest and hence could not understand how nauseating I found McCain's performance (granted Obama dropped the ball vis a vis abortion), but at least there is a there there with Obama. McCain gives the appearance of being spiritually empty.

Bringing it on.  Hm.  Let's see -- was that the McCain baby adoption we learned so much about during the Republican primary in 2000?

Looks like Rove & Co got it all out there back in the day.  Wonder if it was as accurate as the stuff about Kerry faking all his purple hearts . . .

DES MOINES - Visiting a friend in Iowa on my way out to Denver, I saw Kathleen Sebelius give an up-with

No offense here either, Blackton, but I was talking specifically about Undecided/ Independents, not Evangelicals.   Not sure where you got that from my post.  But you're right--- Vangies haven't embraced McCain with unbridled enthusiasm.

Just saying that the average Undecided (at least from this one's perspective) doesn't care about McCain's first marriage or how many houses he forgets he has.  If we _did_ care about these types of  things, we'd have made our choice by now.  At least those of us following the election.

If Obama picks up significant Undecided/Independent votes after a "First Wife-leaving Rich Guy" offensive, I'll be the first to say I was off base.  But I'll be very, very surprised.

OK, you say McCain is a rich guy who doesn't remember how many houses he owns.

I answer it with an ad about a rich guy, making $4 million a year, who won't even spare a few bucks for his homeless and destitute younger brother in Kenya.

You guys seem to have missed that story.  Even tnr is ignoring it.

It's funny how Democrats only want to help the poor with other people's money.  Even if the poor are close relatives who could be helped with very few bucks.

Maybe he will, but one can do the charity thing -- even within families -- both effectively and badly, and supplying dollars to Kenya can create all kinds of imbalances and new obligations because the economic relationships are so distorted.  If the mere redistribution of banknotes could solve every problem . . .