Rav Casley Gera’s Blog

First John Snow called it. And now this:

Perpetually fretting Democrats will not want to accept it. The campaigns themselves can’t afford to believe it. Many journalists know it but can’t say it. And there will certainly be some twists and turns along the way. But take it to a well capitalized bank: Bill Ayers isn’t going to save John McCain.  The race is over.

John McCain’s candidacy is as much a casualty of Wall Street as Lehman or Merrill… Before Wall Street’s collapse Senator McCain was ahead. His approval ratings remained high, his VP pick had generated excitement and interest, and his campaign operatives were capable, on any given day, of winning news cycles and giving their opponents fits. And then the underpinnings of American capitalism begin to sink — and with them sunk McCain.

An election dominated at its inception by the war in Iraq is now overwhelmingly focused on the economy. More than half of voters in polls say that the economy is their top concern and Senator Obama enjoys double digit leads among voters asked who can better fix our economic mess. Put simply, there is no way Senator McCain can win if he continues to trail Senator Obama by double digits on the top concern of more than half of voters.

Howard Wolfson, “It’s Over: Why Bill Ayers Won’t Save John McCain“

What could turn things round? Wolfson points to a domestic terror attack as the only thing that could seriously shake things up now. I think the “Bradley effect” is likely to mean Obama’s vote will be smaller on the day than the polls suggest now, potentially making things very tight. And the danger is that overconfident Obama supporters will stay at home. The democrats have to warn against complacency and focus all their efforts on getting out the vote.

Still, it’s true: a McCain victory now would be a stunning turnaround.

Track the latest odds on the race

The video below is part of a swath of evidence suggesting that I was wrong last night - that the debate did far more for Obama than for McCain. But the really interesting bit comes at around the 2-minute mark, which overlays key moments with tracks of people’s live impressions. See how much Obama’s score ticks up when he attacks McCain over Iraq:

The lesson? The surge has not, as expected, neutralised Obama’s gains on having opposed the war. He can keep using having opposed the war, in mainstream arenas, and score real points on judgment. This is big news.

The ever-dependable Andrew Sullivan is surely right when he says the new Obama ad (he embeds it; I can’t for some reason) is unwise in focusing on McCain’s being “out of touch”. What’s more, it does it badly: McCain can’t use a computer? All that suggests is that Obama hates old people.

This is the first time I’ve realised just how dangerous going negative could be for Obama. Thanks to - conspiracy alert - McCain-Feingold, this and all other Obama ads have to have his specific approval message on. There’s no way to run a Biden-fronted anti-McCain TV campaign that Obama can distance himself from. So every attack has to be balanced against the risk of losing the sheen of bipartisanship that has made Obama attractive so far - especially risky given that McCain has now set out so hard for that same ground.

Obama has to stick to the same strategy he pursued with his convention speech - stay broadly positive and put some meat on the bones. We need details, and more details. That promise of tax cuts for 95% of Americans needs to be repeated, and trumpeted, and sung from the hills till everyone is sick of it. Those details - those specific promises - are the only thing that can keep this campaign from sliding right into a 2004-style gutter of character assasination. And if it comes down to character, Obama will lose. Sorry, he will. If Americans go into that booth and choose the person who, deep down, they just feel they trust more, like more, or would rather have a beer with - it will be McCain who comes out on top. War hero trumps inspiring black guy. It just does.

It’s ironic, given the characterisation of Obama’s victory over Clinton as being one of style over substance, that policy - and particularly economic policy - is actually Obama’s big advantage. He’s not playing it enough.

UPDATE: Andrea Tantaros agrees with me, sort of

UPDATE 2: Sullivan puts it more succinctly:

Obama must maintain the high road. He must keep insisting that the McCain-Palin camp has no new policies to offer on the most critical issues we face, especially in foreign policy. And he must carefully and relentlessly explain what he intends to do. If he does that and refuses to take the bait, he will win. If he descends into the foul sewer where McCain now resides, he will lose.

Karl McCain knows one thing: how to smear, lie, disorient, distract, and intimidate. You can’t beat these thugs and liars at their own game. Beat them at the task of government. They are unfit for it. Obama is not.

UPDATE 3: Joe Biden kind of gets it (he also follow’s Sullivan’s earlier advice to ignore Palin). But will Obama follow this line?

In 2005, before Palin ran for office, she and her husband, Todd, claimed the trooper, Mike Wooten, threatened to kill Sarah Palin’s father. Wooten was suspended over the allegations for five days in 2006 but still has his job. The Palin family also accused Wooten of drinking beer in his patrol car, illegally shooting a moose and firing a Taser at his 11-year-old stepson.

Palin’s Lawyer Has Already Questioned Two Witnesses - law.com

What? They accused him of shooting a moose?

The increasingly likely vice-president of the United States appears to have the life of a minor character in a Coen Brothers movie.

For the next few weeks, I’m going to be showcasing highlights of Obama Exposed!, a report by the nutty conservative blog Human Events about the man even they admit is probably going to be the next president of the United States. We’ll start with Chapter 17, by Robert Spencer, author of - wait for it - The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), entitled “Our first Muslim President”? [Read more →]

Ever since Barack Obama emerged as a serious contender for the Democratic presidential nomination commentators have been falling over themselves to evoke the memory of John F. Kennedy. Obama’s youth, short time in the senate, and relentless message of change all stir memories of the handsome young upstart who squeaked the presidency in 1960. With the endorsement of Obama’s candidacy by several senior Kennedys in late January, the comparisons became more frequent. “A president like my father”, Caroline Kennedy called Obama. The New York Times evoked Kennedy’s most successful book when it referred to Obama’s race speech as a “Profile in Courage”.

With JFK still generally revered by most Americans, particularly the white working-class voters Obama desperately needs to win over, it’s a comparison Obama’s people are happy to see made (despite the odd snipe by commentators). The truth is, though, that John F. Kennedy and Obama came from very different places politically - and had very different concepts of “change”. [Read more →]

what is striking in the exit polls is the polarization on three lines: gender, race and age. It was dead even with men; but a massive advantage for Clinton among women. The racial difference is obvious as well. But what really leaps out is age. Obama lost every cohort over 40; Clinton lost every cohort under 40. Race also affects the generations in turn: 67 percent of whites over 60 voted for Clinton - a massive 24 point advantage. Among the younger generation, there is much less racial polarization: under 30, whites split evenly. This is a fascinating result. It appears to me as the future struggling to overcome the past… But here’s what she does have: total shamelessness, and an absolute belief that she is the rightful nominee… What sustains her is this deep, deep sense of entitlement and an absolute refusal to let the next generation take over. She will take this to the last day of the convention if necessary. If Obama thinks he has a right to actually be nominated by the Clinton Democrats because he has won more votes, more states and more delegates, he is sadly mistaken. They will never let such a person win without a death struggle. And that is where the Democrats are now headed.

Andrew Sullivan may be exaggerating Hillary’s malevolent mania a smidge, but perhaps not by much. But the generational point is the really interesting one. [Read more →]

Mr Obama has fought a brilliant campaign, out-organising his opponent, raising more money, and convincing undecided Democrats as well as the country at large that he was more likeable, more straightforward and more worthy of trust.

On form, he is a spell-binding orator and holds arena-sized audiences in thrall. He is given to airy exhortations, it is true, but genuinely seeks consensus and has cross-party appeal.

Mrs Clinton’s campaign, in contrast, has been a shambles. She and her team expected to have it all sewn up long ago; they made no plans for a long struggle, ran short of money and had to reorganise on the run.

Her speaking style is pedestrian, when it is not actually grating. Those who dislike her tend to do so with a passion: her disapproval ratings started high and after months of campaigning are climbing still. It is a tribute to her tenacity and to the loyalty she commands in the party that her fate was not sealed weeks ago.

How much the way that a campaign is run tells you about a candidate’s fitness to be president is debatable – but it does tell you something, especially if the candidate with the misfiring strategy is running on a claim of management expertise.

The FT drives in another nail

…..which isn’t a phrase I ever thought I’d write.

Andrew Sullivan (who [a] I’ve never forgiven for not remaining the attractive, slim role model he was when his book, Virtually Normal, was serialised in the Guardian in the 1990s and briefly lit up my gay teenage life; and [b] doesn’t allow comments any more on his blog The Daily Dish, only pingbacks, hence this post) is slightly unfair with his criticism of the inveterate conservative’s gleeful hay-making over Bittergate. Is Kristol, like many conservatives (and Mrs. Clinton*) being entirely disingenuous in pretending that any time a politician, in a private fundraising meeting, makes sweeping generalisations about a section of the electorate and the socioeconomic drivers of their political positions, they’re importuning its collective intelligence? Of course. He goes on to do it himself, a few lines later, by implying that all wealthy San Franciscan democrats are metropolitan snobs (not a generalisation many would disagree with, but then of course that’s the point - many don’t disagree with Obama either). But he doesn’t actually - as Sullivan suggests - cast doubt over Obama’s religious beliefs. Rather, he argues that Obama believes his own religious beliefs to be complex and genuine, but appears not to think that about others. [Read more →]

Like most of you, I’ve been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest.
He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where “…nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.”At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man’s life and vision… often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment.
After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken. I believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate to lead that project and to lead us into the 21st Century with a renewed sense of moral purpose and of ourselves as Americans.

Over here on E Street, we’re proud to support Obama for President.
- Bruce Springsteen

This was probably inevitable, but still has a vague air of significance to it. Should certainly help sew up that wavering white working-class vote in the wake of bloody Bittergate.

Today, five years later, Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois who expresses a firmly pro-Israel view of Middle East politics, pleasing many of the Jewish leaders and advocates for Israel whom he is courting in his presidential campaign. The dinner conversations he had envisioned with his Palestinian American friend have ended. He and Khalidi have seen each other only fleetingly in recent years.And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor’s going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Now look. Come on. This is not an insult. This is not a Kerry-style gaffe. And it’s not going to hurt Obama against anyone except, feasibly, small-business owners, who lean Republican anyway. This is the truth. And its harshness is softened by its genuine sympathy for working-class people.

Kerry’s remarks about getting “stuck in Iraq” were harmful because they backed up what people already suspected: that Kerry, while genuinely sympathising with poor people, didn’t know them, didn’t understand them, and deep down, didn’t like ‘em. Barack Obama is not John Kerry. Barack Obama is not an elitist. He grew up in Chicago, not Beacon Hill, Boston.

Top of the Ticket : Los Angeles Times : Barack Obama’s “small town” critique: Is this a game changer?

that all the hope and promise of this historic Democratic battle is going to drown in a sea of acrimony as the ever-fragile rainbow coalition finally tears itself to pieces?

Well, this is not a good sign:

Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, and the Family and Medical Leave Act to name a few…We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). “They” are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). “They” are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future.

Well, alright, not quite.

Daughter-of-John Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg:

Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

Brother-of-John-and-all-round-good-egg Ted Kennedy:

With Barack Obama, there is a new national leader who has given America a different kind of campaign, not just about himself, but about all of us. A campaign about the country we will become, if we can rise above the old politics that parses us into separate groups and puts us at odds with one another.”

So far, so good. But uh-oh!

I respect Caroline and Teddy’s decision, but I have made a different choice. At this moment when so much is at stake at home and overseas, I urge our fellow Americans to support Hillary Clinton. That is why my brother Bobby, my sister Kerry, and I are supporting Hillary Clinton.
-Daughter-of-Bobby Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

Where will it all end? Will Mrs. Schwarzenegger be able to hold her peace?

UPDATE: No.

All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals. Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things.

In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg