The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.
I’m making this one short-and-sweet, and it will last 1 week…
Do you like the choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate?
Up to 1 answer(s) was/were allowed
Total Voters: 77
Loading ...A housekeeping item; I’m semi-retiring the longest-running poll here – “Who will be the Republican Presidential nominee in 2012”. Depending on future circumstances, I may resurrect it.
This one’s definitely out of right (or at least right-center) field. The first joint appearance of the Republican ticket will be in about 10 minutes, and my first thought is, YES!!!!. Time to party….
It’s been too long since I fired up Cover It Live, so I may as well fire it up for the acceptance speech coronation of Barack Hussein Obama II as the Democratic Presidential nominee. The fun will kick off at about 7:45 pm. Since this will almost certainly contain a lot of expletives, it will not be simulcast over at my corner hole in TownHall’s wall.
Programming note; if either Shoebox or I find items to blog about before the start, I will move this to the top of the heap.
Joining in the mayhem:
– The FReepers have been doing ‘Rat Patrol all afternoon
– The Morons are on the case
– The Lizards will start here (don’t ask me where they’ll end)
– RightwingSparkle is running a chat (I’m having a bit of a problem getting in there)
– Sister Toldjah has the updates that matter
(H/T – Allahpundit)
The McCain campaign will be airing the following ad tonight…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4KIvRTg6KQ[/youtube]
The Obama campaign response from campaign manager David Plouffe:
“(It is) a very nice gesture. We appreciate that. I wish more of his ads had that tone. But for tonight we appreciate it and will congratulate him next week on his nomination.”
My money says they’ll deliver the snarkasm.
I saw this commercial and the first thing I thought of was the refrain of this song…My Mom always told me it was best to “kill” people with kindness! Shoebox
Mary Katharine Ham may be too busy to blog, but she still churns out high-quality columns, this one on the Commerical Gap between Team McCain and Team Obama. There’s so much material covered, if I tried to excerpt a small part, I’ll miss the rest, so I’ll simply give my usual “Go. Read. Now!”
I haven’t found much, if anything, to cheer in the Democrat primaries or convention. In fact, I can’t remember agreeing with one of their candidates on a single issue until Joe Biden called out Nancy Pelosi in his speech last night:
I’ve never seen a time when Washington has watched so many people get knocked down without doing anything to help them get back up. Almost every night, I take the train home to Wilmington, sometimes very late. As I look out the window at the homes we pass, I can almost hear what they’re talking about at the kitchen table after they put the kids to bed.
That’s right! Even Joe Biden sees that Nancy Pelosi has “led” the least effective House chamber in history!
Joe goes on to list a series of woes:
Should Mom move in with us now that Dad is gone?
Fifty, 60, 70 dollars to fill up the car?
Winter’s coming. How we gonna pay the heating bills?
Another year and no raise?
Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care?
Now, we owe more on the house than it’s worth. How are we going to send the kids to college?
How are we gonna be able to retire?
Joe just continues to slap Pelosi down. Joe has evidently gotten religion on the fact that people’s financial situations are related to the growth of the US economy. He further understands that our economy is based on inexpensive transportation which is dependent on inexpensive oil.
The one thing Joe could have done to “seal the deal” last night would have been to put Nancy’s gas price chart on the big screen’s behind him:
What? Joe wasn’t calling out Nancy? Well, just another Biden gaffe then.
Nick Schweitzer has a good summary up of the debate in Germantown tonight between Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner and Dr. Jim Burkee for the Republican nomination (and, because there are no other candidates in any other parties, the actual seat) in the 5th Congressional District. Yes, he was there with his laptop, and he was typing furiously throughout the debate. Wisconsin Eye was also there, so they should have video up in the near-future and they have video and audio.
My contribution, at least at this point, is an audio recording of the debate. I’m too tired to give a detailed analysis right now, but I do want to say a couple things:
– I would much rather see a challenge to Tom Petri than either Sensenbrenner or Paul Ryan, especially since much of Burkee’s platform is fiscal responsibility.
– Jim Burkee would be a good person to either do that challenge or compete for an open seat. No, he wouldn’t be perfect, and depending on the other persons, I may not support him.
Revisons/extensions (4:15 pm 8/28/2008) – First off; sorry about the incomplete post. I suffered the typical user error on that.
Next, Wisconsin Eye did get the video up (thanks for that and the link, P-Mac).
Also, Dean Mundy, Jack Lohman, and West Bend Citizen Advocate were in the audience and have thoughts up on their respective blogs.
(All links from JSOnline’s DayWatch)
Just after finding out that 22% of voter registrations/address changes since August 6 do not match up to drivers’ license records, the Government “Accountability” Board ruled that not only will those registrants be allowed to vote with no correction of the voter registration and no check of any ID, but that future mismatches will be ignored. A vote on a motion to require an at-poll ID check for those that don’t correct inconsistencies in voter registration failed on a 3-3 vote, while a vote on a motion to ignore future mismatches passed 5-1.
Everything has gone according to ‘Rat Governor Jim “Craps” Doyle’s (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) plan, as he is the one who put all 6 members that board after the two bipartisan boards that preceded it, the State Elections Board and State Ethics Board, failed in his favor on various matters before them so egregiously that “something had to be done”.
Revisions/extensions (6:11 pm 8/27/2008) – My semi-sarcastic advice to Team McCain; abandon Wisconsin (except for La Crosse, which serves northeast Iowa) as this state is now as lost a cause as Illinois.
The roll-call vote is up now, and Arkansas threw all of their votes to Barack Obama after Hillary Clinton released them at the last minute. So much for favorite daughter status.
No state thus far (through Delaware) has cast all the pledged delegates that Clinton had going into today for her, though DC did throw more votes her way than pledged delegates (it still was under the combined pledged/superdelegates total). Guess that pre-vote in the hotels worked wonders.
I hope the McCain campaign was paying attention to what Shoebox said this morning.
Revisions/extensions (5:43 pm 8/27/2008) – I honestly don’t know why California passed on its turn. The last Green Papers estimate of delegates, back in June, gave Clinton a 29-delegate lead (with 6 uncommitted) there, and Obama had a significant lead before California’s turn came up.
Now the yield game is going on. New Mexico to Illinois to New York.
R&E part 2 (5:49 pm 8/27/2008) – One last knife-twist into the heart of the PUMAs delivered by the cackling Clinton, as she calls for “One Vision, One Purpose” and Obama by acclimation as only Anton Slavik can. No dissent allowed.
Another hit on the Greco-Roman ceremony planned for Barack Hussein Obama’s coronation courtesy Jett Atwood (aka Sarjex) of T.G. Studios –
(H/T – Sean Hackbarth – tipping a Twitter feed is a first)
Mike O at the Political Inquirer enlisted the mad Photoshop skills of Tennyson Hayes to picture the Greek Temple (replica) coronation of Barack Hussein Obama…
Click to get to the Political Inquirer and the full-sized pic.
Shoebox outlined his picks in the latest Right Wing News poll, with a further explanation of the answer to his first two questions back here. No, this isn’t part of the Scramble, but only because I barely got Part 1 done (Part 2 will be up as soon as I post this and hard-code it in), but I may as well explain my choices:
First, I must give you the list we got to choose from for each question – FL Gov. Charlie Crist, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (TX), Rep. Eric Cantor (VA), former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Joe Lieberman (“I”D-CT), AK Gov. Sarah Palin, former Rep. Rob Portman (OH), MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former PA Gov. Tom Ridge, former MA Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. John Thune (SD), and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.
Out of the following VP candidates rumored to be on McCain’s short list, which one DO YOU THINK HE WILL TAKE? – Kay Bailey Hutchinson. McCain’s squarely focused on the mostly-female PUMAs, and she is most like him on shamnesty.
…which one WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE HIM TAKE? – Eric Cantor. While the Congressional factor does run against him, and outside of conservative circles he’s an unknown, he is a very strong small-government conservative, and matches up well with the one major right-of-center trait of McCain (small-government). If I knew more about Meg Whitman, I might have picked her. If I had to take someone with government executive experience, it would have to be Tim Pawlenty; Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani couldn’t get it done in the primaries, and Tom Ridge and Charlie Crist are too liberal.
…which one WOULD YOU LEAST LIKE TO SEE HIM TAKE? – Joe Lieberman. Since I had to limit myself to one (otherwise, Carly Fiorina, Giuliani, Ridge and Crist would also be on this list), I had to choose the one so liberal, he still caucuses with the ‘Rats. Besides, he was the ‘Rat nominee in 2000.
Just chiming in on Steve’s picks and explaining mine…Pawlenty, you saw my rationale. Fiorina – every thing she has touched she has turned to mud. Ego and stupidity are what you get with Obama, we don’t need that on our ticket.
Kay Bailey – again beware of the PUMA….that baby just looks ripe to backfire on McCain.
Cantor – I don’t see McCain taking a white guy from inside the beltway.
Shoebox
Steve will probably have this in the scramble but…
John Hawkins over at Rightwingnews.com polled a number of conservative bloggers. The questions asked were:
1. Out of the following VP candidates rumored to be on McCain’s short list, which one DO YOU THINK HE WILL TAKE?
2. Out of the following VP candidates rumored to be on McCain’s short list, which one WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE HIM TAKE?
3. Out of the following VP candidates rumored to be on McCain’s short list, which one WOULD YOU LEAST LIKE TO SEE HIM TAKE?
We had our choice of 13 names including all of those having been rumored to be on McCain’s shortlist at almost any time during the campaign.
My picks, if you care were:
Pawlenty
Pawlenty
Fiorina
Be Careful, be careful, be caaaaareful!
Those are the words you hear sung in “The Incredible Mr. Limpet” as Mr. Limpet is looking longingly off the dock at Coney Island wishing to become a fish. If you haven’t seen the movie, do so. It’s a Don Knotts classic and he does become a fish.
The same words keep singing in my mind as I hear the gleeful banter from Republicans and Team McCain as they court and prod the PUMAs.
Perhaps the most recognizable PUMA, at least in the upper Midwest, is Debra Bartoshevich. Debra is from Wisconsin, and is a life long Democrat. She was elected to be a delegate to the Democrat Convention. She expected to be there to support Hillary. Once she found that Barack Obama would be the presumptuous nominee and she would not be able to support Hillary, Debra changed her allegiance and became a McCain supporter. Debra is the lady who made this ad for Team McCain:
Here is Debra explaining why she decided to support McCain. It’s a long video but you need to watch it to understand my concern:
Debra explains her switch by saying that she believed Hillary to be the best leader and agreed with her positions. However, when the choice became Barack, she didn’t think he had answers for the problems. I remember watching numerous Democrat debates tossing live blogging quips back and forth with Mr. Eggs, trying to figure out what the policy differences were between Hillary and Barack. The only one we could see was that one wanted an absolute mandate for all people to be in their health program and the other was going to “Make you an offer you couldn’t refuse!” Somehow, Debra has gone down the policy checklist that she had for Hillary and is not able to see that Barack had almost exactly the same. Somehow, she now sees John McCain’s checklist as matching hers. Debra strikes me as a nice lady but there seems to be some logical dishonesty in her thinking. Which brings me to my other observation and my real concern.
As I watched the nearly 9 minute clip of Debra’s interview, it was clear that she was very passionate about politics. I don’t mean this deragatorially but she was emotional about her experience with the Wisconsin Democrat party and her subsequent choice to support McCain; and that’s the problem with the PUMAs.
If the PUMAs are intellectually honest they will say that Obama’s policies are the same as Hillary’s. But they’re not intellectually honest. You heard Debra say that she thought McCain’s military record was impressive. Did I miss Hillary’s impressive military record?
The fact is, the PUMAs are making their decision emotionally. That emotion is going to peak this week as Barack Obama moves from the presumptuous nominee to the presumptuous Presidential candidate. From Friday morning until election day, unless, and it could happen, Barack or his team dis Hillary along the way, the emotion of the PUMAs will ebb. How much, I don’t know.
Let me say that I view beating Barack Obama as an imperative. The damage done to this country if he served for only four years could haunt us for generations. To that end, I welcome and embrace every PUMA or anyone else that will vote for McCain. My concern is that I see some Republicans getting giddy over the thought of corralling the PUMAs.
If Team McCain builds an election strategy that depends on the PUMAs, including moving to the center on issues or choosing a pro-choice candidate, he runs the risk of losing an election that I believe is now his to lose.
The PUMAs are at their peak now. It’s possible that they stay mad right through the election. My bet though is that on election day, the PUMAs will be as reliable in voting for McCain as the under 25 crowd will be voting for Barack.
Revisions/extensions (11:37 am 8/27/2008) – As noted below, WisPolitics was there, and filed this report. They also rolled video (yes, the sound quality isn’t the greatest, but my low-budget equpiment wouldn’t have done any better, and I don’t see anything up at WISN-TV’s site) –
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIqJG5DXhUI[/youtube]
Due to poor timing on my part, I was a bit too late for the meat of Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker’s press conference on Gov. Jim Doyle’s speech before the Democratic National Convention, so I don’t have audio. WISN-TV and WisPolitics were there on-time, the former with a camera, so they’ll have more extensive coverage.
First, allow me to post Walker’s pre-buttal, with an additional note from something from Doyle’s 2003 State of the State address that Walker stressed at the press conference:
"Jim Doyle will address the Democratic National Convention today with the theme of Renewing America’s Promise. Let’s take a look at Jim Doyle’s promises.
Before the last election, Jim Doyle told the people of Wisconsin in his State of the State address that, "˜We should not – we must not – and I will not – raise taxes.’ After the last election, he introduced a state budget that raised taxes and fees by more than $3 billion.
Now he’s pushing Senator Barak Obama for president. In his three short years in the United States Senate, Senator Obama has voted against tax cuts and for tax increases 94 times.
He says he’s for the middle class, but Senator Obama voted to raise taxes on those making just $42,000 per year. He wants higher taxes on income, investments, savings, businesses, Social Security and energy. He promises a better economy but taxing our way to prosperity just doesn’t work.
Jim Doyle’s failed slogans and broken promises have not worked for Wisconsin. Voters should remember that when they hear Senator Obama’s promises as well."
Walker also contrasted the following statement from Doyle’s 2003 State of the State address with the actions of both Doyle and Obama – “Obviously, raising taxes is not the answer. Holding the line on taxes helps our businesses grow, makes us more competitive with other states, and creates job opportunities for our families.” (emphasis in the original)
I did get to talk with Walker a few minutes on both Democratic Vice Presidential nominee (presumptive) Sen. Joe Biden and the field for the Republican Vice Presidential nominee. Repeating a theme that I first noted with Asian Badger, Walker called the choice of Biden “manna”. We shared stories of gaffes on Biden’s part, from the plagiarism that forced him out of the 1988 Democratic Presidential primary race, to the multitude of attempts to appease Iran. During an interview with the WisPolitics reporter I overheard, Walker was thinking that Obama would choose Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (I won’t go further than that; it wasn’t my interview).
On the Republican side, Walker believes that Governors Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney would make a good fit for Sen. John McCain, as they’re both outside of the Washington power structure, and both have executive experience. Indeed, he sees little chance that McCain can mess up the choice as badly as Obama did.
In her Monday night address, Michelle Obama told the audience that she loves America. In the twelve hours since, the MSM has been carrying the issue as if it was some kind of great revelation. They point to this comment as if it should silence concerns about her patriotism.
From a recap by Brent Baker:
NBC’s Chuck Todd decided "this is definitely a response in some ways to that whole kerfuffle that she created for herself, six or eight months ago, about being proud to be an American."
CBS’ George Stephanopoulos gets the “suck up of the night” award with his take on Michelle:
"Tonight, there was no doubt. The money line in this speech was that line when she said, ‘that is why I love this country,’ and she lingered."
My question is: Why is any of this remarkable? Wouldn’t we expect the possible First Lady to “Love America?” After all, didn’t Michelle mark for us the exact time she began loving America when in a speech in February she said:
For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback.
Wouldn’t it be expected that she still loves America? Why would the media be making a big deal of her love for America?
The reason Michelle Obama’s line of “I love this country” is newsworthy is not because it settles any concerns about her patriotism. The reason it is newsworthy is that she is the only Obama we’ve seen that has managed to maintain consistency on a core issue in the past six months.
Who Knew?
Monkeys experience joy of giving, too, study finds
Tests in capuchin monkeys showed the animals consistently chose to share food with another monkey if given the option, suggesting they are capable of empathy, the team at the Yerkes Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta found.
“They seem to care for the welfare of those they know,” Frans de Waal, director of the Living Links Center at Yerkes, said in a statement.
Capuchin monkeys are capable of sharing and are deemed to get joy from the experience.
Apparently capuchin monkeys have higher evolved concerns for their family than the presumptuous presidential candidate has for his half brother.
(H/T – Allahpundit)
The American Spectator reports that Barack Obama really wanted Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as his second. However, the disastrous World Tour and the influence of former Senate ‘Rat leader Tom Daschle led him away from the nightmare pick to one that, outside of presstitute and ‘Rat circles (I do repeat myself), is getting roundly slammed.
After campaigning for over eighteen months as the candidate of “Hope and Change,” Barack Obama succumbed to the sucking, black hole of Washington politics and officially became the candidate of “Same ol’, same ol'” on Saturday. Rather than picking a VP nominee who would re-energize his claim for change in Washington, Obama chose a man who in all liklihood, will shortly have only six other Congressional members with longer tenure and be second only to Daniel Inouye in terms of Senatorial tenure.
How the heck did Obama end up here? How and when did “Hope and Change” get tossed under the Obamination bus?
There were inklings that Obama’s slogan of “Hope and Change” was never a vision but just, well, a campaign slogan. Inklings but not absolute confirmations. Inklings like:
…This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. This was the moment when we ended a war, and secured our nation, and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.
While we had inklings, a large group, probably a majority of Americans, were still entranced by the message of “Hope and Change.” They really wanted to believe that Barack was something different than the remainder of Washington, whose public approval ratings, regardless of position, had dropped to levels rarely ever seen. This desire for something different is what Obama harnessed and rode for seventeen months. He rode it up until three recent events.
The first event started a little over a month ago. It was Obama’s “World Tour”. The tour was taken to give Barack a chance to say he’d been to Iraq and that things were still all screwed up. He also needed to spend time with heads of states in countries he previously couldn’t find on a map. In short, the “World Tour” was set up to directly address perceived shortcomings in Obama’s military/Iraq knowledge and foreign affairs.
Yeah, that was the plan. It’s got to suck when well laid plans don’t turn out like you want them to. Even Time Magazine recognized that, rather than reinforcing his ability to handle foreign and military affairs, Barack’s “World Tour” left many Americans with the impression that he was ignoring domestic issues. The “World Tour” left people with the impression that in fact, “The One” had become presumptuous. The net result of the “World Tour” is that Barack Obama lost several points in the national polls. A secondary but I believe more impacting cause of the loss of “Hope,” is that the resulting drop by Obama in national polls started questioning, particularly in the MSM, about why Barack wasn’t smoking McCain in the polls.
The second event leading to the loss of “Hope,” was the Russian invasion of Georgia. The Russian invasion was a test of Obama’s ability to answer the 3 A.M. call. While McCain immediately recognized and called the parties what they were, i.e. Russia = aggressor, Georgia = ally, Obama tried several times to nuance his position. To people who were watching, it appeared that Obama needed a program to be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
The resulting failing grade of Obama’s 3 A.M. test reinforced concerns that he lacked foreign affairs experience. I believe it was this experience that forced Barack Obama to abandon his personal “Hope and Change” and caused him to choose Joe Biden for his VP.
The final event in the series was the Saddleback Civil Forum. While getting specific questions, Obama’s responses were attempts at nuance and avoided specificity. The most talked about example was when asked whether he believed that life began at conception, he responded by saying it was “above his paygrade” to make that determination.
Saddleback was the first time that Americans got a chance to see Obama and McCain in a (nearly) head to head debate. No one, not even Obama apologists could say that Obama had the better evening. The feedback from Saddleback was that when compared head to head, people believed McCain had answers. They did not believe that Mr. “Dance and Nuance” actually had answers that let them continue to “Hope for Change.”
I believe Team Obama came to a painful realization following Saddleback. Team Obama recognized that nuance was not going to let them win the three actual head to head debates coming against McCain and in turn the election. Team Obama realized after Saddleback that to win the election, the path forward would require one of two choices; either get specific with answers or attack McCain fiercely to move the discussion off of Obama’s policy and put McCain on the defensive. They would need someone on the ticket who could hit McCain and let Obama “stay above the fray.”
Enter Joe Biden.
As I said earlier, I believe Biden became the front runner in Obama’s mind following the response he received from Russian/Georgia incident. However, I also believe that each of the three incidents lead to confirm in Obama’s mind the need to abandon “Hope” and return to South Side Chicago politics. “Hope and Change” was a great way to get win an affirmative action cause disguised as a popularity contest (Democrat primaries), but not all American voters were only using their emotions. As Barack is finding out some of America’s voters, even some registered Democrats, use their brains in voting for a President and those folks want answers.
So Barack got Joe who:
and with that choice became the candidate of “Same ol’, Same ol’.”
You see in the end, the only “Hope and Change” that Obama was or is, about is the “Hope” that he becomes President and the “Change” he wants to impose on you. In the end, Obama has the same self focused, it’s all about me perspective that is more the rule than the exception in elected leadership.
Hey, you Obamamanicas, don’t worry, Barack will still talk about “Hope and Change.” He’ll need to pass out additional hits to get you through the dimming of his election hopes.
That’s the sound that has echoed back from the choice of Joe Biden as Barack Obama’s VP pick.
According to a new poll done by CNN, the first poll done completely since Biden’s announcement, Obama and McCain are now in a dead heat. The poll shows an erasure of a seven point lead from just one month ago.
To be fair, the THUD isn’t really due to Biden. If anything, other polls have shown Biden to be a net zero on Obama.
No, the THUD is wholly owned by “The One!”
The THUD is owned by the person who surely thought he needed no one but himself to attain the Presidency.
The THUD is owned by the candidate who’s poll numbers are dropping faster than NBC’s ratings following the Olympics
(H/T – Allahpundit)
Despite needing to flip just 135 superdelegates (combining info from The Green Papers and the last-minute decision to allow Michigan and Florida full voting rights; other sources suggest the number is lower) to force CHAOS on the floor of the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton will instead release her delegates.
It’s a shame to see this little piece from Team McCain released just this morning go to waste (H/T – Ed Morrissey)…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NrQ36Djf2E[/youtube]
Revisions/extensions (7:37 am 8/25/2008) – Dad29 points out in the comments that CNN is backing off the story ever-so-slightly. Newsbusters has the details. Let there be CHAOS!
Over the past two weeks, speculation has been growing that Mitt Romney will be McCain’s VP. In fact, several sources have flat out stated, that Mitt Romney will be McCain’s VP. Even Intrade has shown a near doubling of the price for “Mitt for VP” as an indication that the market is quickly coalescing on this pick:
alt=”Price for 2008 Republican VP Nominee (others upon request)(expired at convention) at intrade.com”
title=”Price for 2008 Republican VP Nominee (others upon request)(expired at convention) at intrade.com” border=”0″>
But will Romney be McCain’s VP? Let’s look at the events of this weekend to get a hint:
Other than what was spun by the Obama campaign, there were two story lines that followed the Biden announcement:
Neither of the main story lines were helpful to the Obama campaign. Additionally, within a few hours of the announcement, the McCain campaign had ads running using Biden’s own words to reinforce the image of Obama being inexperienced and not ready to be “The One!”
The first rule of picking a VP is “Do no harm.” It could be argued that Biden will help Obama get more of the Democrats to vote for him (latest polls show 20+% not currently doing so) but his dissonance with Obama’s message and his own harsh words about Obama’s readiness will make it difficult for Independents to see the Obama/Biden ticket as anything other than what George Will called a “Kangaroo ticket” where the hind legs are much stronger than the front. People don’t vote for VP candidates who are presidential they only vote for Presidential candidates who are presidential!
If McCain picks Romney, the story lines following the announcement of his choice will be:
Within hours of the pick, the Obama campaign will have ads out using Romney’s own words whacking McCain and they’ll point out how his “conservative credentials” are recently acquired and can’t be trusted.
With what McCain saw in the last 24 hours, why would he set himself up for a replay of this weekend only with different faces pasted on the animated bodies?
He won’t.
The selection of Joe Biden to be the Democrat VP and the experience of the past 48 hours following have determined who McCain will select for his VP. John McCain will pick Tim Pawlenty as his VP.
As an experienced and arguably successful Governor from a blue state, Pawlenty passes the “do no harm” test. While there will certainly be discussion about Pawlenty’s policy positions, there will not be any tape of him bad mouthing McCain nor will he be perceived to be upstaging McCain or filling a gap in McCain’s experience. On the plus side, while Pawlenty is every bit as affable as Biden is reported to be, he is not enamoured with the sound of his own voice.
The McCain campaign has had a good month. With the Democrat convention this week, the momentum should naturally move Obama’s direction. The timing of McCain’s VP announcement followed by the Republican convention should minimize both the height and duration of any Obama convention bounce. Picking Romney would allow Obama a chance to expand his convention bounce and that’s not a mistake that the McCain team will make.
Let’s face it; Barack Hussein Obama played you chumps like a Stradivarius….
– When push came to shove, he picked the old white guy who is a two-time failure in national politics just because Joe “Plugs” Biden (Plagiarist-Gaffe) is what Obama wants to be when he finally grows up.
– Biden blows in the wind on his supposed strength of foreign policy; he voted for the Iraq War and now wants to carve it up along sectarian lines.
– Talk about change; Biden has been in the Senate every year he has been Constitutionally-eligible, and has been there over half his life.
– Fausta has a reason why you chumps waited until 3 am for that text message, when ABC figured out hours earlier that it was Biden based on where the Secret Service was heading, and the Washington Post got the official word long before you; Obama wanted to stick one last shiv in the back of Her Royal Cankleness.
– Speaking of that 3 am text message, be expecting a lot of fundraising calls from the Obamination; he’s going to need your cash.
– Ed Morrissey points out that the presstitutes are none too happy either. After all, the Obamination Express is their creation.
– If you thought you could catch John McCain napping, I’ve got news for you; this ad hit Youtube at 6:06 am Eastern, and it just happens to be the 30 seconds TV stations like…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDVUPqoowf8[/youtube]
While I’m under no delusions that McCain will continue the momentum he started this morning, I’m going to enjoy this. Can I get a CHAOS?
One last item before I finally collapse in a heap – Patrick Ruffini confirms the timing of official notifications to the presstitutes versus the “you’ll hear it here first” mass-text to the nutroots, and the Washington Post got their official confirmation 1 hour 12 minutes before the nutroots.
Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
In case you missed Shoebox’s post below, go read it. There is an expansion or two based on what Ed Morrissey found, including a confirmation of the veracity of the YouTubed conversation Shoebox and Erick Erickson embedded:
Guy Benson not only tracked down the audio to the Chicago Tribune, but he came up with this little gem from the transcripts of the Illinois Legislature (specifically, pages 32-34, from the 4/22/2002 session):
[T]he only plausible rationale, to my mind, for this legislation would be if you had a suspicion that a doctor, the attending physician, who has made the assessment that this is a nonviable fetus and that, let’s say for the purposes of the mother’s health, is being "” that "” that labor is being induced, that that physician (a) is going to make the wrong assessment and (b) if the physician discovered, after the labor had been induced, that, in fact, he made an error, and in fact this was not a nonviable fetus but, in fact, a live child, that the physician, of his own accord or her own accord, would not try to exercise the sort of medical procedures and practices that would be involved in saving that child.
Now, if "” if you think that there are possibilities that doctors would not do that, then maybe this bill makes sense, but I "” I suspect and my impression is, is that the Medical Society suspects that doctors feel that they would already be under that obligation, that they would already be making these determinations, and that essentially adding a "” an additional doctor who the has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.
Now, if that’s the case –and "” and I know some of us feel very strongly one way or the other on that issue "” that’s fine, but I think it’s important to understand that this issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births. Because if these children are being born alive, I, at least, have confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure they’re looked after.
Ed goes on to point out that the above statement came after it was revealed that the doctors at the mis-named Christ Hospital were allowing babies born alive during abortion procedures to die without any care.
To steal from another movie…
Denver, we have a problem. We have a main bus B undervolt. We’ve got a lot of thruster activity here, Denver. There’s another master alarm, Denver. We’ve got a computer restart. We’ve got a ping light. We’ve got multiple cautions and warnings, Denver. We’ve gotta reset and restart.
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