Mark Casey Online

Should we cross the border from Afghanistan and run anti-terror missions in Pakistan, where Bin Laden lives?

It’s a fair question, and a delicate foreign policy area.  Barack Obama said he would in a debate many months ago, and McCain called him out on it during Friday night’s debate.  So a kid asks Palin about it in a cheesesteak hut, and she says Obama’s right.

Today, McCain gets angry, cancels his town hall meeting, and yells at George Stephanopoulos about it.  Pretty funny.

Click here for video.

You can turn to any corner of the internet — and I mean any corner — and read pages upon pages of post-debate reaction. Who won, who lost, who looked more presidential — these are all important things to consider.

But my reaction? YAAAWWN!

I never would’ve thought I’d be longing for the days of Bush vs. Kerry, but here I am today, almost putting myself to sleep trying to write about last night’s debate. Don’t get me wrong — I like substance, and substance is kind of what we got. But whether it was McCain somehow still tripping over endless regurgitations from his stump speech (”I’ll veto spending and be famous!”), or Obama taking way too much of his own time responding to McCain’s consistent attacks, I can only think of one word to sum up the debate: repetitive.

• Obama’s strengths: Civility, bipartisanship, calm.
• Obama’s weaknesses: Being baited into responding to McCain’s attacks, not spending enough time on his own plans
• McCain’s strengths: Staying on-message, attacking Obama with every single answer
• McCain’s weaknesses: He appeared contemptuous, angry, old and bitter. He was highly partisan.

According to post-debate polls, people are just loving Obama. I don’t totally get it, but I approve of it. I think he did, in fact, have the better debate. His answers were more appealing to everyday folks, and he had more specifics about his plans. McCain only seemed to offer specifics about Obama, and hardly any about himself.

McCain repeatedly interrupted Obama and the moderator, PBS’ Jim Lehrer, often raising his voice and speaking over them until they gave up, which could take up to 30 seconds of crosstalk, just like on Bill O’Reilly’s godforsaken show. This was one of the more annoying traits I’ve seen in a debater.

Other than that, next time bring out the fireworks, boys! Try to convince us that you have at least some passion for the job. (Note: McCain getting angry about Obama’s record does not count. Negativity doesn’t win debates, and the Independents polled proved that.)

For quite some time, pollsters have been suggesting that the 3-5% lead Barack Obama has been holding above John McCain in the Gallup and Rasmussen daily polls is tenuous, because neither candidate has polled above 50%, and thus neither have acheived a simple majority among voters polled.

Until today:

Any kind of polls should be taken with a massive grain of salt, and especially daily tracking polls. But this isn’t just the highest Obama has polled yet in 2008 — as I said, he’s broken the 50% barrier, which is perhaps the only statistically significant milestone someone can reach in a head-to-head poll. McCain, for his part, exhibits a more telling story with his ratings, as he hasn’t been able to poll above 45%.

Here are the hard numbers:

Gallup:
Obama - 50%
McCain - 42%

Rasmussen:
Obama - 51%
McCain - 45%

Undecideds are apparently the X-factor, as Obama is gaining support from their category while McCain is holding strong at around 42%. I’m not sure if this is pure convention bounce, or if dissatisfaction with McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his VP is pushing undecideds into the Obama column. It seems to me that the latter is more likely. We’ll see if it lasts or if Obama falls back down.

Convention bounces don’t often last — but unpopular VP choices last forever.

Nothing’s going to predict the future better than the past, as I’m sure some famous guy said at some point. So, with that in mind, here’s a good bit from the Daily Show:

And regarding LOTS more great video, nyceve over at Daily Kos has done better than I ever would at finding some juicy Biden moments, so head over there and enjoy the clips.

For no apparent reason other than the fact that the Democratic National Convention is next week, CNN has once again trotted out its own private Clinton employee, Paul Begala, to lament the current choice of presidential candidates (read: no Clinton to vote for), as well as to lament the fact that Bill Clinton wasn’t named president for life.

No, really:

[Clinton’s environmental speech] was a tour de force: so deep in the details that the propeller-heads were swooning, yet simple and compelling enough that I could follow it. On the day before his 62nd birthday, I couldn’t help cursing the 22nd Amendment, which limited Clinton to two terms. Heck, he’s still 10 years younger than McCain.

Now might be a good time to mention that Begala has been an employee of the Clintons for nearly two decades, and as a senior political correspondent for CNN during the most recent Democratic primaries (not to mention during the entire 2000 era), he was the clear architect of their unabashedly pro-Hillary bias.

After Hillary lost in the primary, Begala has been relatively scarce on CNN — apparently, he didn’t have anything left to say about the presidential race now that a Clinton wasn’t involved. (Note: CNN took so much heat for regularly featuring Begala and James Carville’s political commentary while they were paid staffers for Hillary Clinton, they briefly kicked them off the air for the final part of the primaries. Now, CNN has a massive disclaimer at the beginning of all his articles disclosing all his Clinton affiliations and promising that he’s no longer on the Clinton dole. Right.)

But now, just before the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, Begala reemerges to claim that neither the Obama nor the McCain presidential tickets are likely to be good enough, and that no one should care who they choose as vice president.

This is an ominous sign for the Denver convention, as Democrats are still worried about what sorts of antics the Clintons and their rabid fans might pull. Clinton is already going to ask that her delegates are seated — it’s considered an “honorary” measure, but it will do nothing to make the party appear unified behind Obama — and Bill Clinton has been wildly unpredictable and bitter regarding his post-primary remarks about Barack Obama.

Most people think the Clintons will do all they can to help Obama win. I’m not so sure. They seem to still be considering an Obama win tantamount to a Clinton loss. And Paul Begala’s timely reemergence is not a good sign.

I know exactly what they’re doing.

As the media twists itself into knots wondering who Barack Obama will choose as his Vice Presidential running mate (and when), Obama and company are sitting back and enjoying all the attention lavished on their campaign by the endless procession of speculation. And the media, for its part, is all too happy to oblige. Monday it was Joe Biden, Tuesday it was Kathleen Sebelius. Today, it’s Caroline Kennedy. The media needs something new to talk about every day — so a new person gets suggested daily, and the 24-hour discussion takes root.

In short, it’s genius.

As each name gets mentioned, the discussion centers on what they’ll do for the Obama campaign, and why Barack Obama likes them. When they discuss Bill Richardson, it’s because Obama wants to appeal to Hispanic voters. When it’s Joe Biden in the spotlight, it’s because Obama wants a foreign policy maven. If it’s Tim Kaine of Virginia, Obama is looking to reinforce his ticket as one of change and departure from “old politics.” If it’s Evan Bayh, Obama’s looking to court down home Midwesterners. If it’s Kathleen Sebelius, he wants to appeal to women.

And what is the conclusion people reach? Simple. No one in the media seems to notice it (nor do most people on this site), but as this procession of “what this person adds to the campaign” stories parade themselves across front pages of websites and rattle around in the day-to-day opinion columns, a narrative starts to take shape that Obama cares about YOU.

Read more…

Barack Obama opted out of public financing for his presidential election campaign today.

It’s a controversial move, because in a questionnaire he filled out months and months ago, he said he’d like to see both party nominees seriously consider going the public money route. Public money means that they use tax dollars to finance their campaign, and they can’t accept certain kinds of money. In general, it means less money for the candidate, but also a “cleaner” sort of money.

McCain has been calling for Obama to accept public money, because it will mean Obama can’t out-raise him by tens of millions of dollars this summer. Now, they’ll be attacking Obama’s claim that he’s a straight-talking, “different” kind of politician on this basis, and they won’t be totally wrong. Obama’s camp claims that they spoke to McCain’s people about the pros and cons of their decision before making it, but the McCain campaign denies it.

But honestly, if you were shattering fund raising records, and doing it in a “different,” shockingly grassroots kind of way — gaining millions from literally millions of small donors, donating ten or twenty dollars at a time, as Obama has… would you forsake all of that historic momentum just so you could *appear* noble?

I’d say that would be the actual political ploy.

A hat tip to Left in Aboite for suddenly reminding me about this video of Tracy Morgan on SNL.

A while ago — in a clear follow-up to Tina Fey’s famous (infamous?) speech supporting Hillary Clinton for president, during which she said “Bitch is the new black” — Tracy Morgan appeared to deliver the line “Bitch may be the new black, but black is the new president, bitch.”

The video appears even more hilarious and worthy of support tonight, as Obama seals his nomination for the Democratic party:

Um… yes?

How about: painfully obvious code.

Clinton’s speech tomorrow, the media has *somehow* found out (I wonder how) will feature her saying things like she’s prepared to do “whatever it takes” to get a Democratic victory in November. Brilliant analysts at CNN have deduced that the phrase is a secret code for Hillary’s desire, or at least willingness, to be Barack Obama’s Vice President.

First, it’s no secret: that’s what the last two months of “no one can win but me!” have been all about. And second, CNN knows exactly what she’ll say, and exactly what she means, because CNN’s employees also double as Clinton employees.

This has been covered ad nauseum on this site.

But will Obama take the bait? He can do whatever he wants and not make a wrong decision — her message conflicts with his, and she represents ‘the old way.’ But also, her supporters would be soothed by her VP role — something which remains appealing, even though most of them have come home to Obama.

Today was a big day for Obama.

A very big, very good day for Obama.

First, we have the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting, which took place today to decide what to do about Hillary Clinton’s much-bemoaned issue of seating the delegates from primaries in Florida and Michigan, both of whom broke the rules and theoretically deserved no votes at the convention. And the DNC, if you can believe it, almost followed its own rules.

(Analysis below the photo)

Among the millions of pounds of minutia discussed was the fairly straightforward issue of awarding a state which held an unapproved primary only “half-votes” at the condition, which is what they decided to do with both states. This is a huge boon to the Obama campaign, as it keeps him well within reach of the “magic number” for a delegate majority. (It also bolsters the potential Clinton argument of having won the popular vote, because it gives her more votes than Obama in each state.)

But that’s not all! Obama also quit his ridiculously controversial church this evening, which is the best possible thing he could ever have done. Now, whenever the pastors from that church get out of hand, no one can somehow suggest that Obama actually agrees with what insane religious zealots say. (As if, by the way, anyone actually believes the stuff they usually hear in church on Sunday.  …Okay, some people do.)

So, a stiff jab followed by a crushing uppercut, and suddenly Hillary Clinton and John McCain had better watch out — they just lost the only two things which have ever hurt Obama.

And they lost them on the same day. Ouch.