Ground Game

For more than a decade John McCain has been a darling of the national political press, even up through his victory in the Republican primary. Much of that has changed, in part because the media has somewhat moved on from the McCain narrative and at least equally because of the McCain campaign's animosity toward the press corp. Townhall's Matt Lewis says the following passage describes the evolution quite well:

"He loved the Senate, he loved Arizona, he loved his wife, and he hated being told what to do ... He may have also sensed that his popularity, which was considerable, would change once he became a candidate for president.  As many people have discovered, a politician can go to long way in Washington until he becomes a serious presidential candidate.  At that precise moment the Washington press corps digs in, and reputations are destroyed in no time."

However, Lewis points out:

The author goes on to write that prior to running for president, this person wrote a popular book, was subject of numerous positive  magazine articles, and was a fixture on national television.

... I should probably point out that this quote is not in reference to John McCain.  It actually comes from Alfred Regnery's book, "Upstream," and refers to Barry Goldwater's 1964 race. 

The only difference here I'd point out is that the media's positive treatment of Obama actually accelerated when he announced his run for president. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy aside, a "digging in" by the press corps didn't really begin until after Obama had defeated Hillary Clinton for the nomination.
 

As expected, Tina Fey returned to Saturday Night Live this past weekend to perform her impression of Sarah Palin. The skit, which also featured Amy Pohler as Hillary Clinton, didn't cut either woman much slack. But even if Fey doesn't care much for Palin or her politics, the vice presidential nominee's star power is even trickling down to their online videos. It already has more than five million views. SNL creator Lorne Michaels is no doubt glad he convinced Fey to do the impression, despite her reservations.

The website Betty Confidential has released a survey of 500 women voters. Survey says:

The survey showed that 60 percent of women "like" Sarah Palin and 60 percent "admire" her. An overwhelming majority (83 percent) said they will not vote for McCain/Palin just because she's a woman.

Now, I wouldn't expect too many women (or any other specific identity group) to admit they would vote for someone in their same identity group based solely on that commonality. So, I do think the "like" and "admire" numbers are more significant here. The survey also found that 65 percent of women say they have become "more interested" in the campaign since Palin was added to McCain's ticket.

"We were amazed at how many women wanted to weigh in and share their very strong views on her," said Betty Confidential editor-at-large Julie Ryan Evans. "But despite even strong disagreements with her politics, women tend to like and admire Palin as person." 

Also worth noting, the survey results were taken before Palin's very mixed performance yesterday during her interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson. The already difficult argument for conservatives that Palin is prepared to be president should something happen to John McCain probably just got considerably more challenging.

I'm on vacation today through September 21st. Ground Game will still be updated periodically. 

To read the blogs today, you'd be led to believe that Barack Obama is either a malignant sexist, or an endearing saint who would never use language to attack his political opponents. Why is it so hard to grasp what most likely happened?

1. Sarah Palin's "What's the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom? One wears lipstick," joke was one of the more memorable from the Republican convention.

2. Barack Obama and his advisers wanted to answer that joke with a pun arguing that while Palin may be a new figure on the political scene, she still represents the unpopular/failed policies of the Bush administration.

Yes, others have used the phrase, including McCain. But it's hard to believe Obama just randomly decided to use the phrase for the first time, unaware of what would be a perceived proximity to Palin's convention joke. The Obama audience certainly seemed to get the joke.

Obama cannot be simultaneously heraled as the greatest political orator since JFK, while also not having to take responsibility when he says something unartful. In other words, he tried to say something witty and has now had his own joke flipped against him.

Of course, he wasn't calling her a pig. But I do think it's fair to ask if he was making a subtle jab at John McCain's age when he followed up the lipstick remark with, "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink."

Again, I think Obama was only talking about the McCain/Palin policies, but to deny he was making any kind of verbal jab is the kind of blind allegiance that calls into question the intellectual honesty of Obama supporters. Instead, they should own it. He made a fair point, even a strong point. This should, and so easily could, be a day in which Obama was putting McCain on the defensive for this unethical ad.

Here's my full write-up from this morning's breakfast chat with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. The two points that stood out to me were Perkins on the actual Palin selection:

While the McCain campaign has argued in favor of Palin's executive experience as a qualification to be vice president, Perkins surprised reporters in the room by acknowledging that he believes her selection was "purely a political pick." "Yeah, I think so," he said.

Also, Perkins' nuanced take on how reporters have been covering Palin so far:

Perkins also said that while he and other evangelical leaders are enthusiastic about Palin's stance on social issues, he encouraged reporters to comb through her legislative record to see if those beliefs translated into conservative policies.

"Look at her record as governor, that's what social conservatives are going to be doing," he said. "I don't think those questions have been answered yet."

At a meeting with reporters this morning, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins answered a lot of questions about Sarah Palin. I'll have a write-up on that for the CQ Politics site later this morning. But he also said a few things about blogs.

One reporter repeatedly pressed Perkins on rumors that have circulated about Barack Obama on the Internet, specifically that he is a "secret Muslim." It was strange, because the reporter clearly was interjecting her personal opinion that it was somehow the fault of Perkins and other evangelical Christians that these rumors exist and therefore his responsibility to refuse them.

Instead, Perkins said he did not support the spreading of rumors, but that his focus is on socially conservative issues. However, he mentioned the rumors and allegatios that have also been spread about Sarah Palin and her family.

"Blogs don't hold themselves to a standard of accuracy that most reporters do," he said. "My mother worked in a beauty shop when I was growing up. And the Internet is like a huge beauty shop," where rumors are spread.

Liberal bloggers and the mainstream media have been reporting on Sarah Palin's complicated history on The Bridge to Nowhere pork project. Think Progress says Palin is "lying" about her role, while the media is more accurately pointing out that she supported the project before later opposing it, and refused to send the money back to Washington afterwards.

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis echoes the "she lied" meme and adds:

How many days in a row do McCain and Palin have to lie about her position on earmarks - she was for the Bridge to Nowhere, but every single day on the stump she outright lies and says she was against it - how many days in a row do Palin and McCain have to treat the media and the voters like chumps before someone in the media calls her on this?

I don't know if that rises to the level of a "lie," but Barack Obama has been on the stump saying Palin switched her position for political gain, not principle. The Club for Growth has hit back today, pointing out that Obama voted for the Bridge to Nowhere funding and has yet to formally change his position:

"Barack Obama spent the better portion of yesterday attacking Sarah Palin for supporting the Bridge to Nowhere once upon a time even though she had the courage to get rid of it as governor. Yet, when Barack Obama had a chance to kill Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere and spend the money on Katrina victims, he voted -- drum roll please -- No."

"And over the last three years, Barack Obama hasn't changed his tune one bit. He has not disavowed his 2005 vote in favor of the Bridge to Nowhere. And he continues to vote to save specific, egregious earmarks. In 2007, Obama was given the opportunity to vote for an amendment to transfer money earmarked for bicycle paths to fixing America's bridges. He voted against the amendment. He was given the opportunity to vote for an amendment to eliminate earmarks for a Peace Garden in North Dakota and a baseball field in Montana. Barack Obama voted against teh amendment."

Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor was also at today's Heritage Foundation blogger briefing, where he was scheduled to discuss the conservative blogosphere's role in supporting Republican efforts to end the offshore drilling ban.

But Cantor spent a good portion of his time talking about the story for conservatives these days: Sarah Palin.

"All that you did in pushing an alternative VP pick, outside the mainstream, made that happen," Cantor said to the bloggers in attendance.

On Palin's ability to manger her family life with a career, he said, "There is something so ordinary about that, it's extraordinary." Cantor also talked about how Palin helps Republicans with middle class voters. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have made a point of critiquing the Republican speakers for not discussing economic issues in detail during their convention. Cantor countered that Palin's background is so authentically middle class, she doesn't have to make direct economic pitches to emphathize with voters.

"The consensus for some time has been that Democrats own the middle class, and that only they can somehow spell out prescriptions for the middle class to relieve their woes," he said. "Sarah Palin didn't have to speak to the middle class because she is the middle class."

Cantor also said conservative online activists played a key role in helping convention organizers make the most out of their abbreviated schedule after Hurricane Gustav.
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Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund met with a group of conservative bloggers today at the Heritage Foundation to promote his forthcoming book: Stealing Elections. The actual text of the book is apparently embargoed until the 15th, but I can relay Fund's thoughts from the meeting today where he predicted that election day 2008 will be a lot like election day 2000, only possibly worse.

"In a very close race, people have an incentive to do things they might not ordinarily do," he said, alluding to voter fraud issues. Fund said he is most concerned about newly instated provisional ballots and the more than 14,000 lawyers being deployed by the Obama and McCain campaigns (9k for Obama, 5k for McCain). "Fourteen thousand lawyers in an election can't be a good thing."

Fund said to look to states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Mexico as potential targets to force their own lawsuit-driven recounts, which he says would, "damage the legitimacy of this election, damage the legitimacy of the winner."

Fund used most of his harshest words on Democratic allies like ACORN, but said he includes plenty of examples of Republican-driven voter fraud in his book as well. Two of his suggestions for avoiding an "election month" disaster include increasing the number of independent, non-litigating election monitors and to raise public awareness about the possibility of forthcoming, frivilous lawsuits from both campaigns.