The warning to America from the Associated Press could not be more stark: Elect John McCain and he will die, leaving you with Sarah Palin, a woman whom the less-than-impressive David Frum condemns as “not up to the job of being president of the United States” in an interview with the left wing daily New York Times.

If John McCain is elected and goes on to win a second term, there’s as much as a one-in-four chance America could see its first woman president – Sarah Palin.

It’s actuarial math.

The odds highly favor either McCain or Barack Obama completing a first term in good health. After that, McCain’s odds still are still fairly solid, but his chances of dying or being in poor health go up faster than Obama’s, mainly because of his age.

An Atlanta actuarial company specializing in individualized estimates of life and health expectancy has run the numbers for McCain, 72, and Obama, 47. The firm, Bragg Associates, calculated the odds of the candidates dying in office, adjusted for their known health problems.

Health problems?

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This is media slime. Sarah Palin was in a Philadelphia restaurant when some guy asked her, basically, she thought our government should fight terrorism. Here’s the exchange, according to Jake Tapper:

As Palin was glad handling, a man named Michael Rovito, wearing a Temple University t-shirt, approached Palin

“How about the Pakistan situation?” he asked her. “What’s your thoughts about that.”

“In Pakistan?” she asked.

“What’s going on over there,” Rovito said, “like Waziristian?”

“It’s working with Zardari to make sure that we’re all working together to stop the guys from coming in over the border,” Palin responded. “And we’ll go from there.”

“Waziristan is blowing up!” exclaimed Rovito.

“Yeah it is,” said Palin, “and the economy there is blowing up too.”

“So we do cross the border,” he asked, “like from Afghanistan to Pakistan, you think?”

“If that’s what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in,” she said, “absolutely, we should.”

As John McCain said on ABC’s This Week when host George Stephanopoulos tried to paint this as a major policy break between McCain and the subordinate on his ticket, Palin:

“I don’t think most Americans think that that’s a definitive policy statement made by Governor Palin. And I would hope you wouldn’t, either.”

Steph’s hang up is that he equated Palin’s statement with one made by Barack Obama in a speech to an audience at Washington DC’s Woodrow Wilson Center last year.

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PREFACE:

On ABC’s This week, John McCain explained that he could not stand on the sideline during this new deal discussion: “I’m a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. I had to get in the arena.” He credited House Republicans for pulling House Republicans back into the New Deal negotiations.

On FOX News Sunday, John Kerry argued that “it’s not for us to say” who won Friday night’s debate, adding that the new deal was reached by using the principles laid out by Barack Obama. All talk of earmarks, he dismissed as “demagoguery.” Lindsey Graham admitted that he was “part of the problem” with earmarks and promised that Sarah Palin’s performance would get better than it was answering Katie Couric about Alaska and Russia. “If you want things to change,” he said, “bring in agents of change.”

On NBC’s Meet the Press, we heard the campaigns’ talking points from their ultimate sources. Axelrod made light of McCain never mentioned the “middle class” by term in the debate, while Schmidt pointed out that Obama never used the term “victory” in connection with the wars. Next, Republican Bob Schaffer and Dem Mark Udall, of Colorado Senate election fame, “debated.”

On CBS’ Face the Nation, Barack Obama praised the crafters of this new deal for incorporating the provisions he’d stated at the beginning, and he reiterated that he would support the measure only if it included his principles.

On CNN’s Late Edition, Representative Eric Cantor discussed the House Republicans’ desire to include an insurance provision in the new deal which would protect taxpayers by having Wall Street pay for it. Barney Franks blamed the Reagan Administration and the free market. Cantor insisted that insurance be included, and Barney indicated that it is included but not mandatory.

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Perhaps the New York Times‘ editors had asked Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny to write something more-or-less objective about last night’s debate, and they are fine for the first several paragraphs, but then they slip into a bitter and disgruntled mode:

Mr. McCain, in the kind of misstep that no doubt would have been used by Republicans against Mr. Obama, mangled the name of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and he stumbled over the name of Pakistan’s newly inaugurated president, calling him “Qadari.” His name is actually Asif Ali Zardari.

That is a bitter assumption based on absolutely nothing, a cheap shot at Republicans, and by extension, John McCain. It has no place in an objective news article because, well, it is not objective news. McCain mangled a few names; as reporters, these two clowns should have reported this and left off the snide remark about the Republicans. A bad reporter biased in the other direction could have written: “Mr. McCain, the kind of misstep which no doubt will be injected into the campaign by Obama strategist David Axelrod…”

They watched the debate safely from their own little dream world:

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For Sunday, August 28, 2008

FOX News Sunday (FNS): Host Chris Wallace will host Senator Lindsey Graham against Senator John Kerry.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos talks to John McCain, then to Newt Gingrich.

Meet the Press (NBC): Moderator Tom Brokaw will chat with Obama-maker David Axelrod and McCain’s chief strategist Steve Schmidt, then he turns to Colorado’s Senate race with Dem Mark Udall and Republican Bob Schaffer.

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer will discuss matters with Obama.

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolf Blitzer chat with Pak Prez Asif Ali Zardari and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank.

= = = = = =

First of all, though it will be last on Sunday, I want Blitzer (LE) to ask President Zardari what he thinks of Obama’s plans to march into his country and firing missile. What’s the protocol for that sort of thing between friendly nations?

We have to sit through John Kerry again (FNS), and at least this year brings us a more interesting Dem than they had in ’04. Obama will be on FTN.

I doubt we’ll see Axelrod appear with Schmidt on MTP. But to balance things out, McCain will be on TW, which has recently been scoring better in that ratings than has FTN.

It was impressive to watch John McCain hold his own on issues of the domestic economy while moderator Jim Lehrer lingered for almost the first 40 minutes. I saw McCain smiling and anxious to speak, while Obama alternated between staged confidence, mock impatience, and outright anger. Obama could not shine, but neither could score a knockout. Obama blamed Bush/McCain, but McCain, I think, successfully ejected Bush from the equation, which was what he had to do.

When the switched to foreign policy, the alleged topic of this debate, it was a string of bludgeoning blows. McCain seemed to be traversing familiar ground, and he was. Obama appeared to be reciting memorized cue cards written by David Axelrod more than by any foreign policy expert. Name dropping, Obama dropped the ball when he invoked Henry Kissinger, whom McCain then referred to as his friend of thirty years. Dropping names, McCain dropped Reagan. Obama couldn’t touch it.

McCain was the adult professor, dealing with foreign policy with names and places and issues. Obama… oh, not so much. I’m more comfortable with John McCain. Obama, again, recited Axelrodian foreign policy lines, more political than substantive, and tried to change the subject to investment in early childhood education and such weighty issues.

What matters, though, is what the perception-shapers think. The media. There are many Americans who watched the debate and came away with their own opinions of the performance, but those who can be shaped will be swayed by the media. The ball’s in their court. McCain scored no knockout, so they can argue whatever it is they wish.

This debate was not close, but let’s hear the sounbytes.

On Tuesday, John McCain’s top strategist Steve Schmidt described the New York Times as a “pro-Obama advocacy organization” (see Jeff’s piece and mine). He pointed out that the once-venerable paper was “no longer a standard news organization.” And he was right. And they might – perhaps, perhaps – have heard him.

On their front page today, the Times reports something we thought we would never see on their pages, a criticism of Barack Obama.

No kidding!

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The new Rasmussen tracking poll (Friday, September 26)has Obama at 50%, an important number, and McCain five-points back at 45%.

New data shows McCain’s lead is down to a single percentage point in Ohio and Florida. He leads by eight in West Virginia while Obama continues to hold a modest advantage in Pennsylvania. A Virginia update will be released at noon Eastern today.

It’s stunning to note how rapidly the dynamics of the campaign have changed. Two weeks ago, just before the Wall Street financial crunch became visible, McCain was up by three points in the aftermath of his convention. One week ago today, the candidates were even. Now, Obama’s lead is approaching new highs entering the final few weeks of the campaign.

It is interesting to note that Obama has gained this lead by essentially voting “present” in the debate over this financial matter.

The Obama campaign and the major media have scoffed at Sarah Palin for having met no heads of foreign governments prior to this week, yet from this AP article asserting that the McCain campaign is running the State of Alaska these days, we hear from Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, who is giving some of Palin’s speeches, etc:

“I’m speaking several more times a week — like, for instance, I’m about to go meet the president of Iceland,” Parnell said.

Does this mean that Palin has never met Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson? Did he wait until Palin was out of town so that he could meet with the male lieutenant governor? Why aren’t Obama and his media allies condemning this blatant sexism from the government of Iceland?

I’m upset, and I think that I will tear up my draft card.

A Dutch donor to Barack Obama writes in a Dutch paper, NRC Handelsblad, that she worked for the McCain campaign writing bogus letters to American newspapers.

Romanesko reads to us from that Salon online teen magazine:

“We are allowed to make up whatever we want — as long as it adds to the campaign,” writes Margriet Oostveen, who did time as a McCain volunteer and falsely claimed in one letter that she has a son in Iraq. “Next to commercials and phone banking, writing letters to the editor is the most important method of the McCain campaign to attract voters. At least that is what’s written in the guidelines that McCain campaign worker Phil Tuchman presents to me.”

McClatchy watch offers the ultimate caveat: Oostveen had donated to Barack Obama’s campaign as recently as last February. She’s in the tank for Obama, and she asks us to believe what she writes about McCain’s campaign.

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Every four years, at about this time of year, daily newspapers endorse one candidate for the Presidency or the other, and we know which candidate will be indorsed by what paper. The Seattle Times has editorially endorsed Obama – no surprise – and the New York Times will follow suit. (They have endorsed him in every way but “officially.”) Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post has editorially endorsed John McCain. No surprises. The Washington Times will probably back him as well, eventually.

Who cares? Well, they do. It makes them feel worthwhile and influential, and they can talk about having endorsed someone. Most voters do not care. Those of us with an interest in media bias could react with anger or with a shrug: these things are predictable, and often very poorly written, ill-constructed, faulty arguments, such as is the case with the Seattle paper’s attack on President Bush and appeal to the meaningless notion of Hopechangehope.

Something interesting. In Alabama, the Hunstville Times has endorsed… absolutely nobody, thankyouvery much. Editorial Page editor John Ehinger writes:

Let me get to the point: This presidential election year, The Times’ editorial board has decided not to recommend (or, if you prefer, “endorse”) a presidential candidate. This isn’t the first time we’ve made such a decision, but it’s the first time we’ve made the decision for the following reasons:

Our strength is state and local issues and subjects. While TV and radio have local news, it tends to be narrow and limited in quantity. If you want to know what the city Planning Commission did last week, where do you look? To The Times, of course.

At the same time, Americans who have a particular interest in a national or international topic can focus on that one topic, such as a presidential campaign, to the exclusion of everything else. To that end, they have unlimited resources as close as their keyboard. And we want to bring insights you can’t get everywhere else.

Finally, and this is the most important consideration, we don’t have access to the candidates. I can’t call Barack Obama or John McCain (and maybe not even Bob Barr) and ask them to come in to meet with the six-member editorial board.

That, my friends, is refreshingly unpretentious and very true. People neither need to know nor care whom a newspaper’s editorial board wants to be President. And those editorial boards which can imperiously hold court with the Presidential nominees are like the biddies on ABC’s The View: Their minds are made up by their party identification, and they will allow nothing to intrude upon their prefabricated opinions.

The Huntsville Times’ Ehinger challenges the paper’s readers to offer their “editorial” opinions on who should be President:

Write us a commentary of up to 800 words. Submit it in hard-copy form, double-spaced. Include your name, address and phone number on a separate sheet. Each entry will be numbered sequentially as the entries arrive. The judges will know they’re reading, say, entry No. 11. They just won’t know who wrote it.

The paper will pick on McCain endorsement and one Obama endorsement. I look forward to reading the winners, and I applaud John Ehinger and the Hunstville Times.

The NRSC evidently thinks the Minnesota Democrat is kinda, sorta not made of the right stuff to sit in the United States Senate, and they remind voters of why they feel this way.

It is all true.

(HT, RCP Blog)

(UPDATE: Lest we forget our role in this great adventure, you can donate to Franken’s opponent, Senator Norm Coleman, at this secure site.)

The New York Times reports today that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis pulled in $30,000/month from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for five years. He ran an advocacy group which “current and former officials say” was created to “defend them against stricter regulations.” The writers, David Kirkpatrick and Charles Duhigg, accuse Davis of nothing illegal or unethical; rather, they’re sitting little bits of muddy insinuation perhaps to see something stick somewhere.

John McCain’s chief strategist Steve Schmidt will hear none of that [nonsense].

His statement on a conference call this AM:

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PREFACE:

On FNS, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was reassuring, but could not rule out that there might have to be more bailouts/seizures. He explained that we will “work through this,” as we had with so many problems in the past.

Next on FNS, Chuck Schumer promised that the Dems would not “Christmas Tree” the bailout/seizure bill but that he did want to include mortgage relief. Jon Kyl told him that Congress had already passed mortgage relief.

On ABC’s TW, when asked if this bailout/seizure we “socialism,” Secretary Paulson responded: “This is big government interventionism. … It’s necessary right now.”

Next up, Chris Dodd demanded this and that while John Boehner said that it was time to put aside ideology and act like adults.

On MTP, moderator Tom Brokaw is trying, but he’s often confused. Secretary Paulson had to explain to him that the difference between his proposed scheme and Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) is that the former was created to take over the debts of insolvent lending institutions, while this time, the government had prevented such failure.

Next on MTP, Mike Bloomberg backed Paulson as being the right guy in charge. Brokaw argued for a separate agency, like Roosevelt’s RTC, to run this system and he asked Bloomberg to do it. He asked Bloomberg if he’d manipulate the rules to seek a third term, and Bloomberg quipped that he wanted to be host of Meet the Press.

On CBS’ FTN, Paulson said that they are asking foreign governments to help in this crisis, as it is an international problem. Next, Senator Richard Shelby said that this crisis was caused by greed and a lack of regulations. We need more regulations. As Schieffer was leaving the segment, Barney Frank interrupted to say a “Sunday morning… Amen to Senator Shelby.” Schieffer opined that it was worth the interruption just to hear him say this.

ON CNN’s LE, it was Rob Portman for McCain and Gene Sperling for Obama. Sperling’s talking point was that John McCain has always been for less regulation of the financial markets, and now even a “conservative Administration” (Bush’s?) was forced to admit that it needed more rules and regulations. Portman countered that McCain had always favored “smarter, tougher regulations.” Sperling argued that Obama had foresaw months ago that this crisis was coming, but McCain had only called for less regulation; Portman reminded that McCain foresaw this two years ago and proposed legislation which Obama rejected.

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The Associated Press speculates that if Barack Obama loses this upcoming election, racism may be the factor the factor which tips the balloting toward John McCain. That racism, they assert, will have been exhibited by Democrats against a Democrat.

This theory is based on a Yahoo-AP poll:

[A]n AP-Yahoo News poll … found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them “lazy,” “violent,” responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.

The poll found that only 7 in 10 Dems support Obama while 85% of Republicans support John McCain.

More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can’t win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don’t have such views. …

“There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn’t mean there’s only a few bigots,” said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.

The poll was not about race, but it seems the folks at AP-Yahoo-Stanford were curious enough to ask. The racism of Democrats must be confronted rather than hidden, and this might be one of the unintended consequences of Obama’s candidacy.

It is the 21st century, yet the same political party which prances a “progressive” dance still harbors some horrible attitudes. And there are plenty of reasons why no one should vote for Obama/Biden; race should not be on the template.

What of the Republican racists? Oh, they’re still out there, but most of them would not vote for a quasi-socialist one-worlder regardless of his race, creed, or color. And we might see in eight years whether or not these people would vote for a woman for President.

For Sunday, August 21, 2008

FOX News Sunday (FNS): Host Chris Wallace talks to surrogates: Jon Kyl for McCain and Chuckie Schumer for Obama. Then he talks to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos talks to Paulson, House Republican Leader John Boehner, and one of those in government most responsible for the Dodd-gate financial crisis, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Dem.

Meet the Press (NBC): Moderator Tom Brokaw talks to Paulson and NYC’s indie Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer talks to Paulson; another of this in government most response for the Frank-gate financial crisis, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Dem; and Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby.

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolf Blitzer talks to McCain economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a bunch of political strategists, and his usual cast of thousands.

= = = = =

It’s all about a financial crisis on the road to the White House, a mess at the circus. These things happen, I suppose, and we’ll hear the requisite yammering. I’m especially looking forward to hearing from Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. I’ll have the report tomorrow.

Check it out:

In a CBS 2 HD exclusive interview, Rep. Rangel called Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin “disabled.”

The question was simple: Why are the Democrats so afraid of Palin and her popularity?

The answer was astonishing.

“You got to be kind to the disabled,” Rangel said.

That’s right. The chairman of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee called Palin disabled — even when CBS 2 HD called him on it.

CBS 2 HD: “You got to be kind to the disabled?”

Rangel: “Yes.”
 
CBS 2 HD: “She’s disabled?”

Rangel: “There’s no question about it politically. It’s a nightmare to think that a person’s foreign policy is based on their ability to look at Russia from where they live.

Rangel, a tax cheat who pays up only when caught, has become so addled that he confuses a candidate for the vice presidency of the United States with Tina Fey. Ground control to Chuck…

He meant “disabled” as an insult, in the childish, “cooties” sense, but it was the wrong insult for Rangel to toss around. And it could well have been directed at Governor Palin’s youngest son.

Chuck Rangel is a sick, sick man. Maybe the pressure is getting to him. The House Ethics Committee is eyeing him, and he’s had his car towed from a Congressional lot.

It is past time for him to resign.

From the Associated Press, we get this headline: GOP senator: A ‘stretch’ to say Palin is qualified.

The story itself? Well, the senator is “Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel.”

Go figure.

According to NBC’s First Read, the Wisconsin Advertising Project has discovered that contrary to Democrats’ “bed-witting whiners” [note: their terms for themselves], Obama is going negative more than his Republican counterpart:

Campaign ads hitting the airwaves as McCain returned to the road after Minneapolis showed a trend away from positivism, with 77% of ads from the Democratic nominee coding negative, compared to 56% of McCain’s spots.

Obama is more negative, but this not how the press will portray it.

At Politico.com, Roger Simon considers the question of whether Barack Obama could actually lose to John McCain. The article is uninteresting except for some internecine name-calling. CNN’s Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s campaign manager in 2000, accuses Democrats of “whining,” while Obama campaign manager David Plouffe scoffs that Democrats are “bed-wetting.”

Context is important. These Dem strategists believe that the mindless Dem masses are frightened that John McCain might defeat the Dem candidate, Barack Obama.

Brazile explains:

“Democrats are notorious for whining when things go bad.”

And when things are going well, but we won’t go there now.

Instead, we’ll look to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe and how he referred to these Democrat worry worts. Politico.com’s Simon reminds us, told the New York Times:

“I’m sure between now and Nov. 4 there will be another period of hand-wringing and bed-wetting.”

For her part, Brazile is wetting her bed, to characterize her sentiments in the Plouffian manner. She stipulates that “Obama’s voice is strong and articulate,” but she frets that he sometimes “seems unsure of his own voice.”

For his part, Plouffe is being Plouffe.

One prominent Dem who is neither whining nor bed-wetting is one-time Hillary supporter Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a member of the DNC platform committee.

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