A website dedicated to the man so uniquely unqualified to be President. This blog by by radio talk host Todd Feinburg has been replaced by RealClearThinker.com.
Can it be that the economic policies of the Bush administration have been this successful? Under Bush, those in poverty fell dramatically, while the number of families making over $100,000/year has skyrocketed to one in four!
In 1996, only 9 percent of the electorate said their family income was that high. Last week it had grown to 26 percent — more than one in four voters. And those making over $75,000 are up to 15 percent from 9 percent. Put another way, more than 40 percent of those voting earned over $75,000, making this the highest-income electorate in history.
It seems that W. should be known as the first poor president.
The poorest segment of the electorate, those making under $15,000, has shrunk from 11 percent to 6 percent over the past dozen years. And those making $15,000 to $30,000 annually — the working poor — also shrunk from 23 percent to 12 percent of the electorate.
At the same time, the voters have become more racially diverse (with white voters dropping 9 points from 1996 to 74 percent of the electorate and minorities) and better educated — voters who had attended some college are surging.
As tight a ship as the Obama campaign was, we have to assume that any aides to Obama who were briefed on his meeting with the President are leaking details with campaign consent and knowledge.
Just hours after President Bush and President-elect Obama met in the Oval Office of the White House, details of their confidential conversation began leaking out to the press, igniting anger from the president, sources claim.
"Senator Obama would be wise to keep close counsel," a top Bush source warned.
"Senator Obama may not be familiar with a long-standing tradition of presidents holding their private conversations, private," a senior adviser explained to the DRUDGE REPORT.
If not, we should expect him to be firing the leakers any minute. After all, how many people would know?
"BUSH AND OBAMA AT ODDS OVER AID FOR AUTO INDUSTRY," splashed the NEW YORK TIMES in an exclusive Monday evening, quoting "people familiar with the discussion."
The two met at the White House in private, without staff.
"Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader economic stimulus package if Obama and congressional Democrats dropped their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia," claimed the TIMES.
Is this Barack's idea for how to reward President Bush for the gracious transition he's running?
The ASSOCIATED PRESS quickly followed with details of the conversation, citing "aides who described the discussion on grounds of anonymity, citing the private nature of the meeting."
Bush advisers view the leaks as an effort to undermine the president's remaining days in office.
Democrat Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain in five of eight key battleground states as Americans prepare to vote in the White House race, according to a series of Reuters/Zogby polls released on Tuesday.
Obama expanded his national lead to 11 points over McCain among likely U.S. voters in a separate Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby tracking poll, up from 7 points on Sunday. The telephone poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.
Obama appeared to be firmly in command of the presidential battle as Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, with McCain struggling to beat back a challenge from Obama in about a dozen states won by President George W. Bush in 2004.
The new state surveys showed Obama with a slim 1-point lead in Florida and 2-point edge in Ohio, within the margin of error of 4.1 percentage points. Obama had bigger leads in Virginia and Nevada.
Those four states, all won by Bush in the last election, have a combined 65 electoral votes. Along with states won by Democrat John Kerry in 2004 where Obama safely leads, they would give Obama 317 electoral votes -- more than the 270 needed to win the White House.
My wife said yesterday, "let's go see W. It's gotten loads of positive reviews."
"W." MAY sound like the story of the initial that rocked the world, but it turns out to be the tale of a mouse that roared. Director Oliver Stone and writer Stanley Weiser's unexpected take on the life and times of our 43rd president will surprise a lot of people, especially those not used to seeing the words "Oliver Stone" and "carefully modulated" in the same sentence.
"I'm sure they're lying," I offered, while agreeing to go. Reviewers would give good news on W. just because it's an anti-Bush film, wouldn't they?
Perhaps the crucial reason "W." succeeds as much as it does is the surprisingly empathetic work of Josh Brolin, the American actor of the moment, in the title role. Against considerable odds, his George Walker Bush is a sympathetic likeness of an apparently sincere individual, someone who seems to mean it when he says, "All I want to do is make it a better and safer world." Even if Stone had a more savage portrayal in mind, the quality of this performance won't allow it.
This film is a live action cartoon. Brolin does an uncanny job of capturing the small things that convey the superficiality of who Bush is - the weird laugh, the smirk, the squint - but the film offers us nothing more than two dimensional imitation. We get to be with the characters, including Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney and Rove, but we never get to know them, or learn anything new about them. And the whole premise of the movie is an unproven supposition - that Bush is haunted by the desire to please his father.
What makes Bush the way he is, "W." posits, is the drive of his life, the desire of the family black sheep to prove himself and get the approval and regard of his distant, patrician father, George H.W. Bush (James Cromwell), the picture of sobriety and rectitude who is forever saying to his son, "You disappoint me, Junior."
We know nothing more about any of the characters at the end then we do at the beginning - they have not changed as a result of the story as there is no opportunity for transformation. It's a bit like watching the Three Stooges - no matter what happens in today's episode, they guys will be back next time in the same developmental place they were at the last time. They are consistent characters who are dropped into different situations, coming away unevolved and ready for the next caper. The president seems tired and frustrated by the failure of things to go the way he'd expected, but we are given no indication that he is changed, or that he might do things differently given another chance.
But the key bond in "W." is inevitably the one between the two presidents, father and son. It's the father who gets the lion's share of the good lines, at one point chiding his hard-partying son by saying, "Who do you think you are, a Kennedy?" Late in the film, the father even appears in the son's bad dream, telling him, "You've ruined it, the Bush name, it took 200 years to build and you ruined it."
The movie seems eager to capitalize on a business opportunity rather than committed to delivering the goods. The world is very interested in W, so business is brisk, even if Oliver Stone doesn't deliver a very interesting film.
That's a sentiment that unnerves the president and marks "W." as a film not to be trifled with.
It is entertaining to watch, though I found my focus waning from time to time, but is a bit like having rice cakes for dinner. After all that chewing, your stomach doesn't feel any more full.
What is surprising is that Stone allows Bush to emerge a sympathetic and likable guy - a man who, through no fault of his own, was born without the gifts required to carry the weight of the silver spoon.
Sen. John McCain's 2006 demand for regulatory action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could have prevented current financial crisis, as HUMAN EVENTS learned from the letter shown in full text below.
McCain's letter -- signed by nineteen other senators -- said that it was "...vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]...operate in a safe and sound manner.[and]..More importantly, Congress must ensure that the American taxpayer is protected in the event that either...should fail."
Sen. Obama did not sign the letter, nor did any other Democrat.
What does Sarah need to get her confidence back in advance of Thursday's debate? Most of the answers are 'should have' options, with the time well past for implementation. But Laura Ingraham was asking yesterday why she's being kept from her friends in conservative talk radio. Could there be a more natural place for her to get her sea legs? There's an option that could be implemented today to help Palin get her groove in advance of the campaign's big night.
Ed Rollins, David Gergen and others discuss on CNN what the McCain campaign has done wrong.
Ready to go into a 4pm White House meeting, it's unclear whether congress has hammered out acceptable terms for an agreement.
Key Republicans and Democrats reported agreement Thursday on an outline for a historic $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, but there was still resistance from rank-and-file House Republicans despite warnings of an impending panic.
"I now expect we will, indeed, have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate, be signed by the president and bring a sense of certainty to this crisis that is sill roiling in the market," Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, said as members of both parties emerged from a two-hour negotiating session.
"We're very confident that we can act expeditiously," said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman.
Some are being much more reserved in their analysis. Are they delaying the celebration on behalf of John McCain? No reason to think that Republicans won't be as willing to politicize this as Democrats have been.
Not everyone in the closed-door talks was as optimistic. Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the only House Republican in the bargaining meeting, stopped short of saying he agreed with the other lawmakers on an imminent deal.
"There was progress today," said Bachus, the senior Republican on the House Financial Services panel.
Later, he issued a statement saying he was not empowered to strike any deals and there was "no agreement other than to continue discussions."
Both houses' Republican leaders, Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell, also issued statements saying there was no agreement.
Good old Bill Clinton comes through again, reminding people that Democrats share some of the blame for the current situation.
Injecting a jolt of new drama into the U.S. presidential race, Republican John McCain on Wednesday said he was temporarily suspending his campaign in a bid to help break a deadlock on Capitol Hill over the White House's proposed $700-billion bailout of Wall Street.
His decision Wednesday to do something bold and to link his campaign more strongly to the bailout legislation preceded a speech by President Bush last night, created a VP style media drama over what will happen to the debate Friday night, and forced Barack to dance along to his lead.
The move came on a dramatic day that ended with President George W. Bush making a rare prime-time televised address, warning that the "serious financial crisis" is putting the "entire economy . . . in danger."
Mr. Bush warned that if action was not taken soon, "America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold."
McCain is now front and center on the attempts in congress to hammer out emergency legislation. And he and Barack got to put out their joint statement.
With debate in Congress over the proposed rescue package at an impasse, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said late Wednesday he would join Mr. McCain for an emergency meeting with Bush and leaders of Congress Thursday at the White House.
"This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country," Messrs. Obama and McCain said in a joint statement. "We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country."
The real potential exists for McCain to look, once again, like the guy capable of going beyond looking presidential, and actually acting presidential in a time of crisis.
But while both candidates were putting their campaigns on hold, Mr. Obama rejected Mr. McCain's request for a scheduled presidential debate on Friday to be postponed while they worked jointly on the financial crisis.
Mr. Obama, who has been campaigning in Florida, said he agreed to return to Washington after Bush phoned with an invitation for the impromptu White House summit.
If this thing drags on another 24 hours, Barack could end up in a pickle over what to do about tomorrow night, with his campaign stuck in high profile reaction mode. But if it resolves quickly, McCain may not have been in Washington long enough to create a sense of linkage between his actions and the final legislation.
Democrats are doing their best to make McCain seem irrelevant.
Moments after Bush spoke on Wednesday, powerful Democrat Rep. Barney Frank said a bailout bill would pass.
"Earlier today, it became clear to me we would get the votes to pass this bill," Frank, who is chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, told CNBC.
It's such a shame that she's not currently holding office.
Lots of political candidates make campaign promises. But not like Charlotte Dennett's. Dennett, 61, the Progressive Party's candidate for Vermont Attorney General, said Thursday she will prosecute President Bush for murder if she's elected Nov. 4.
I wonder if she also wants to try Harry Truman, FDR, JFK and LBJ for similar crimes.
Dennett, an attorney and investigative journalist, says Bush must be held accountable for the deaths of thousands of people in Iraq — U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. She believes the Vermont attorney general would have jurisdiction to do so.
If only liberals would pursue directly the America they want to see, they'd be so easy to beat. Because in their hearts, they are Dennis Kucinich and Charlotte Dennett merged into one. Do you doubt that liberals in general, including Barack, agree with her?
She also said she would appoint a special prosecutor and already knows who that should be: former Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, the author of "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder," a new book.
"Someone has to step forward," said Dennett, flanked by Bugliosi at a news conference announcing her plan. "Someone has to say we cannot put up with this lack of accountability any more."
In Vermont, we have to figure this woman has a good chance of getting elected. The one thing holding her back is that she's not a member of the Communist Party.
Dennett and two others are challenging incumbent Attorney GeneralWilliam Sorrell, a Democrat, in the Nov. 4 election.
Do you remember 15 years ago the Dateline NBC scandal, when the TV news program put an ignition device on a pickup truck in order to make it explode for a feature on faulty truck design?
NBC had acknowledged that in the demonstration it used "sparking devices," or tiny rockets, strapped to the bottom of one of the trucks, to insure that it would ignite if its gas tank leaked. But the network did not reveal the presence of the sparking devices.
This case provides an insight into television works, which, in turn, offers insight into the way politics works in America today.
Take it from an expert. Karl Rove, known as the architect of President George W. Bush’s electoral victories, believes White House candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have gone too far in their attacks on each other.
Everything on TV is fake. The most mundane news creation, like a reporter sitting doing an interview, involves shooting the interview over the shoulder of the interviewer toward the guest, and then after the interview, the reporter restates his questions as the camera aims at his face - the guest having moved on with his life. It is a medium that, in order to create images of reality, depends on illusions - using special lighting and makeup, at a minimum.
“In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove — the man who held the previous record — said McCain’s ads have gone too far,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement.
Campaigns today are fought on the platform of TV, where falsehoods are used as tools to portray reality. Deliberately, they misrepresent the facts - lying, it's called in the real world. As Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor was doing when he made the above statement. Because, at the same time that Rove said McCain had gone to far, he said:
...an ad by the Democratic presidential nominee and Illinois senator criticizing McCain for not being e-mail savvy was unfair. “His war injuries keep him from being able to use a keyboard. He can’t type. You know, it’s like saying he can’t do jumping jacks,” Rove said of the Arizona senator and former U.S. prisoner of war in Vietnam.
This is how the campaigns do business. And they use the sniping over whose ads are deceptive as cover, it seems, to keep people from noticing the big lies - like Obama's lies on ending the war in Iraq. The truth about what Rove said?
Rove said both campaigns were making a mistake by pushing the envelope with their assaults. “They don’t need to attack each other in this way,” he said. “They have legitimate points to make about each other.”
Charlie Gibson managed to make Sarah look bad in the first segment of his interview with her Thursday. Which means he did a bad job. Anyone who has been around as long as Charlie can make someone look bad - the challenge is to reveal them to the country, not stump them.
Sarah Palin showed herself as steely and supremely confident--even when she stumbled over a question about the Bush Doctrine --and brushed off whether it mattered that she had never met a foreign head of state in her much anticipated first network interview as John McCain's running mate.
Questions about being mayor and governor, and how those experiences might have prepared her for national leadership would have been better than a game of gotcha on foreign affairs. Save the international stuff until after she gets her footing.
ABC anchor Charles Gibson--who had something to prove as an interviewer after a controversial turn as a debate moderator--at times seemed exasperated at Palin's rehearsed patter in the segments of the interview shown on the evening newscast.
I don't feel that I learned much about Sarah Palin last night - but I did have confirmed for me that Charlie is spineless. I man with some backbone wouldn't have been so fearful of being accused of going easy on Sarah that he would have shown so much... hubris.
Palin, 44, the Alaska governor, kept herself out of major trouble, and that was her most important goal, first do no harm. She sounded reasonable--that is she is not calling for some kind of holy wars in explaining the statement she made in her church about war and God's plan. "I believe that there is a plan for this world and that plan for this world is for good."
Of course, it would have been nice if the McCain people just let her dodge the international stuff - "I'm not taking questions on foreign affairs yet, Charlie. I'm still getting up to speed on some areas that just haven't been relevant to my pay grade as a governor." But they had her pretend to be ready, and Charlie pretended his questions were reasonable, and the elephant in the room went unmentioned.
Many liberals are belittling the choice, suggesting that as a mother of five children — including an infant with Down syndrome — she has neither the time nor the experience to become vice president... Change and reform are getting top billing by Republicans, a mantra that had all but belonged to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
Sarah Palin, meanwhile, doesn't like the idea of using charges of sexism as a shield.
But use it they must, as it hits Democrats so delightfully where they sit. Andrew Romano quotes McCain adviser Carly Fiorina on his Newsweek blog:
I am appalled by the Obama campaign’s attempts to belittle Gov. Sarah Palin’s experience. The facts are that Sarah Palin has made more executive decisions as a mayor and governor than Barack Obama has made in his life. Because of Hillary Clinton’s historic run for the presidency and the treatment she received, American women are more highly tuned than ever to recognize and decry sexism in all its forms. They will not tolerate sexist treatment of Governor Palin.”
As Rudy said on all the morning shows today:
...I am really upset….Where are these feminist groups? I mean she is being asked questions like 'Can you be a vice president and a mother? But what about Barack Obama -- can you be a president and a father? Or John McCain? I was never asked that question, or George Bush or Al Gore. All these men have run, most of them had families -- some of them had young children -- none of them were ever asked 'Can you be a father and can you be president or vice president?'"
Barack has tried to tread carefully around the Palin issue, knowing first hand how delicate the feelings of women voters can be.
Obama and running mate Joe Biden issued a joint statement calling the choice "yet another encouraging sign that old barriers are falling in our politics."
The old barriers aren't coming down, however. Just as Barack, through his relationship with Reverend Wright, has revealed the role Democrats play in partnering with the race baiting industry, sexism by Democrats is now also in clear public display, as they now support the old barriers in order to try to stop Sarah Palin.
Last Friday, after the McCain vice presidential pick was revealed, I'm told that Rush opened his show by asking, "Does anybody remember Barack Obama?" or, "When is Barack going to give his speech," or some such humor.
Sarah Palin has had that kind of impact on this race - today, she's front page news again, as the pregnancy of her 17 year old daughter continues to percolate. The net effect? Palin is reinforced as a real live person who happened to get into power, alone in that unique stature as she faces off against career politicians who live for the pursuit of power.
Obama can do little more than try to gain some high ground points for saying the pregnancy is personal, family business, and everyone should lay off. It's a sideline position, but it's all he has.
The tide continues to turn against him.
Barack has built his campaign on the premise of America being in a malaise. The malaise perception was largely driven by the war in Iraq (now going so well everyone assumes it's been won), and the price of oil.
Oil prices fell below $106 a barrel Tuesday in Asia - $10 below its close Friday before the Labor Day weekend - as investors shifted their focus to slowing global demand after worries about Hurricane Gustav subsided.
Light, sweet crude for October delivery was trading at $106.03 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange midafternoon in Singapore, and at one point dropped as low as $105.46.
Suppliers are suddenly trying to figure out how to keep the price from breaking the $100 barrier.
"The market continues to be weighed down by worries of a global economic downturn and slowing oil demand in developing markets," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consultancy Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. "Action by OPEC and supply side concerns should put a backstop to any sharp price drop."
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is scheduled to meet Sept. 9 and has indicated it may take action to defend the $100 a barrel level.
The combination of Sarah Palin and Good News have created a new dynamic into the race that has the Obama campaign struggling how to regain its footing, just days after the end of the party's convention. Even Gustav failed to do its job in bringing the country back into the malaise.
As a hurricane, Gustav left half of New Orleans without power as it lashed Louisiana and Mississippi, toppling trees and tearing off roofs. The city's flood defenses were intact and the death toll may have been kept to single figures, officials said. Katrina flooded 80 percent of the city and killed 1,800 people.
Gustav turned to an advantage as the loss of the convention's first day pushed President Bush and Dick Cheney off the agenda, and the storm went away quickly allowing the convention to get back on track.
Timing is everything. That's the old saying, and it appears to be true in the campaign of John McCain, whose convention, and campaign, stands ready to be robbed of its week in the spotlight by Hurricane Gustav.
Preparations continue along the Gulf Coast where Gustav will pose a serious threat to lives and property early next week. Newly-formed Tropical Storm Hanna could eventually create problems for the Bahamas in the days following Gustav's landfall.
Today marks the anniversary of one of the most devastating natural disasters in United States history, the landfall of Hurricane Katrina. With the destruction and loss of lives during Katrina fresh of many people's minds, the Gulf Coast prepares for Gustav.
As of 5 a.m. EDT, Gustav was a strong tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. The AccuWeather.com Hurricane Centerreports the storm will strengthen into a hurricane today as it departs the mountainous island of Jamaica. On the other hand, life isn't about the hardships that come your way, it's about how you react. McCain's campaign has shown itself to be pretty adept at responding to events, and I suspect they're planning right now how to maximize the opportunity that a hurricane convention presents.
Drudge has an undeveloped headline suggesting that the " GOP may delay start of convention because of Hurricane Gustav." How do they do that?
The fact remains, however, that three years after Katrina, this is a cruel reminder of W's disinterest, and government incompetence, surrounding that event.
Democrats might not be united behind BarackObama, but they are certainly united in what they think about George Bush and the GOP. What Obama needed in this convention was an effective assault on George Bush and John McCain, an argument, repeated over and over again — the way negative ads have to be in order to work — about why McCain was wrong, why he was tied to the high gas prices and faltering economy and failing war and mounting foreclosures and ridiculous health care bills that the majority of Americans are most concerned with.
The key phrase in that paragraph is "over and over again." This has been a convention without a theme. Tonight that will change, presumably, when Joe Biden hits the stage and does the old "4 more years of Bush" routine on John McCain, but even that speech will follow Bill Clinton's address, which will surely get lots of coverage through the evening and for tomorrow's news cycle.
That message has been heard on occasion, but it has not been the message of this Convention. Not even close.
The story coming out of this Convention is not Obama v. McCain, much less the follies of McCain and Bush, but Clinton v. Obama.
That has been the story - and that story is likely to continue as we pick apart Bill's performance tonight and compare it to Hillary's.
That was inevitable once the schedule was set, probably inevitable once the Obama team decided they didn't have to take on Hillary's debt and didn't have to treat her with kid gloved respect with which winners usually treat losers who have a lot of delegates.
This convention is one of Barack's first big leadership challenges, as he's a man with no leadership experience. How did he screw up the whole thing with the Clintons?
They didn't reach out to her delegates and donors and make them feel like they were important. As late as a week before the Convention, BarackObama himself was saying that they were dealing with Hillary's top staff, not her supporters. Big mistake. Almost as big as thinking you can control Bill Clinton. It is nothing short of unbelievable to me that they thought, until Monday, that they could tell Bill Clinton what to say. Why would he listen?
There's another big mistake, of course, and that is the decision to hold a coronation speech in front of 75,000 people tomorrow night. Barack as a rock star has been effectively devalued by the McCain campaign, and turned into a negative.
If BarackObama could have moved his acceptance speech to a school auditorium or a factory floor, that would have been great. Turning it into a rock concert is not so great. He doesn't need to look like a guy who can hold a crowd of 70,000. Everyone knows that. The question is whether that's all he can do.
The McCain campaign is very good now at making Barack suffer for his mistakes, and surely he will be well mocked for the stadium speech, and for the mausoleum that he'll be speaking from.
The McCain people are spinning that Obama will come out of the Convention with a fifteen-point lead. They know full well that there is no chance of that. The only question is whether he'll come out with any significant lead at all, and how long it will take the Republicans who convene next week in the Twin Cities to slash into it.
Is it by design, or just dumb luck, that Barack seems to have things going his way on the war in Iraq? Walter Russell Mead writes in the LA Times about a situation loaded with ironies.
The net result, ironically, is that the antiwar candidate who predicted failure is benefiting most from the war's success.
It's such an incredible accomplishment that it's hard to imagine orchestrating such a thing.
Thanks to the surge he opposed, the policy Obama championed -- a relatively swift and steady withdrawal of U.S. combat forces over 16 months, conditions permitting -- no longer looks dangerous, irresponsible or an invitation to defeat.
The clever part of Barack's strategy is providing himself cover for being an Iraq peace-nik by acting like a hawk on Afghanistan. The wacko wing of the Democratic party is happy because he's anti-war on Iraq, and while being a hawk on Afghanistan, he gets to repeat the party line that that's where we should have been focused all along. Brilliant!
But, ironically, Obama is using his new maneuvering room to toughen his stand rather than soften it. In Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan, he wants to send in more troops, take a harder line with Islamabad and crush the elusive Taliban beneath his heel.
I've always felt that being lucky is a talent, and it's one that Barack seems to have in spades.
Obama's pilgrimage abroad points to a larger truth: In the midst of a bitter political year, a loose bipartisan consensus on the Mideast may be emerging. And, irony of ironies, the consensus, seemingly embraced by Obama, seems closer to Bush's views than to those of the antiwar activists who propelled the Illinois senator to the nomination.
Barack is mocked in a British newspaper in a delightfully over the top manner that, I believe, carries some truth. There is a danger, isn't there, that the candidate walks a fine line between appearing ready for power and possessing some distorted sense of destiny about himself. If he overplays his hand, he just comes across as high on himself. Consider the high impact of his race speech compared to his poverty speech. The second speech served to pull the curtains back a bit on the first.
And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.
Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls, each with three days of data ending Wednesday, show no bump for Barack, but, instead, a tightening of the race over the week of Barack's trip. A Fox News poll, taken Tuesday and Wednesday, shows the race in a virtual tie. The slim Obama leads look like this:
Rasmussen - 3% Gallup - 2% Fox - 1%
Gallup had Barack up 6% earlier in the week. Rasmussen had the race tied on Tuesday.
Voters aren't as convinced about Barack as they were about John Kerry four years ago, throwing into question his status as the Divine.
One big difference today is that fewer voters are committed to a candidate at this point in the 2008 cycle. In Election 2004, 92% had decided to vote for either Bush or Kerry (97% with leaners). That left only 8% of voters who were still persuadable and most of those were leaning one day or another. This year, 86% say they’ll vote for either Obama or McCain. That leaves 14% who are persuadable, most of whom are not leaning towards either candidate.
Maybe Germany will start to move things for Barack, but right now his weakness continues.
Four years ago today, John Kerry enjoyed a two-point lead (Rasmussen) over George W. Bush (three points with leaners). That was down slightly from the day before when the Massachusetts Senator reached the high-water mark for his campaign heading into the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Kerry didn’t get a bounce from that Convention but was able to hang on to a very small lead until late-August (see Election 2004 daily tracking summary).
