The Party That Can't Win

Somehow, this doesn't seem like enough anymore.

Stepping up the Republican ticket’s attacks on Senator Barack Obama, Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday seized on a report about Mr. Obama’s relationship with a former 1960s radical to accuse him of “palling around with terrorists.”

The dire economic stories of the past three weeks have shifted the tenor of the race from "change" to "blind change." Voters will not be concerned with who they're voting for, only who they're voting against.

“This is not a man who sees America as you see it, and how I see America,” Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, said in Colorado, according to a pool report. “We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for all of us.

Dick Morris cleverly observed a few months ago that this is a race between an unelectable candidate and the party that can't win. While I still believe that Obama is unelectable, that comes with the caveat that voters have to know that his short political career was made possible by partnerships with America hating radicals. That point must be driven home by a powerful third party campaign like the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry four years ago, and for some reason, conservative powerbrokers are uninterested in investing in such an effort. Lacking a truth squad on the Obamafia, it appears increasingly likely that the GOP as the party that can't win will be the story of this election.

“Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

It's ironic that the effort to tag Barack now with responsibility for his relationship with 60's bomber Bill Ayers is justified by a New York Times story that was designed to inoculate Barack - to offer him protection from this sort of attack - from responsibility for his close alliance with the Ayers family.

The article to which she referred, in The New York Times on Saturday, traced Mr. Obama’s sporadic interactions with Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weathermen who later became an education professor in Chicago and worked on education projects there with Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee for president.

The fact of the matter is that Barack was made the head of the Ayers controlled Chicago Annenberg Challenge when he had no background in education or any other reasonable qualification for the job. That credential was his only argument - except for his important work as a community organizer - for a state senate seat the following year.

The article said: “A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers.”

That one phrase, indicating that Barack "played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers," is as deep as the Times got in its search for the evidence as to why Barack felt compelled to deceive voters about his relationship with Ayers.

Debate is On!

McCain has decided to take part in tonight's debate. Why would he not?

McCain has transformed a minority in both houses of Congress and a losing position in the polls into the key role in the bailout package, the main man around whom the final package will take shape.

Dick Morris explains that the Democrats had crafted a bill with the President that is unpopular with the American people. McCain now gets to design, with Republicans in congress, the revised measure.

Instead of signing on with the Democratic/Bush package, the House Republicans are insisting on replacing the purchase of corporate debt with loans to companies and insurance paid for by the companies, not by the taxpayers. That, of course, is a popular position. McCain would be comfortable to debate this issue division all day.

Will Democrats fight over the new provision?

...the Democrats are not about to be stubborn. They know their package is a lemon and need the political cover of Republican support. So the Republicans can write their own ticket…and they will. John McCain will be at the center of the emerging compromise while Obama is out on the campaign trail kissing babies.

Isn't McCain taking a big risk? What if he can't pull the legislation together?

By Monday, at the latest, the Democrats have to cave in and pass the Republican version. They don’t dare pass their own without GOP support, so they will have to cave in to the Republican version.

Then McCain comes out of the process as the hero who made it happen when the president couldn’t and Obama wouldn’t. He becomes the bailout expert.

No wonder Democrats are acting so snarly.

Happy Party

The GOP is aglow today!

Did you hear Rush?

Here's Dick Morris:

A STAR IS BORN

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

Published in the The New York Post on September 4, 2008

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PALIN: NEW KIND OF WOMAN POL

ST. PAUL

With sass and wit, sarcasm and sincerity, courage and strength, Sarah Palin last night showed us a new model of female politician.

Her family stories were genuine and real. Her commitment to special-needs children was moving. Her contempt for special interests was obvious.

And her putdowns of Barack Obama's rhetoric and her praise of John McCain's character and achievements were welcome and well delivered.

Many women look bad when they attack their opponents, too often seeming strident and shrill. But Palin was funny and irreverant, with a biting wit and a joy of combat that was exhilarating to watch.

Sometimes she reminded us of the hockey mom she is. Other times, she was an American Margaret Thatcher - mobilizing humor and biting satire to mock the opposition.

Where Hillary Clinton has but two speeds - full forward and stop - Palin displayed a range of rhetoric, emotion and language that sometimes evoked moving patriotism, at other times hilarious irony - and, frequently, a strong dose of common sense. If her style in attacking and mocking her opponent was Thatcher-esque, her range of rhetorical style was Rooseveltian. She is, in fact, one of the best public speakers in our politics today. Now the Democrats are stuck in a trap. They've demeaned, patronized and smeared a woman who's well on her way to becoming very, very popular. Her speech will create legions of fans; the Democratic smears of the last few days will create, for Obama, legions of enemies.

This man who dedicated two years to stopping a woman from being president now has to answer for spending two months stopping one from becoming vice president - a task he hopes to accomplish using women's votes.

Remember: The swing vote in this election are single moms. Just as the soccer moms dominated in 1996 and security moms in 2004, now unmarried women, mostly with children, will determine the outcome of the 2008 race. And they're finding in Sarah Palin an advocate whose life isn't far different from their own and whose priorities mirror theirs'.

As withering in her contempt for the country-club elites of the Republican establishment as for the pandering of the Democrats, Palin stands in stark contrast to the inherited elitism of the Bushes, the Romneys and the Kennedys. She's a woman of the people.

Was this a Republican attacking big oil? Was it the nominee for vice president of a major party who laced into earmarks and lobbyists and PACs? Yes it was - and how refreshing!

In her sincere embrace of her family and her nonjudgmental introduction of her pregnant daughter, Palin won the hearts of many single moms. By evoking life in a modest, middle-class town, she established an empathy with voters akin to what Bill Clinton built when he ate at McDonalds'.

How are the Democrats to live down their assaults on Sarah? How not to seem the enemies of the very voters they have to get?

Strategically, Palin achieved the convention's core goal - to show how McCain is not a clone of George Bush, but a man of the people eager for change and demanding of reforms.

Now the gap between Obama and McCain is not so wide. Now it is clear that they both stand for change.

So now the fear of a naive and untried Obama leading the nation through perilous times at home and abroad can work to drive voters over the narrower synapse and get them to vote for McCain.

Mission accomplished, Sarah.

Dick Morris on Palin

Sarah Palin, barring an unlikely bad performance tonight, was a great pick for John McCain. Dick Morris explains why.

Understand: Palin is under attack because she was such a good choice.
Remember the Democrats' central charge on McCain - "He's a Bush clone." By choosing Palin, something George Bush would never have done, McCain showed how really different he is.

In other words, Palin tells a story about John McCain in a way that's more vivid than if McCain tried to tell the same story about himself.

The old ground rule for picking a running mate was to help the ticket carry a particular state. But Bill Clinton changed the rules when he tapped Al Gore in 1992. Clinton likely would've carried Tennessee anyway, but the choice of Gore emphasized the most important feature of Clinton's candidacy: He was from a new generation and represented a new outlook.

That's the magic of Sarah - McCain went from feeling a bit old and traditional to looking like the change candidate that he is. With his pick, Obama violated his change brand by turning to a 35 year Washington insider.

And so Sarah Palin reinforces the most important aspect of the McCain candidacy: Despite 30 years in Washington, he's an outsider and a dedicated foe of corruption and conflict of interest in government. He's the one who stands up against pork, earmarks and lobbyists and backs campaign-finance reform.

As McCain devalues Barack's change brand, he will also seek to remind people that, as Fred Thompson put it last night, there's never been anyone less experienced in the position that Barack Obama finds himself in now.

Dick Knows

You wouldn't guess it from the hype, but McCain actually would be the guy who would end the war quicker and with the fewest casualties. Dick Morris spells it out.

It's literally true that if McCain is elected, there will be fewer US deaths in Iraq than there will be if Obama prevails. By pulling out only when it's safe to do so, McCain would finish the job and allow a peaceful transition to a stable democratic government. If we pull out too fast - and then have to go back in - the casualties will be many times those we now face.

McCain's challenge is to cut through the emotion of anti-war angst, fueled by 'wrong direction' anxiety. And to redefine the discussion about Iraq away from the past and what to do next.

The Republican needs to shift the debate to Iraq's future. Neither Obama's belaboring of his previous opposition to the war nor McCain's attacking the Democrat's opposition to the surge is relevant - both lines are history lessons best left in the classroom. What voters want to know is: What now?

How does McCain answer their question?

McCain needs to hammer at one basic theme: that Obama's pullout plan will lead to a third Iraq war. The Democrat wants to keep substantial numbers of troops next door, to go back into Iraq if necessary. McCain should stress that a premature withdrawal will lead to a collapse - losing the hard-won stability in Iraq, opening the door to an Iranian takeover and al Qaeda revival, and potentially forcing a new US invasion.

Obama isn't a peace candidate, McCain can say - just an advocate of a deferred war. Just as the first President George Bush left the ingredients in place for a second war when he failed to depose Saddam Hussein in 1991, so Obama will fail to finish the job and invite yet another war if he abandons Iraq before our gains have been consolidated.

McCain can fire his consultants and just read Morris' columns. It's that simple to put Barack on the defensive.