That all makes sense, and I think Mike is really onto something. However, I would like to propose an alternative possibility that has repeatedly led to Democratic debate victories, and could continue to do so indefinitely. Here goes:
Because of higher Democratic enthusiasm, more Democrats are watching the debates.
Because more Democrats are watching debates, more Democrats end up in post-debate "snap" polls asking viewers who won and who lost.
As such, Democrats always win post-debate snap polls, as they have for the past five debates (at least).
Because the Democratic candidates win the post-debate snap polls, it is virtually impossible for Republicans to push a "we won" post-debate meme. Media outlets give surprising deference to poll numbers these days.
Anyway, that is my theory. Now, there are ways that Republicans can still get the better of Democrats, with the prime example being last year's VP debate. While post-debate polls all showed Edwards "defeating" Cheney in the debate, Republicans turned on the whambulance about Edwards mentioning that Cheney's daughter was gay. That became the news cycle for a couple of days, thereby putting Democrats on the defensive and allowing Republicans to get the better of the VP debate.
Much the same could happen tonight. The path to victory for Palin and Republicans is to find something to whine about afterwards. I don't mean Gwen Iffel, either--I mean some way that they claim Biden was a jerk to Palin. That is the real danger here. As long as we--and Biden--can prevent a convincing post-debate whambulance, we should be in the clear. This makes Mike's fourth and fifth points absolutely key. Don't condescend toward Palin. In fact, do well to ignore her altogether. For reasons I outlined above, the rest should take care of itself.
Update: I guess my memory is fuzzy, but yes, the whambulance came out after the third Kerry-Bush debate, not the Edwards-Cheney debate.
A U.S. federal judge on Saturday ordered Vice-President Dick Cheney to preserve a wide range of records from his time in office.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is a setback for the Bush administration, which has been pushing for a narrow definition of materials that must be safeguarded under the Presidential Records Act.
Don't celebrate yet, but CREW (who are the plaintiffs) have won the first round in the battle to get the Judicial branch to agree that the Vice-President, is, in fact a member of the executive branch, which is actually what Cheney's defence hinges on here. However, the injunction is an extraordinary measure while the Court considers the matter. Kollar-Kotelly might end up ruling in Cheney's favour, but at least for the time being, Cheney can't fax his records to Shredderville quite so easily.
Today, the Washington Post reported that vetting for Palin began less than 24 hours before she was offered the job. In a manner now typical of its sudden conversion to an outspoken, feminist organization, the McCain campaign responded by calling the media an "old boys network." Here is the quote:
"This vetting controversy is a faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States who has never been a part of the old boys network that has come to dominate the news establishment in this country."
As part of their born again feminist posturing, it turns out that phallocentric, patriarchical, oppressive organizations like the news media are out to destroy the new wave she-ra's at the McCain campaign. Really, the McCain campaign is the strongest femiist organization to ever come into existence. I mean, of their 121 advisors and staffers listed on wikipedia, 6 are women.
Take that old boys network. The McCain campaign is nearly 5% women. 5%! They are smashing barriers and offering never before heard of opportunities for women. Estrogen-fearing news organizations just can't comprehend an organization being so gynocentric as to actually have fully 5% of its advisors be women. The media better be careful, or else the McCain campaign will loose the mad women in the attic on them.
The network in my apartment has been down all day. Also, my laptop is in D.C., and for some reason I can't log onto my neighbor's network. So, it might be light blogging for me until later this evening. I will try to actually watch, and live-blog, the Republican convention as punishment.
In the absence of new state polls for over a week now, take a look at the national polling average over at Pollster.com. Obama now leads 48.8%--43.6%, for a 5.2% lead with only 7.6% either undecided or in favor of third-parties. That gives him a nice upward spike, and a greater than 95% chance of winning the national popular vote.
I am convinced that the bounce has just was much to with Palin as it had to do with the convention. Keep in mind that Obama's lead went up significantly today, when Monday replaced Friday in the tracking polls. That means that yesterday was a much better day of polling for Obama than the day after his convention speech. This can only be attributable to people turning hard against McCain because of Palin. That isn't surprising at all. the news only gets worse for McCain / Palin too, as it is now confirmed that Palin's husband was a secessionist as recently as 2002.
Hard for me to imagine that the first day of the convention will help McCain much. The country doesn't seem to be in a mood to listen to Republicans right now. It is possible that the polls will start to come back down to Earth on Friday or Saturday, but my gut says that Palin is a permanent game changer for this campaign. McCain won't catch up from this one.
I'm trying to track all of the negative stories that have come out on Sarah Palin in the last three days. It isn't easy, as new revelations pile on seemingly every hour. In the extended entry, I give such a compendium my best shot.
This should be our refrain, our only talking point about the selection:
Who chose Palin?
Well, it certainly wasn't John McCain.
McCain only met Palin once, six months ago. Unlike every other major party VP nominee in recent memory, Palin did not meet McCain for a final interview before her selection. A few weeks ago, she wasn't in the running at all. The scandals and unorthodoxies involving Palin -- she flip-flopped on the Bridge to Nowhere and even raised sales taxes on her small town to pay for an overpriced boondoggle -- show that the McCain campaign didn't vet her. The McCains and Palins looked visibly awkward together, not even speaking as they went their separate ways on a brief shopping trip in Ohio yesterday. McCain is on record as saying he wanted a running mate with whom he had a strong personal relationship -- and who was ready to be president.
This was clearly not his pick. So again: Who chose Palin?
Was it Dick Cheney? Or Karl Rove? Or maybe James Dobson?
There are four major advantages to pursuing this line of attack:
Both of today's tracking polls, Rasmussen (Obama 49%--45% McCain) and Gallup (Obama 49%--41% McCain) where identical to yesterday's three-day rolling average. This means that Friday polling was virtually identical to Tuesday polling, since today's tracking polls replaced Tuesday's numbers. At most, the difference between Tuesday and Friday was 1-2%, which could be erased via rounding to the nearest integer. And there does appear to be some difference, as Gallup implies that Friday was slightly worse for Obama than Tuesday:
On this day -- with strong partisan forces pushing the public in both directions -- Obama still polled better than he had been prior to the convention, but not as well as he was polling on the individual nights of the convention.
"Pat Buchanan brought his conservative message of a smaller government and an America First foreign policy to Fairbanks and Wasilla on Friday as he continued a campaign swing through Alaska. Buchanan's strong message championing states rights resonated with the roughly 85 people gathered for an Interior Republican luncheon in Fairbanks. ... Among those sporting Buchanan buttons were Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and state Sen. Jerry Ward, R-Anchorage."
At first I thought Palin was a bizarre pick. However, the more I think about it, she was clearly the perfect Republican pick. It is incredibly cynical (women will vote for any woman), based on several layers of hypocrisy, and for good measure displays a cartoonish view of progressivism (in this case, affirmative action as unqualified tokenism). That is basically the entire conservative philosophy right there: a cynical view of people combined with a message that is hypocritical to its core, and topped off with a cartoonish view of the other side.
This pick isn't bizarre at all. It is conservatism and Republicanism in a nutshell.
McCain to Form Committee To Explore White House Bid
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 13, 2006; Page A08
Sen. John McCain of Arizona said he will form an exploratory committee as the first step toward a possible run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.
Palin was also the first Alaskan governor born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood and the first not to be inaugurated in Juneau, instead choosing to hold her inauguration ceremony in Fairbanks. She took office on December 4, 2006.
This is probably the first time in history that a presidential nominee has chosen a Vice-President who has governed for less than the candidate has been campaigning.
Update: It also turns out that during McCain's entire campaign, he has never been to Alaska. Since he has been campaigning longer than she has been governing, it is hard to believe that they have met many times. This pick is entirely political and superficial.
John McCain first met Sarah Palin only six months ago and had just one conversation with the Alaska governor before offering her the vice presidential slot on the Republican ticket, the Arizona senator's campaign said Friday.
One meeting to pick possibly the next leader of the country? Nice judgment call, McCain.
So, I just watched Sarah Palin's speech on YouTube. I remain agog. Is this a joke? Do they really think this will help them win?
Palin is a total lightweight. She didn't deliver a single negative on Obama, and it is pretty obvious why. The main attack the McCain campaign has been using on Obama is his lack of experience. It simply isn't possible to deliver that negative now with a straight face. It certainly won't be possible for her to deliver any negatives on Obama. The whole thing just feels like a joke.
This is a really, really bad move by McCain. Palin isn't believable as President. She isn't believable in delivering any attacks on Obama, which is why she didn't. She defeats McCain's entire argument to become President: judgment and experience. Further, she is completely unknown, thereby making her a generic Republican in a year when generic Republican polls about 10-20% behind generic Democrat. Her selection has pissed off a lot of Republican insiders. To top it off, we are now presented with the most unbelievable sight of all: Republicans cheering Hillary Clinton. Yeah, people will find that one believable.
Man, this is a terrible pick. Right now, my gut says that Obama will be up by around 8% even after the Republican convention. I could be proven wrong, and this might actually work for McCain. However, Palin completely lacks believability as President, and the choice defies any reason apart from an obvious, pandering political ploy to try and win women voters. Overall, that will probably result in a net negative for McCain's popularity. He is in real trouble right now.
Also, I like the new tagline for the Republican ticket that I just read on twitter: "McPain."
"[A]s for that V.P. talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the V.P. does every day?
She doesn't know, huh? Hopefully, she has read The Constitution since she made that statement.
This is the Sarkozy strategy that Gingrich talked about last year. In this vein, Palin is designed to help McCain on ethics, and in distancing McCain from governing Republicans. The idea here is that she was able to win the Alaska Governorship in 2006, a Democratic year, by making corruption charges in her own party, and defeating an incumbent in a primary. Look for McCain to start trumpeting his role in exposing the Abramoff scandal now, too. It could be an effective message, as it makes McCain look willing to stand up against his own party and take a hard line on ethics. I worried about this message last month.The problem for Palin is that she is now embroiled in a nepotism scandal.
Obviously, designed to help McCain with PUMA's and wavering Clinton supporters. The decision was probably made after Clinton was not chosen as VP, and during all the coverage of Clinton supporters during the convention. However, for that purpose, the pick probably came too late. Most of Obama's current bounce is from that exact same group. McCain should have announced on Sunday to peel off more of those supporters.
For all of the reasons listed above, it is designed to make McCain look "mavericky." Picking someone from Alaska, picking a woman, picking someone who ran against her own party, picking someone who wasn't talking about that much, picking someone who, at least at one time, fought corruption in her own party--in many ways, it is exactly the right pick for McCain to bolster his image.
The key to fighting Palin is to hit her on the scandal she is in now, to point out McCain hypocrisy on experience and "being ready to lead," and to use a lot of Hillary Clinton.
I admit that Palin and Condoleezza Rice were the only two possible picks that ever actually worried me on the Republican side. Now, however, after Palin has been picked, it just feels kind of lame and obviously political. The only reason that McCain picked Palin is that he thinks she will help him get elected. The pandering electability of it all should appear obvious to just about everyone. Clearly, McCain didn't care about or believe in the attacks he was making on Obama's experience. He just wants to win.
I just spent 14 of the last 50 hours driving up to Batavia, New York in the backseat of a 1999 Mustang for my grandmother's 90th birthday party. With several family stops on the way, there was no time to blog. I feel pretty dazed, but I still want to catch up with some thoughts on Biden, the state of the campaign, and the upcoming conventions.
Here is an attempt at process of elimination to determine Obama's Vice-President:
It's a dude: Earlier this week, Obama referred to his Vice-President in gender specific terms:
My vice president, also by the way my vice president also will be a member of the executive branch, he won't be one of these 4th branches of government where he thinks he's above the law.
Given that Obama had already made the decision when he said this, it seems likely that neither Clinton nor Sebelius is the choice.
It isn't Bayh: I'm still going with Steve Clemmons, who reported five days ago that Evan Bayh hasn't been selected due at least partially to resistance from the base.
It isn't Clark, Dodd, Daschle, Nunn or Reed: There is a long list of darkhorse picks for VP, with Wesley Clark, Tom Daschle, Chris Dodd, Sam Nunn and Jack Reed topping those lists. However, multiple sources have confirmed that it isn't any of these five.
That leaves us with Biden, Kaine (both of whom are regularly mentioned in the top three), and, in a new development, Representative Chet Edwards of Texas.
Presidential candidate Barack Obama is hours away from naming his running mate, as little-known Texas congressman Chet Edwards is emerging as a finalist.
Democratic officials say that Edwards was one of the few Democrats whose background was checked by Obama's campaign, and he was a finalist for the job.
Edwards is among a small circle of people mentioned, including Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and Evan Bayh of Indiana.
I hope this is just placating Nancy Pelosi, who for some strange reason keeps pushing Edwards as Vice-President. It would be a pretty terrible choice, given that Edwards is utterly unproven on the national campaign stage, since backbenchers in the House are usually not thought of as ready to become President, since Edwards would be the stark opposite of Obama, and since he is pretty much the most conservative Democrat around. I'm going to guess that the Obama campaign isn't stupid enough to pick this guy.
So, that leaves us with Biden and Kaine. I go back and forth on who seems more likely. The weight of circumstantial evidence seems to point to Kaine, while the weight of believability points to Biden. I can't decide.
Anyway, who do you think will be chosen? Take the poll in the extended entry.
The Chicago Sun-Times has learned that the Obama team, in the run-up to the Democratic convention, will showcase the new Obama ticket Saturday in Springfield at the Old State Capitol, where presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) officially kicked off his campaign in February, 2007.
NashvillePost.com has learned that senior campaign officials from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign are being dispatched from various locations around the country and are converging in Indianapolis for a "major event" to take place on Saturday.
Saturday is the same day that Obama is expected to make his first public appearance with his yet to be announced vice presidential running mate. Indiana is the home state of Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, widely considered to be on the short list of Democratic vice presidential contenders.
Kind of hard to figure out why Obama would book two major events on Saturday, including one in Indiana, if he wasn't announcing Indiana Senator Evan Bayh as his Vice-Presidential pick that same day.
Basically, Evan Bayh is an insider, conservative tool of the status quo. Outside of Chuck Hagel, it is hard to imagine a worse pick. Ugh.
Update: As a commenter points out, Bayh as VP means that a Republican will take his seat in the U.S. Senate, since Indiana has a Republican Governor. Awesome.
Right now, the weight of circumstantial evidence and anonymous scoops indicates that either Joe Biden or Tim Kaine will be selected as Obama's running mate within the next 48 hours. Here is why, starting with a story from today's New York Times (more in the extended entry):
After Kaine and Bayh, the new buzz de jure for Vice-President is Joe Biden. While I strongly opposed the first two options, I won't be screaming about Biden. Here is the latest buzz, from CNN (more in the extended entry):
The selection of ex-VA Gov. Mark Warner to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention comes on the heels of a secret, last-minute effort to convince Warner to submit his name and record for vice presidential vetting.
Sources close to Warner say that the Virginia Senate candidate was subject to fairly intense pressure by Obama advisers to allow the team of Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy to open an account and begin their work.
However, let's assume for a moment that it is all true, and that the Obama campaign asked Warner, Webb, and Kaine to submit vetting papers for the short-list portion of the search. That would mean that three of the seven people who were asked to submit short-list vetting papers were from Virginia. The other four confirmed have been Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Kathleen Sebelius.
After all this talk about Tim Kaine and Evan Bayh as Obama's Vice-President, I find myself strangely relieved to hear that Joe Biden's stock is rising.
I'm just passing on the latest I'm hearing--that Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) is moving up on the list of potential running mates for presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). While Obama's heart may go towards Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine--his head takes him to a more experienced pick, a Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) or Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
However, at least Biden is in the center of the Democratic Party, rather it's right flank. Also, he is seasoned as a national campaigner, and an effective surrogate on national media. He excelled in all of the debates back in 2007, and would do well in the VP debate against anyone McCain selects. Also, given his age, he would not be an heir apparent to the nomination in 2012 or 2016. In short, he is competent, not right-wing, and would not have a stanglehold on the party once Obama is gone. I can live with that.
Biden might be the only non-terrible choice on the short list who also appears convincingly "presidential." (Even though I hate using that word, do people here really believe Sebelius as the President of the United States?) If he ends up as Vice-President, I won't be excited, but I will be relieved. Certainly, it would be a lot better than Evan Bayh.
Following up on Matt's post on Even Bayh from earlier today, I'd like to offer a fun little narrative in three quotes. The first quote comes from George Bush in October 2002. In the rose garden, standing next to Bush, Bayh was congratulated for his work on the authorization for the use of military force in Iraq. At the time, Bush said the following:
I want to thank in particular Speaker Hastert, and Leader Gephardt, Leader Lott, for the tremendous work in building bipartisan support on this vital issue. I also want to thank Senators Warner, Lieberman, McCain, and Bayh for introducing this resolution which we've agreed to on the floor of the Senate this morning.
Quite the auspicious company for Bayh to be named with: McCain and Lieberman. But, it was deserved, since Bayh was apparently one of the four Senators most responsible for the authorization for the use of military force in Iraq.
