Here is Tom Ridge talking about his "good friend" the Republican nominee for the Presidency. Oops! He called him "John Bush." As Joe Biden would say, "Freudian slip."
All the speeches are done and I think that the new Republican strategy is to energize their base and appeal to the middle only through McCain's biography. Palin will go from church to church telling everyone that the Religious Right will have a de facto veto on everything that goes on in the White House if McCain wins. McCain will go to Ohio and give speech after speech that is a "noun, a verb and 'Hanoi Hilton.'"
The polls right before end of the Republican convention show that Obama has a 60% to 34% advantage on the "knows and cares about the needs of people like me" question. In an environment when 80% of respondents think the country is on the wrong track and 70% think that things are going badly in this country, that's a big deal. We'll see if McCain's VP pick and biography tour will shift that.
In the next few days we'll see if McCain got any bounce from the convention. If I had to bet, I'd say that he put it right back to a dead heat - erasing most of Obama's bounce from last week. But I am very optimistic about the debates. McCain's complete lack of substance will be exposed there.
8 comments:
The thing is, and I have said it before, substance is beside the point with the average voter. That is what worries me. They always vote for the guy they can have a beer with. That's what made the last two elections close enought for Bush to steal.
We democaats always go for competence, brains, and grace. The other side goes for brute, dumb, but a lot of fun.
That's why the "knows and cares about the needs of people like me" question matters so much. I can't remember where I heard this but who ever is ahead on that question tends to win the election.
Unemployment jumped to over 6% today. That is what matters. It's the economy.
I got into an argument with a friend who believes that if Biden and Pallin debate that Biden will lose because no matter what he says or does, he's going to come off beating up on a girl, while I argue that he doesn't even need to show up, just submit his resume, citing his chairman position on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and then ask her what experience she has with foreign diplomacy...I find it hard to believe in this day, during this time, given the condition that our economy is in, our reputation across the country, why is there this viewpoint that pretty people are assumed to be better leaders? Why would anyone vote with that mentality?
that was supposed to be our reputation across the world
I am not concerned about Biden and Palin debating. Biden knows what to do, I trust that. No doubt he will praise her as a "hockey mom" and "pit bull with lipstick" before laying into her. If she gets flustered or looks like she might cry, it's all over for her.
Biden is going to tell America of three things about Palin:
1. She wants to make all abortion illegal, even in cases of rape and incest, which is a radical position that most women and most Americans reject.
2. She was for the "bridge to nowhere" before she was against it. [this is true, and it is important to phrase it this way]
3. To succeed in Washington, you must be able to work across the aisle, not just rail against your opponents. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be liked - in fact, it's important.
Biden will probably remind us that he lost his wife and daughter one month after winning election to the Senate. This humanizes him. He can say, "I understand how important family is: I lost mine once." That trumps baby with downs syndrome.
Biden should focus on McCain though. He should emphasize the apparently lack of consistent message from the McCain campaign. Their shifting and contradictory positions etc.
Post a Comment