William Katz: Urgent Agenda
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Have you noticed that some elements of the media are keeping Obama's secret of a vice-presidential choice a lot more carefully than they keep the national-defense secrets of the United States?
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FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008
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UPDATE AT 10:59 P.M. ET: Betting at this hour centers on Joseph Biden as the Democratic pick for vice president. But betting four hours ago centered on Evan Bayh So save your money and wait for ten in the morning, when the announcement is made. No name in serious contention would arouse any real excitement. Also, once the name comes out, interest in the vice presidency starts to decline. It's the top of the ticket that decides things.
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BARONE
Posted at 7:52 p.m. ET
One of our best political analysts, Michael Barone, asks a fundamental question this evening: Why won't the mainstream media question the Barack Obama narrative? Barone comments:
The Democrats can usually depend on the mainstream media to accept their narratives uncritically, while the Republicans can expect them to punch holes in their story lines...
...The narrative of this year's Democratic National Convention can be forecast with some assurance. It will emphasize Barack Obama's roots in Kansas more than Kenya or even Hawaii; it will portray him as a leader from a new generation eager to cast off the partisanship of the past decade; it will hail him as a symbol that America has risen above past prejudices and can once again stand proud in the world.
But..
An interesting question is whether mainstream media have any appetite for undermining this undeniably attractive narrative...
...Obama's record of reaching across party lines is, as his own answer to Rick Warren's recent Saddleback Civil Forum question showed, pretty thin. His paper trail is surprisingly thin, too: He has left no papers from his Illinois Senate days; he hasn't listed his law firm clients or provided more than one page of medical records; the papers of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which he chaired and in which the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers was heavily involved, were suddenly closed to National Review's Stanley Kurtz by the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois. Mainstream media, with the conspicuous exception of ABC News's George Stephanopoulos, have shown little curiosity about Obama's connection with Ayers. It will also be interesting to see if there is much coverage of Obama's 2003 vote in Illinois against protecting infants born alive in attempted abortions, now that his campaign has conceded that the bill was virtually identical to one that passed the U.S. Senate 98 to 0 in 2001.
Ouch. Who does this Barone guy think he is, some fancy-pants researcher or somethin'?
Finally...
Obama backers dismiss attempts to undermine his narrative as distractions or as racism, beyond the bounds of reasonable discourse. Most of the mainstream media tend to agree. William Ayers is no more likely to appear at the convention than the disgraced John Edwards. But other media have a voice. Obama will probably get a nice bounce out of his convention. But it's not clear whether his narrative can be sustained in the weeks and months ahead.
It won't be sustained if we do our jobs. As for the mainstream media, let's see if they can regain some respect by doing theirs.
August 22, 2008. Permalink 
EDUCATION DOLLARS AT WORK
Posted at 7:12 p.m. ET
My friend Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, who supplies us with the best material on conditions in Iran, takes a change of pace and passes on this photo of a cake made for an employee's going-away party:
Apparently, when the cake was ordered, the customer said something like "Write 'Best Wishes Suzanne,' underneath that, 'We will miss you.'"
Look at the result.
Look, the cake maker can print. What about a career in media?
August 22, 2008. Permalink
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UPDATE AT 6:55 P.M. ET: Drudge is passing along a local broadcast report that a Kansas City company is printing OBAMA/BAYH materials. Well, that could well be the ticket. Or maybe the firm thinks that printing the wrong bumper stickers will make them collectors' items, like the election edition of the Chicago Tribune that erroneously headlined DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN in 1948.
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NOT SO FAST, BARACK
Posted at 4:35 p.m. ET
Gerard Baker, who we've often cited here, is one of the most astute British observers of the American scene. Here he astutely observes once again - this time examining the Obama campaign the way one might examine the Titanic as it approached the iceberg:
There's trouble in paradise. Cancel the coronation. Send back the commemorative medals. Put those “Yes We Can” T-shirts up on eBay. Keep the Change.
Barack Obama's historic procession to the American presidency has been rudely interrupted. The global healing he promised is in jeopardy. If you're prone to emotional breakdown, you might want to take a seat before I say this. He might not win.
How can it be, you ask? Didn't we see him just last month speaking to 200,000 adoring Germans in Berlin? Didn't he get the red carpet treatment in France - France of all places? Doesn't every British politician want to be seen clutching the hem of his garment?
All true. But as cruel geography and the selfish designs of the American Founding Fathers would have it, Europeans don't get to choose the US president. Somewhere along the way to the Obama presidency, somebody forgot to ask the American people.
Wonderful, wonderful. The man had a good English teacher.
Of course, the conventional view is that it's all the work of that most terrifyingly effective piece of artillery since the invention of the howitzer, the Republican Attack Machine.
The credulous American voter, we're told, has been subjected in the last month to a televised blitzkrieg of right-wing lies about the hapless Democrat. He's not patriotic. He might be a Muslim. He might not even be American. He probably is a Muslim. There's no evidence he's ever said anything nice about Michael Phelps. He goes to the mosque on Fridays. If Obama's the leader of the free world, it won't be the Caucasian Georgia the Russians invade but the one sandwiched between Florida and South Carolina.
But...
The bigger change has occurred in perceptions about the race. A month ago the prevailing view among the wise was that Senator Obama would steadily increase his lead and by the time his convention concluded next week, it would be insurmountable.
But instead, it looks as though, even if he has a really good convention in Denver next week, and Hillary and Bill Clinton play the unlikely role of loyal followers, the race will still be close when the Republicans start their gathering in a week's time.
What a shame. The reasons?
The fact is that the 47-year-old Democrat, less than four years in the Senate, is still largely a blank page for American voters: a great orator and an attractive figure, but unknown and untested. The Republicans have been filling in some of the gaps and pointing out how thin his real biography is.
The second problem is that Senator Obama is having difficulty - curiously enough - with Democratic voters. Polls indicate that while Senator McCain has just about locked up the votes of those who supported other Republicans in the primary election, Senator Obama is still regarded with mistrust and dislike by large numbers of Hillary Clinton's former supporters.
Of course, the Hillary crowd would regard anyone with mistrust and dislike, probably including Bill.
The irony for Senator Obama is that he has built a campaign on a pledge to put an end to cynicism in the political system, but the more he offers only vague promises of hope, the greater the danger that he increases voter cynicism about politicians in general and him in particular.
The third problem is that events have not helped the Democrats. The war in Georgia has emphasised that the world is a dangerous place, and that simply being willing to talk to your enemies, as Senator Obama sometimes seems to suggest, isn't going to keep your people safe.
Finally...
The more the campaign is about the concerns of the American voter, especially the state of the economy but also the general anxiety about the direction of the country, the more likely they are to throw the Republicans out.
But the uncomfortable truth for the many devoted fans of Senator Obama is that the more the race is about him, the less likely he is to win it.
And it is about him, more and more. When Obama makes himself the center of everything, when he presents himself as the man the world has been waiting for, the election is going to be about him. And if he chooses a mediocrity for vice president, it will be even more about him.
Maybe the messiah strategy wasn't so smart after all.
August 22, 2008. Permalink
TRACKERS
Posted at 2:31 p.m. ET
Both trackers are now out for today, and both show Obama with a one-point lead. Given that Obama normally polls better than he delivers, we can conclude that he's either leading very narrowing, or even slightly behind.
As I've said here before, this isn't the news the Democrats expected to receive as they fly to Denver this weekend. Obama is clearly in trouble. I can't imagine his vice presidential choice getting him out of it. If you hear any "We want Kaine" or "We want Bayh" chants in your neighborhood, please alert me. I haven't heard any.
So that would leave the convention itself and Obama's acceptance speech to produce the required "bounce." But the GOP convention starts almost as the Dems have had their last tofu parties in Denver. The McCain troops, becoming more effective every day, will be all over Obama.
For political junkies, the next two weeks should provide far better entertainment than anything on the major networks.
August 22, 2008. Permalink
MAYBE TODAY
Posted at 6:59 a.m. ET
The political equivalent of the college of cardinals has apparently met in the Obama camp, and the candidate will soon issue forth a name. Blessed be the selection, as it is written in Rove 43:15.
My own sense is that Obama is overplaying his vice presidential choice. He's orchestrated this tremendous buildup, the waiting, the promise to notify the faithful by text messaging, which is what the faithful understand. He will apparently go with the choice to Illinois tomorrow, to do one of those "where Lincoln walked" public appearances. I can't imagine Lincoln notifying anybody on a two-inch screen. He respected words too much for that.
The problem is that buildups require climaxes. And Obama better come through. If he suddenly brings forth Tim Kaine, who looks like the guy at the corner bar who just got rooked on a roof repair, the letdown will be immediate. Ditto Evan Bayh, a sweet guy but no barn burner.
Only someone spectacular will feed the moment. I just don't know if Obama has the guts to name a spectacular, to name someone who might, for a bit of time, overshadow him, maybe be more interesting than him. But if he doesn't have the stomach for it, he shouldn't have orchestrated the buildup.
What I learned in Hollywood: The audience always demands its money's worth.
August 22, 2008. Permalink
THE McCAIN MOMENT
Posted at 6:39 a.m. ET
Peggy Noonan gives a sharp assessment, I think, of why McCain has suddenly started to move up. The key, of course, is to keep the movement going.
Why is it a real race now, with John McCain rising in the polls and Barack Obama falling? There are many answers, but here I think is an essential one: The American people have begun paying attention.
They look at Obama:
This is what they see:
An attractive, intelligent man, interesting, but—he's hard to categorize. Is he Gen. Obama? No, no military background. Brilliant Businessman Obama? No, he never worked in business. Famous Name Obama? No, it's a new name, an unusual one. Longtime Southern Governor Obama? No. He's a community organizer (what's that?), then a lawyer (boo), then a state legislator (so what, so's my cousin), then U.S. senator (less than four years!).
There is no pre-existing category for him.
Add to that the wear and tear of Jeremiah Wright, secret Muslim rumors, media darling and, this week, abortion.
She argues that the Rick Warren debate mattered because it came just as Americans began to focus on the race.
Mr. McCain was direct and clear, Mr. Obama both more careful and more scattered. But on abortion in particular, Mr. McCain seemed old-time conservative, which is something we all understand, whether we like such a stance or not, and Mr. Obama seemed either radical or dodgy. He wouldn't vote to ban partial-birth abortions because we must contemplate a rigorous legal parsing of any and all possible implications regarding emanations and of the viability of Roe v. Wade?
As I watched I thought: How about "Let the baby live"? Don't parse it. Just "Let the baby live..."
...If you want to argue whether legal abortion is morally defensible, have at it and go to it, but Mr. Obama's answers here seemed to me strange and disturbing.
Noonan gives some surprising advice on which speech to look for:
I suspect everyone has the convention speeches wrong. Everyone expects Mr. Obama to rouse, but the speech I'd watch is Mr. McCain's.
He's the one with the real opportunity, because no one expects anything. He's never been especially good at making speeches...
...But Mr. McCain provided, in 2004, one of the most exciting and certainly the most charged moment of the Republican Convention, when he looked up at Michael Moore in the press stands and said, "Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war, it was between war and a greater threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. . . . And certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace." It blew the roof off. And the smile he gave Mr. Moore was one of pure, delighted malice. When Mr. McCain comes to play, he comes to play.
I'd forgotten about that, and Peggy Noonan is right. It was a great moment, and enjoyed by the people at home.
Noonan believes McCain should make a one-term pledge. I do not. It would simply call attention to his age, and who knows what a practiced, invigorated McCain would be like in four years? Maybe he'd be at the top.
This was supposed to be the Obama moment. If McCain plays it right, he can make it his moment. If he plays it right, and if the press lets him.
August 22, 2008. Permalink
THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 2008
WAITING FOR BARACK
Posted at 9:24 p.m. ET
Senator Obama announced today that...he has decided. I think I heard a drumroll.
So whoever the vice presidential choice is, at least the presidential choice knows. Now, the second guy, or woman, is supposed to campaign with the sainted one on Saturday, so Barack better inform the choice pretty soon.
The only hint he gave today is his description of what he wants in a vice president:
Obama said he wanted somebody who is ‘prepared to be president’ and who will be ‘a partner with me in strengthening this economy for the middle class and working families.’
He said he was looking for not just a partner but a sparring partner. ‘I want somebody who’s independent, somebody who can push against my preconceived notions and challenge me so we have got a robust debate in the White House.’
Yeah, right. I'll bet a president really wants a sparring partner. I don't know of a single case where a presidential candidate has put out the order, "Get me someone who'll disagree."
If Barack wants a sparring partner, that rules out Evan Bayh, a nice guy but a marshmallow. It probably rules out Tim Kaine of Virginia, who is not known as "Mr. Policy." It probably rules in Joe Biden, who's volatile enough and egotistical enough to disagree with a man who's both a president and a messiah.
And it sure rules in Ms. Hillary, who'll give Obama the kind of robust debate only a masochist could hope for.
I suspect the announcement will come tomorrow. I also suspect we'll hear it and go back to sleep, along with the rest of the country.
August 21, 2008. Permalink
AWFUL
Posted at 7:41 p.m. ET
The attempt to paint John McCain as a racist has already begun. This is absolutely awful:
LAS VEGAS—A Nevada congresswoman and surrogate for Barack Obama accused John McCain's campaign on Thursday of using veiled language to paint the Democratic presidential candidate as an "uppity black man."
On a conference call with reporters, U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley of Las Vegas said the Republican's attempts to portray his rival as out of touch with average Americans carried racial undertones.
"When I hear the word 'elitist' linked with Barack Obama, to me, that is a code word for 'uppity,'" Berkley said on a call organized by the Obama campaign to announce a new television ad. "I find it extremely offensive, and John McCain should know better. And until this election, he handled himself in a far more enlightened way. ... They're not using the word 'elitist' by accident, that's a code word for 'uppity black man.'"
And what does the Obama campaign say about this?
Berkley's analysis was not echoed by Obama's campaign.
"That is not a characterization the campaign agrees with," said Obama spokeswoman Kirsten Searer. "That is our only comment."
How about 1) dropping Berkley as a surrogate, 2) publicly apologizing to John McCain, and 3) putting out a public directive to all Obama soldiers to desist from language like that.
The Obama campaign's little slap on the wrist was completely inadequate. Expect to hear more ugly comments, and some pro forma "we don't agree" maneuvers from the Obama side.
August 21, 2008. Permalink
UPDATE AT 4:15 P.M.: A Fox News poll just released has Obama up three. The polls are in remarkable alignment, with a few outliers. We can reasonably assume that Obama has a small lead. But Obama generally polls better than he delivers, and his strength is in groups that traditionally have had turnout problems. Stress time for the Dems, but still heavy lifting for the GOP. Fact is, despite slippage, Obama is still ahead.
TRACKERS
Posted at 2:04 p.m. ET
Both trackers are now out for today. As reported earlier at SNIPPETS, Rasmussen has Obama up by two.
Gallup has Obama up by one.
Obama has yet to name his vice-presidential choice. I doubt if that will give him much of a boost. He could get a bump from his acceptance speech, but it's unlikely to be the kind of bump he'd hoped for. And please note that the GOP convention follows the Dem convention immediately. The Republicans will be on the attack as the Dem delegates are flying home, the elites in their environmentally sound private jets.
Very close, very close. This will be a bitter campaign.
August 21, 2008. Permalink
FOUR DAYS
Posted at 7:08 a.m. ET
Only four days remain until the Democrats meet. They're flying into Denver already, eager to get there. After all, Colorado is familiar turf. The ski slopes of Aspen at times serve as a second home to the party elite, which meets there whenever social schedules permit, and agonizes over the ecologically unsound ways of the American peasantry.
It could have been a much happier gathering. Democrats no doubt pictured themselves attending a harmonious, low-crab victory party, with many of them eager to serve in the administration of, check one, the first black or first female president. But a funny thing happened to Democrats on their way to the meeting. The American people spoke up. They reminded the party that voters have the final say, and that voters like occasionally to be consulted.
Barack Obama is slumping in the polls. The usual articles are out blaming racism, and there are, no doubt, some cross burners out there. But if racism is the cause of the slump, how does one account for Obama's earlier surge to the pinnacle of rock stardom? Did Americans not realize that he's black? Have the flat-screen TVs had tint problems? As my old teacher, Johnny Carson, used to say, I did not know that.
Obama is declining because he's run a terrible campaign - arrogant, aloof, and free of thought. And John McCain has come alive, the reassuring presence of the grandfather you look to when wisdom is needed. McCain hasn't made the sale any more than Obama has, but he's looking better and better to an America that's just watched Russian tanks on the move, and just saw the Democratic congress adjourn without accomplishing much of anything. The price of gas at the pump doesn't bother a party whose base thinks the internal combustion engine is a fascist plot.
So what will Obama do? He must choose a vice president, but not one name being mentioned, except Clinton, will arouse the faithful. He must deliver an acceptance speech, but his speeches have become familiar and tiresome. He must run a convention, but the list of speakers may remind voters that the party of Roosevelt and Truman died in 1968. No one under 60 recalls it.
At the end of the convention, Obama is likely to be the same person he is today. The agent of change will run a conventional campaign, try moving to the center, pull a few Chicago tricks, hint at a racial backlash if he's defeated, and may squeeze it out come November. But he's not the man America thought he was, whereas McCain, with all his faults, is exactly the man America thought he was. We can hope that Americans will choose the real McCain.
August 21, 2008. Permalink
OBAMA AND THE KIDS
Posted at 7:07 a.m. ET
Aside from the African-American community, youth has been the gold standard of the Obama campaign ...until now.
Guy Benson, at National Review Online, reports that there's a bit of bother in this part of the Obama crusade as well:
A few weeks ago, I noted a shift in polling data indicating that Barack Obama's stranglehold on the so-called "youth vote" was weakening. A Reuters summary of the latest Orgy poll confirms the trend:
"Obama's support among voters between the ages of 18 and 29, which had been one of his strengths, slipped 12 percentage points to 52 percent. McCain, who will turn 72 next week, was winning 40 percent of younger voters."
Anecdotally, I can attest that several of my friends — fellow twenty-somethings — who were once quite enthusiastic about Obama have recently expressed disappointment in his campaign. "I'm so sick of reading headlines like 'Obama Slams McCain,' or vice versa," one told me. "I thought that this campaign would actually be different, but it's not. It's depressing."
The more Obama wades into the mud, the less transcendent he appears, and his Unity/Hope/Change message is exposed for the vacuous nonsense that it is. This data should be worrisome for Team Obama because their ultimate base is slipping away.
Kids. You just can't depend on them. What are they trying to do, think for themselves?
August 21, 2008. Permalink
PETRAEUS
Posted at 7:06 a.m. ET
The sense of frustration in some some elements of the media is obvious, but the fact is that we're winning in Iraq. Even The New York Times has acknowledged that. The shrinks may now have to decide how to treat the depression among left-leaning journalists. It's part of the risk, I guess, of entering a trade where things don't always go the way the government professors at Berkeley thought they would. But facts have a way of getting out. The Times, in a good reporting job, interviewed one of the great Americans of our time, General David Petraeus, and got this accounting of where we are:
General Petraeus is preparing to leave Iraq a remarkably safer place than it was when he arrived. Violence has plummeted from its apocalyptic peaks, Iraqi leaders are asserting themselves, and streets that once seemed dead are flourishing with life. The worst, for now, has been averted.
Will the reporter go to journalistic purgatory for writing that?
And so in the general’s exhaustion comes the glimmer of hope, and also a caveat: Iraq has indeed stepped back from self-destruction, General Petraeus said, but the gains are tenuous and unlikely to survive without an American effort that outlasts his tenure.
Memo to Senator Obama: You copy that?
The surge, clearly, has worked, at least for now: violence, measured in the number of attacks against Americans and Iraqis each week, has dropped by 80 percent in the country since early 2007, according to figures the general provided. Civilian deaths, which peaked at more than 100 a day in late 2006, have also plunged. Car and suicide bombings, which stoked sectarian violence, have fallen from a total of 130 in March 2007 to fewer than 40 last month. In July, fewer Americans were killed in Iraq — 13 — than in any month since the war began.
The result, now visible in the streets, is a calm unlike any the country has seen since the American invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003. The signs — Iraqi families flooding into parks at sundown, merchants throwing open long-shuttered shops — are stunning to anyone who witnessed the country’s implosion in 2005 and 2006.
The reporter should be commended for being honest about it. I wish we'd had that forthrightness during Vietnam, where the press got away with outrageous misreporting.
The question of America’s continued commitment is likely to be taken up immediately by the new president, whoever he is, when he moves into the White House in January. General Petraeus suggested he had some details in mind, but did not think them appropriate to discuss publicly. “I can,” he said, “but I won’t.”
“The only statement I think somebody in a position like this can responsibly make is that it obviously depends on the conditions and how much risk one is willing to take,” General Petraeus said, referring to the next president.
Wise man. I suspect President McCain will listen to him. President Obama has already hinted that he has larger concepts in mind, and may not. Mr. Obama's military thoughts are very deep.
General Petraeus will now lead Central Command, responsible for Afghanistan as well as Iraq. He has done a remarkable job. Where is the parade?
August 21, 2008. Permalink
"What you see is news. What you know is background. What you feel is opinion."
- Lester Markel, late Sunday editor
of The New York Times.
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