Category: Politics

Sarah Barracuda For Vice President

It’s official: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is John McCain’s VP pick.

This is the best pick he could have made.

Earlier this year, I had her as a favorite, not really thinking that McCain would be so bold as to pick her. Looks like I underestimated Sen. McCain’s vision after all.

Alaska is as far away from Washington as it comes. Gov. Palin is tough, principled, well-spoken, and a great example of what a woman in America can be in the 21st Century. She is an inspired pick for McCain, and she will help him win in November.

UPDATE: Obama got BidOWNED…

Red State: EPIC WIN.

Obama Fails To Inspire

I’ve long said that Barack Obama is one of America’s most gifted orators. The man knows how to turn a phrase. He can inspire. He can speak.

That Obama was barely on the stage tonight.

Instead of soaring rhetoric, we got attacks. Instead of a compelling vision, we got what Obama is not. Instead of great lines, we got rhetoric that will not last beyond this election. This speech failed to satisfy.

Obama could have done better. This was a small speech on a momentous occasion. I honestly expected more from him. Even as a partisan, I can recognize great rhetoric when I see it, and this was not it. It was too small for him, and while some may love the red meat, this was not a speech for the ages.

On the other hand, perhaps it need not be. Obama wants to win the election, and that’s what this speech is about. The problem is that when Obama ran, he ran as a uniter. He ran as a post-partisan candidate. He leaves this speech as just another partisan.

UPDATE: Oddly enough, the conservative commentators on Fox News thought this was a great speech. My theory is that partisans seem to think that this was a great speech—because this speech was so partisan. The real question is whether this speech will attract the undecided.

On the other hand, generic Democrats are doing well in this bad year for Republicans. Obama has turned himself into a generic Democrat—which perhaps is enough for him. But I don’t think that’s enough.

I can accept that Obama took the “agent of change” mantle back, as several commentators have argued. The problem with that is that Obama’s appeal was that he was a post-partisan figure as well as an agent of change. He lost that tonight. It was a gamble, and perhaps it will pay off for him. But even as an admitted McCain partisan, I wanted to see a real vision beyond attacks and a laundry list of focus-group tested policies. Something real to spar with. That did not appear tonight, and that’s why Obama’s speech did not achieve what it should have.

Here is McCain’s challenge: let us accept that the American people have had “enough.” (Which is true.) But the American people don’t know what “change” Obama will bring—and McCain has to paint a compelling vision of what he will do that Obama will not.

That is something that McCain can do, but it will be a challenge. McCain does have a big job ahead of him, but the contrasts are clear.

UPDATE: In all fairness, the set was not merely as bad as I thought it would be. Granted, I watched PBS, which didn’t play with camera angles too much, but it didn’t really seem all that distracting. That and neo-classical architecture is my bag…

UPDATE: Wow, I’m really in the minority here. Even Jay Nordlinger thought the speech was good. The problem is that Obama had huge expectations placed before him. I can believe that this was a good partisan speech for the moment, but I don’t see it lasting. This wasn’t great oratory, from an orator who has the capability to truly inspire. Had a John Kerry or a Walter Mondale given this speech it might have been better in my eyes. But Barack Obama has more raw political talent than either. My biggest problem with this speech, my partisanship aside, is that Obama could have done better.

Experience Matters

The McCain campaign has one of the most effective campaign ads I’ve ever seen. On the day of Sen. Obama’s acceptance speech, the McCain campaign offers this reminder that despite the Senator’s historic rise, he is simply not prepared to lead this country in a time of great challenges:

Obama’s own words serve as a reminder that the Presidency is not a time for on-the-job training, especially not now. Obama’s instincts are wrong. He was wrong on the surge. His instincts were wrong on Georgia. He made key blunders in threatening Pakistan with a U.S. invasion. He can give a compelling speech, but compelling speeches won’t be enough to safeguard Ukraine from Russian interference. Compelling speeches will not stabilize the fragile situation in Pakistan. Compelling speeches will not win the battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Actions speak louder than words, and had the U.S. followed Sen. Obama’s advice, Iraq would not be stabilizing, we would have shown Russia a sign of great weakness, and our foreign policy would return to the fecklessness of the Carter years.

Obama has neither the experience nor the instincts to lead. Sen. McCain has both. Sen. Obama deserves congratulations for breaking a historic record and achieving much. What he does not deserve is to be the Commander-in-Chief of this great nation.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse says this ad is “devastating”—it is.

The Obamacropolis Rises

When I read that Barack Obama was going to give his speech from a faux Greek temple I thought it was a joke.

Apparently it’s really true.

After Obama’s Berlin speech, his numbers went down. Obama is overexposed, and turning his nomination speech into a kind of coronation is the exact sort of thing that has been causing Obama to hemorrhage support for the last few weeks. People don’t want to turn their politicians into secular messiahs—and that’s exactly what the Obama campaign has been trying to do.

The McCain camp is saying that Obama will get a 15 point bounce from the convention—trying to set expectations to unlikely highs. At this rate, I’m not so sure that Obama will get any bounce at all. He’s already got adulatory coverage for months on end—what more can he get from the media? When you’re already the media’s darling and MSNBC is at outreach of your campaign, there’s nowhere to go but down.

Obama will probably get some bump, but it won’t be 15 points, and it may not last long. I don’t see the Hillary supporters coming home this time, even with Hillary’s tepid praise for Obama last night.

Pride goes before a fall. Given the stratospheric heights to which Obama has been lofted, he should be more circumspect about how he runs his campaign. He wants to be the next Jack Kennedy—but he could end up an Adlai Stevenson.

UPDATE: After watching this video of the set, it looks like Sen. Obama is invoking the Markets of Trajan rather than a Greek temple. Then again, Trajan had military and executive experience, while Obama most assuredly has neither.

The Case For Lieberman

Bill Kristol makes the case for Sen. Joe Lieberman as McCain’s VP:

Lieberman could hold his own against Biden in a debate. He would reinforce McCain’s overall message of foreign policy experience and hawkishness. He’s a strong and disciplined candidate.

But he is pro-abortion rights, and having been a Democrat all his life, he has a moderately liberal voting record on lots of issues.

Now as a matter of governance, there’s no reason to think this would much matter. McCain has made clear his will be a pro-life administration. And as a one-off, quasi-national-unity ticket, with Lieberman renouncing any further ambition to run for the presidency, a McCain-Lieberman administration wouldn’t threaten the continuance of the G.O.P. as a pro-life party. In other areas, no one seriously thinks the policies of a McCain-Lieberman administration would be appreciably different from those, say, of a McCain-Pawlenty administration.

What Kristol doesn’t seem to understand is that the pro-life position of evangelical and Catholic voters is not a political one. It’s a moral position. They believe as a first principle that the termination of an innocent human life is morally unconscionable and government should not sanction such atrocities. A stridently pro-abortion candidate is going to be a non-starter, or at the very least will have a very tough sell.

Sen. Lieberman is a brave man and a patriot. He was right on the war, and his steadfastness is greatly appreciated. However, he is a doctrinaire liberal on nearly every other issue, and in a close Senate it is possible that he could break a tie vote. He should have a seat in a McCain administration, but not as the number two man.

Biden Is It

The word on the street is that Sen. Joe Biden will be Obama’s VP selection. The rumor mill states that Biden has already been assigned a Secret Service detail, and Gov. Kaine and Sen. Bayh have been informed that they will not be the pick.

Biden has some qualities that make him a good pick, but not enough to make up for his infamous lack of inner monologue. His tendency to put foot firmly in mouth is not something that makes him condusive to being a running mate to a neophyte politician.

Biden is a Washington insider, which goes against Obama’s message of change. He is someone who offers experience, but at a price. Of all the top contenders for Obama’s VP, he is perhaps one of the weakest.

Biden makes sense on a superficial level, but when it comes to who best complements Obama, he’s not the best choice that could be made.

On the other hand, it could be worse: Obama could have picked Clinton.

UPDATE: It’s official, Biden is it. At least the Obama people had the good sense to drop the bad news on the weekend.

McCain Goes Viral

Barack Obama was supposed to be the candidate that was the master of the viral video, but McCain’s campaign has been managing to more than hold their own. Their latest YouTube sensation continues to tweak the messianic air of the Obama campaign by using their own words against them:

The Obama campaign, which should by all rights be sweeping the floor with McCain, is floundering. The reason why is partially due to the fact that Obama is collapsing under the weight of his own hagiography. People are sick and tired of him already, and if his Invesco Field performance next week is half as nakedly self-congratulatory as expected, one wonders if Obama might leave the convention worse than when he arrived.

In the Democratic primaries, the late breakers tended to break against Obama. If that holds true in the general election, Obama may be in serious trouble.

I’ve been bearish on the prospects of the McCain campaign for most of the summer. After McCain’s confident performance at the Saddleback Forum last week and the movement of the poll numbers, I’m not so sure that when the cards are laid on the table, Obama’s hand might not have been as strong as everyone thought.

Obama’s Space Plans: A Study In Incoherence

Sen. Obama has released his plan for space exploration. As a case study, it demonstrates the lack of coherence or policy judgment that has marked the Obama campaign. Space policy expect Rand Simberg has a detailed analysis of Obama’s space plan and finds it lacking.

For example, Obama’s campaign can’t seem to make up its mind about NASA’s COTS program:

Obama will stimulate efforts within the private sector to develop and demonstrate spaceflight capabilities. NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services is a good model of government/industry collaboration.

Which is all well and good, until one reads further down. Then Obama’s space plan says the opposite:

Obama will evaluate whether the private sector can safely and effectively fulfill some of NASA’s need for lower earth orbit cargo transport.

So, COTS is a “good model,” but Obama plans to “evaluate” it anyway. It’s the sort of muddleheaded stuff that Obama has been giving the electorate in just about every field. Simberg notes that this is a document clearly written by committee, and it’s hard to disagree with that sentiment.

Simberg notes something else disturbing about the Obama campaign’s attitude towards ideas not their own:

This part struck me (and didn’t surprise me):

Lori Garver, an Obama policy adviser, said last week during a space debate in Colorado that Obama and his staff first thought that the push to go to the moon was “a Bush program and didn’t make a lot of sense.” But after hearing from people in both the space and education communities, “they recognized the importance of space.” Now, she said, Obama truly supports space exploration as an issue and not just as a tool to win votes in Florida.

I’m not sure that Lori helped the campaign here. What does that tell us about the quality and cynicism of policy making in the Obama camp? They opposed it before they were for it because it was George Bush’s idea? And does that mean that space policy was just about votes in Florida before this new policy? I know that there are a lot of BDS sufferers who oppose VSE for this reason, and this reason alone, but it’s a little disturbing that such (non)thinking was actually driving policy in a major presidential campaign.

Sadly, I think that’s exactly how the Obama camp thinks—or more accurately doesn’t think. Obama is not a dumb person, not by a longshot. But he doesn’t have a wide grasp of policy. He has an incisive legal mind, but when it comes to issues like taxes, foreign policy, trade, and other major issues, he’s utterly reliant on a cadre of advisors. That is not healthy for a President. A President needs good advisors, to be sure, but ultimately the job of President is the world’s toughest management job. Nothing in this document or anything else that Obama has done suggests that he has the management skills to be an effective President. A country can’t be lead by committee, it needs someone to provide leadership and direction. At least as far as space policy is concerned, Obama shows little leadership or direction.

To be fair, that doesn’t mean that Obama’s space plan is all bad. He says some of the right things. But he also is against the “weaponization” of space—something which has already begun and requires more than the typical feckless diplomatic overtures to contain. He is for more international cooperation in space—which is all well and good except that tensions with Russia already could cripple us. He’s for accelerating the timeline for the Shuttle replacement—which is an absolute necessity.

What would a truly bold space policy be? How about a government sponsored X-Prize to truly foster space exploration? A policy that ditches the overcomplicated Ares/Contellation program and goes with the better-designed DIRECT 2.0 launch system?

Obama says the right things, especially with the idea of having a better connection between the Oval Office and NASA and other interested parties. The problem is that Obama clearly hasn’t thought his space policy through enough to come to any clear policy conclusions. Even where he says the right things, there’s no guarantee that he’ll really enact them. A document drafted by committee is not the same as a bold policy, and when it comes to the future of humanity’s exploration of space, Obama gives us precious little change that anyone can truly believe in.