It'll be a few more days before we learn whether McCain-Palin are just riding a convention bounce or have changed the fundamental dynamics of the race. I think there's good reason to believe Palinmania will wear off and Obama will rise again. But it's got to be unnerving out in Chicago to see that a must-win state like Pennsylvania is creeping ever closer to a tie.
And here's the case for longer-term concern. It feels a bit as though Obama is out of steam, something that's happened before. The man needs big moments to rekindle his fire. Throughout the campaign, he's found those moments. His knockout Jefferson-Jackson performance in Iowa last December. That dazzling Kennedy family endorsement. Claiming the nomination on June 3. The unity event with Hillary. Invescopalooza. But what's left now? A killer debate performance, perhaps -- but anyone who remembers last fall wouldn't bank on that (even if he did improve with time).
So what's left? I reiterate: Colin Powell. He could decide this election if he wanted to.
The Palin appointment is yet more proof of the way that abortion still distorts American politics. This is as true on the left as on the right. But the Republicans seem to have gone furthest in subordinating considerations of competence and merit to pro-life purity. One of the biggest problems with the Bush administration is that it appointed so many incompetents because they were sound on Roe v Wade. Mrs Palin’s elevation suggests that, far from breaking with Mr Bush, Mr McCain is repeating his mistakes.-- LEXINGTON
With so many Democrats seemingly preparing to hurl themselves from the nearest cliff, firm in their conviction that Barack Obama has been fatally trumped by Palin-mania, it is perhaps sadistic to cite another potential factor that might darken their mood even further.
That would be the burgeoning trend of early voting.
Roughly 30 states this autumn will offer the option; the idea is to make voting easier and cull the long lines that have lately marred the election-day process in many key locales. Early-voting experts now predict that 33 percent of the '08 electorate could cast ballots in advance of November 4, and that would mark a sharp increase over 2004, when 20 percent voted early.
Most noteworthy, however, is that early voting will be available in some of the most important '08 battlegrounds: Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, Florida, and Ohio. Those were all red states in 2004, and Obama can kiss his chances goodbye if they stay red in 2008. Obama optimists have long figured, however, that he could take advantage of the early-voting option in those states by registering scads of new voters, mobilizing the enthused partisans who are already registered, and getting them all to cast early ballots.
But here's a thought that could lengthen the Democratic line at the cliff: What if these early-voting laws actually wind up benefiting John McCain?-- DICK POLMANIt has come to our attention that a large number of Democrats have gone completely nuts about Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
-- GAIL COLLINS
A few sobering facts may be in order in light of this joyous rediscovery of GOP enthusiasm, which may have been there all along waiting to rise to the surface. If McCain pulls out a victory in November, Sarah will remain his indentured servant for as long as Mac is in the White House. She is unlikely to play the role of the Earl of Essex to Queen Elizabeth I, by mounting a rebellion against a sovereign head of state. More likely she’ll be running around pulling up McCain’s collapsed bridges to the Right.
And there is every reason to believe that the collapsing of these bridges will continue to occur throughout a McCain presidency.Just a word about the usual excrescence from Karl Rove this morning. Obama knows this lipstick thing is a cynical, knowingly dishonest attempt to push the news cycle one more day into triviality before Palin has to actually face real scrutiny, and we have our first chance to see whether she is who she says she is. It's a desperate tactic to run out the clock or to find a way to navigate the now-tsunami of evidence that Sarah Palin is unfit for the vice-presidency on account of her total lack of knowledge or expertise in foreign affairs, the thinnness and extremism and recklessness of her public record as mayor and governor, and the obvious and most important fact that she clearly cannot be trusted to tell the truth.
Obama mustn't let these schoolyard tactics unbalance him. He hasn't in the slightest, so far, mind you, a feat of astonishing mental and psychological calm. My advice for what it's worth: Hang in. The facts are on your side and the issues are overwhelmingly in your favor. They're trying to force you to blink. Don't. Hysteria will end at some point.
Patience and steel.
Patience and steel.
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democrats' vice presidential candidate, is an experienced, serious and smart man. But, boy, does he say some curious things. A day on the campaign trail without some cringe-inducing gaffe is a rare blessing. He has not been too blessed lately.
It is not the trivial things that separate us. It is trust in the intentions and motivations of the other side. I have written often that the left – with the best of intentions – supports the trashing of our culture. The ostensible reason is more freedom. The result is toxic sludge as the appeal to the lowest impulses in human beings slithers to the surface and enters the mainstream. The backlash against this we see with Christian cultural warriors who believe the left is out to deliberately infect their children and hence, they seek to impose their own standards and morals on the rest of us.
The inevitable push back from the left, who believe the Christians are out to destroy America, adds fuel to the fire and a full blown culture war erupts where debate is useless and both sides seek government help to impose their own worldview on everyone else.
This poison has spilled over and now infects all of our politics. If there is one thing that has changed since 9/11 is that the chasm between the two sides has gotten wider and the infection has spread to the point where nothing is untouched. The hope that Obama could bridge the gap – or anyone for that matter – was never realistic. America is what it is today and blaming one side or the other for the mess our politics has become is futile.
The fear I have is that if 9/11 can’t bring us together, what will? A nuclear terrorist attack? Assassinations? War with a nuclear Iran?
We are a weaker nation because we are so divided. To my mind, it’s only a matter of time before someone takes advantage of that fact and makes us pay a price we may be unwilling to bear.
-- RICK MORAN
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