Defending Sarah Palin

I'm over my obsession with the Presidential election, but the media just won't let it go. It took Sarah Palin to make me care.

Go figure. On a personal level, her voice came out at a pitch that jangled my blackboard-scratch aural pain center. How much did I dislike her as a candidate? Let me count the ways.

That's all irrelevant; she's got my sympathy. It's not surprising that the worst of the post-election attacks came out on FOX news. Sleazy comments about her thinking Africa was a country* and not knowing the countries in the NAFTA treaty. Anonymous attacks.

That's my problem with FOX: not the political views, but the tabloidy rumors and innuendo it deals in to sell them. I've read conservative commentators for years, even added a cable company mainly to watch Rush Limbaugh at happy hour. That was years ago, before he took himself seriously and, scarily, others began taking him seriously.

It sells. They know that, and so do their competitors. Though they pretend to loathe that proud part of American journalism, they'll pick it up in a heartbeat if they're losing market share.

Who's your Uncle? Sam or Tom

For a moment, Shepherd Smith seemed to be auditioning for a job at another network with his "Joe The Plumber" interview on a Death to Israel remark. I guess not, it's the soundbite, stupid. He followed by highlighting Ralph Nader's loony remark about Barack Obama being an Uncle Tom. Ralph says he's just asking the question. Right, and why should we take you seriously? Did you ask yourself that question, Shepherd?

Mo' maps

The link to the graphic above was emailed by my brother. Yes, I'm tired of this stuff, but it caught me again. What if we map votes with a cartogram weighting population into the election results? From Mark Newman, he's got the same stuff by county and with other interesting manipulations.

* As a group, Americans are abysmally ignorant of geography. There have been dozens of studies proving this obvious fact. Just to pick a group, I'd like to see how many of the 435 U.S. Congressmen could pick out a country in an unlabeled map. How would they do identifying the majority of states? Finding Saipan or the Northern Marianas?

Are you still here?

In a reality check for Barack Obama and John McCain, a Zogby poll shows that most "likely voters" think Bob Barr should be part of the Presidential debates. Heck, almost half feel the same about Ralph Nader. (A hint, Raider Ralph; do you remember now?)

For Independents, it's 69% for Barr and 59% for Nader. Draw your own conclusions. For me it's the ideas, stupid. McCain and Obama have settled into canned speeches, talking points and the occasional shot at each other. Maybe another point of view would jar them out of the pandering platitudes and cannedpaign speeches.

That's just my dream. The reality is that the major parties play Least Common Denominator politics; trying to wrap up the uncommitted without alienating their base. It works: the Commission on Presidential Debates (I'm not kidding, it exists) only invites candidates with at least a mathematical chance of winning. Barr and Nader aren't on enough state ballots; Barr is tracking at about 6% nationally, with 2% (!) favoring Nader.

Exorcising his demons

I had misgivings, to put it lightly, about the Saddleback love-fest, but was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't the litmus test I expected. Sure, there were the usual talking points from the candidates, but Orange County populist Rick Warren asked some reasonable questions and got (some) reasonable answers. There was very little 'gotcha' and no 'my opponent'. He later said he was trying to help voters who might agree with one candidate on some issues but with his opponent on others. I vote for Warren to moderate all debates.

Both racers benefited; McCain with 'Yes, I am' and another war story, Obama with a biblical quote. McCain rather self-consciously peppered his remarks with 'my friends' and Obama just as obviously hummed My Sweet Lord under his breath throughout. Let's ignore $5 million as the new rich and the 'above my pay grade' copout.

I'd call it a tie. Reassuring the fundies on one hand and showing he's not a monster on the other. Maybe a small edge to Obama because he needs to avoid the Clinton Syndrome: a visceral 'anybody but' response. For the same reason, his latest foray into the Veterans of Foreign Wars command post is valuable because he was able to put blood on the table: relatives who had fought in America's wars. That's their currency.

Who knows? Let's see if the new (sigh) polls show that fewer than 12% of the hypnotized still think he's a closet Moslem.

Unconventional

Nader has announced a super rally during the Republican convention as well as the Democrat's convention. I can see drafting after the heavyweights I guess, but he's likely to only get covered by the half-dozen loonies who can't get press credentials to the Main Events. Let's call them anti-conventions; the hall he's booked in Minneapolis seats 2,500, even Ron Paul's shiv in McCain's back has room for 20,000.

Bloomberg County

Strangely, candidate-who-never-announced Michael Bloomberg might have more effect on the election than any of the third, fourth and nth party candidates. Virginia is a battleground state and its Independent Greens have got him on the ballot. Supposedly Ron Paul pops up here too as number two on the ticket.