McCain on GITMO

John McCain supports closing GITMO, even calls it a "wise move."  He does have some reservations about the process, but promises to help Obama.

I find this to be a very interesting development, and am starting to respect the man a bit.

Obama shows his class with McCain dinner

An editorial worth reading, about the graciousness of Barack Obama in having a dinner in honor of John McCain, for his continued bipartisanship.

I think that the old, good McCain will likely return now that the campaign is over, and will probably be one of the strongest republican allies of the Obama administration.

The Party of Racial Backlash

Krugman has an interesting editorial today on the GOP's strategy for the past 40 years.  I agree with him that overall, the GOP has symbolized a "good ole boy" network, in which very few minorities were given top spots.  But Bush changed some of that with his appointments, although the party lost many of them under McCain (like Colin Powell).  

One thing that Krugman misses is the GOP's small government rhetoric, which was powerful for a time, even if it may partially be to blame for the current meltdown.

Taibbi on McCain's Campaign

Matt Taibbi summarizes John McCain's campaign in his own special way:

My favorite parts:

the very idea of Republican conservatism was massively rejected in virtually every state where large chunks of the population do not believe in the literal existence of a horned devil, and even in some that do.

and how about this on Palin:

She's a classic divide-and-conquer politician, an unapologetic Witch Hunter and True Believer with a gift for whipping up the mob against the infidel. In a way that even George W. Bush never was, she is Karl Rove's wet dream, the Osama bin Laden of soccer moms, crusading against germs, communism, atheism and other such unclean elements strictly banned by American law.

Barry meets Johnny

Got to hand it to Johnny Mac on this one.  Stand up guy for meeting with Obama so soon after defeat.  Unlike the other loons in the GOP, McCain has enough class to know when public opinion has turned, and that politicians, like countries, need to evolve.

McCain Concedes

McCain gives a classy concession speech.

Obama "has inspired hopes of millions of Americans."  "I applaud him."

In a way, I think McCain knew this was coming.  His speech was very, very well written.  That doesn't take away from it though.  He did a good job.

McCain: "These are difficult times for our country and I pledge to help him."

McCain's Lost Cavuto

So screwed.  Cavuto hammers the straight talk express.  He's not pro-Obama, but its pretty obvious the object of his disrespect is John Sidney McCain.

GOP should put money where it will help

David Frum, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, argues that the GOP should give up on McCain for now and shift resources to protecting republican senate seats.  I think he's right; when you have limited resources you need to put your money where it will be most effective.  Right now, even though McCain as president would be very effective, the likelihood of it happening is 5-10% at best, while maintaining some of these highly contested senate seats has at least 50-50 odds.

McCain has another senior moment

And this is the state he is trying to win?

McCain's Election Night Party

While Barack Obama plans his victory rally, it appears that McCain is preparing for his own defeat.  He does not plan to attend his election night party in Phoenix; he will address the crowd via a video conference.  

Meanwhile, today's poll analysis

Nate Silver, who has been dead on all season, sees McCain's chances dwindling to 3.7%.  

These are landslide, blowout, "send a message" type numbers.  

I somehow think that if Bush/Cheney were running again, it would be tough for them to do worse.

Campaign with Dignity, John

Dear John,

It's over.  Anybody who tells you otherwise is either misinformed or delusional.  You are trailing by far too much with only a handful of days left.  You message didn't resonate.  Your VP pick was the last straw.  You ran on 4 more years of republican rule, when the republicans have turned into bigger spenders who have attempted to control the American people more than any other administration in history.  You and your ilk need to be destroyed in the election, and that's about to happen.  My hope is that a limited government, Ron Paul style Republican party will emerge.

So, in these waning days of the race, I urge you to campaign in a way that will make your grandchildren and great grandchildren respect you.  Pull the negative ads.  Focus on helping limited government republicans in house and state legislature races win.  Then you can be remembered as the beginning of the rebirth of the party, not the death.  

Yours truly,

A former republican leaning independent

A Message from the "fake" Virginia to John McCain

Dear John McCain,

Recently one of your senior advisors has said that even though you are down in Virginia by an average of close to 10%, that's OK, because you are competitive in the "real Virginia."  By "real" your advisor meant anything but Northern Virginia.

Let me tell you something.  A third of the Commonwealth's population lives in Northern Virginia.  We are as real as any other part of it.  On top of that, we are highly educated, diverse, and highly motivated.  Wealthy too.  What that means, is that between now and the election, I'm going to spend as much free time as I can to make sure you don't steal this election up here.  Even though I work a full time job and am studying for graduate admissions tests, my future is too important for you to screw it up.  If you think the rural part of Virginia is the only real part, keep on thinking that.  I'll see you back in the senate in January.

Yours truly,

A "fake" Virginian

PS: Just so you can see how your efforts are paying off, I have attached the recent polling data.  And just so Sarah understands, blue means NOT you.  

Desperate Strategies

Word on the street is that McCain has now abandoned Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa.  I could see IA for a long time coming; they are the ones who started Obama's momentum way back in the Iowa Caucuses.   New Mexico is another state that is pretty much blue these days, especially with the popularity of Gov Richardson.  

And Colorado?  It voted for George W Bush in 2000 and 2004, but the educated West in general is not a fan of the likes of John McCain, especially when paired with Sarah Palin.  

So where is Johnny boy trying to win?  Pennsylvania.  Sorry to tell you McCain, but that ain't gonna happen.  It would be like Obama making a play for Kansas.  On paper, it looks alright, but McCain is behind by an average of 15 points.  That's huge.  It is practically insurmountable.  Especially with 2 weeks to go.  

And even if McCain were somehow able to pull off an upset in PA, by devoting all his resources there, he would be leaving Ohio, North Carolina, North Dakota, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, and most importantly Virginia vulnerable.  Obama will likely win at least 2 of the states on that list, VA and NV.  Just one more state than those would clinch a win for Obama.

Better get ready to go back to the senate John.

The Last Debate

Last Wednesday's debate was arguably McCain's last stand.  He did well for the first 30 minutes, and then turned into grandpa Simpson for the rest.  He rambled a lot and focused on things nobody cares about, like ACORN.  He also likely alienated 90% of independent women when he mocked "health exceptions" to abortions.  He even used the scare quotes.  Many women had viewed McCain as "pro-life light" before that, but now there is no mistaking that he wouldn't even abort Adolf Hitler.  

I think that overall, the debate went slightly to Obama.  What this means is that McCain has practically zero chances to win this election.  When else will he have a public forum to discuss his views?  Obama is taking out 30 minute ads before the World Series.  McCain could do that, but it would erode what little money he has.  

I think that for McCain to win, Obama will have to mess up in a major way.  That's been McCain's strategy since day one.  McCain never tried to win this election, he just hoped for Obama to lose it.  That hasn't happened.

Michigan Republican Freaks Out

""He's a general who left the battlefield in the middle of the fight."
"I'm disappointed in his behavior; he's thrown a lot of good Republican candidates under the bus."
"...our commander has raised the white flag..."

-L Brooks Patterson, Oakland County, MI Executive on John McCain's decision to cede Michigan to Barack Obama.

Patterson is afraid, and he should be. With McCain effectively dropping out in MI, many republicans will not vote. It is very possible that Joe Knollenberg or Tim Walberg will be defeated. Currently, Knollenberg is down by 4 pts in the polls, and with McCain dropping out its not going to get any better.

Bailout = McCain Finished?

The bailout fiasco is bad, really bad.  I'm not of the opinion that we need it yet, but the market was priced to expect the bailout so now the Dow has dropped 777 points.  I've lost several thousand recently.  Oh well, I have time to save.

I'm not going to get into economics tonight.  

My simple analysis is this: the failure of this bailout to pass just might sink John McCain for good.

Strike 1: McCain "suspended" his campaign to go to Washington and help build bipartisan support for the bailout bill.  He did not do much helping (by all accounts, he made a couple phone calls).  The bailout failed, mostly due to republicans.  This leads me to believe that McCain's own party does not respect him, particularly the Ron Paul Republicans who voted against it.

Strike 2: McCain said he was only participating in the debate because passage of the bailout bill was imminent.   Passage was not imminent.

Strike 3: Monday morning McCain claimed credit for the bill...  It didn't pass.

Obama didn't come up looking much better since he has backed the bailout bill (with strong reservations about its current form).  However, he did not pull stunts such as "suspending" his campaign or swinging wildly as McCain is doing today.  

Add to that a tie, at best, during the debate that was supposed to be John McCain's strength and you may very well be witnessing a major meltdown.

McCain Calls Terrorists Freedom Fighters

Something which I myself did not notice during the debate, but Radley Balko has pointed out is that during the debate, McCain made the following remark:

First of all, I won’t repeat the mistake that I regret enormously, and that is, after we were able to help the Afghan freedom fighters and drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, we basically washed our hands of the region.

And the result over time was the Taliban, Al Qaida, and a lot of the difficulties we are facing today. So we can’t ignore those lessons of history.

These "freedom fighters" included Osama and the Taliban.  While it is true that we left them hanging around with a lot of guns, and now we don't quite have peace in the region.  

It is also true that at the time they were fighting for their freedom, something that can be said of many groups that are also called terrorists.  I'm not here to pass judgment on where freedom fighters end and terrorists begin, but you can bet your ass if Barack Obama had made that comment Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly would be up in arms.

Obama-Palin?

Yesterday Palin basically endorsed Obama's stance on going into Pakistan, if necessary.

Today the McCain campaign retracted her comments.

Do I need to even state again how much of a complete disaster she is for the republican ticket?

McCain's Temper

John McCain's temper is apparently alive and well.  

See this video, at around the 4:30 mark (listen to the few seconds before that so you know what's going on).  McCain mumbles "horseshit" twice under his breath.  Reminds me of Dick Cheney.