by Alex Evans | Oct 17, 2008 | North America
Amid the general consensus that all three of the Presidential debates were notable principally for their tedium, it emerges that McCain and Obama just needed to find the right format. Not podiums; not sitting; not town-hall; no, it’s stand-up comedy where the real contest was to be found in this election. Both candidates spoke at the Al Smith memorial dinner in NYC last night; both are laugh out loud funny in places.
McCain (part 2 here):
[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6bhvIvYrsQo]
Obama (part 2 here):
[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NXKaAQ-6BiU]
by Alex Evans | Oct 17, 2008 | North America
[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v48l5s8qryk]
John McCain’s first visit to the Letterman Show since The Cancellation. See also Part 2 (in which he’s questioned about the crowds at his rallies), 3 (about how Sarah Palin was selected) and 4 (whether Barack Obama ‘pals around with terrorists’).
by David Steven | Oct 14, 2008 | Conflict and security, Influence and networks, North America
In the US Presidential election, what you see in the media is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The real action is on the ground, where decades of experiments and false starts have finally cohered into a new model of social organisation.
Read Zack Exley’s account to find out more:
We saw glimpses of the potential for this kind of organizing campaign in MoveOn’s 2004 and 2006 volunteer operations, the Dean Campaign and even the Bush and Kerry campaigns. And there are great examples of this kind of organizing if you go back to the social movements of several decades ago. But the Obama campaign is the first in the Internet era to realize the dream of a disciplined, volunteer-driven, bottom-up-AND-top-down, distributed and massively scaleable organizing campaign. For anyone who knows how many times this has failed to happen, this is practically an apocryphal event
by Alex Evans | Oct 10, 2008 | North America
It’s official: I relinquish any and all claims to knowing anything whatsoever about US politics. This – I blush – is me, back in January:
It may be pushing it to call [John McCain] ‘centrist’ – but he blurs the red / blue battle lines, and he’s perceived by both sides as having integrity. In their different ways, John McCain and Barack Obama – with his language of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ – both represent an acknowledgement of the need for some kind of rapprochement between red and blue America. But out of the two, it’s John McCain who currently looks the more credible prospect for achieving that goal.
What was I thinking?
As the New York Times observes, “what has been most striking about the last 48 hours on the campaign trail is the increasingly hostile atmosphere at Mr. McCain’s rallies, where voters furiously booed any mention of Mr. Obama and lashed out at the Democrats, Wall Street and the news media”. TPM puts it harder than that, and refers to the “unhinged” nature of the McCain / Palin crowds.
David Gergen pretty much agrees in this CNN interview –
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi9LFX88ElQ]
– in which he says, “There is a free-floating sort of whipping-around anger that could really lead to some violence. And I think we’re not far from that … I think it’s really imperative the candidates try to calm people down.”
John McCain, ladies and gentlemem. Healer-in-Chief.
by David Steven | Oct 10, 2008 | North America
Here’s some idle speculation for Friday. Starting points:
- John McCain is now in deep trouble – pundits are talking about the election as a done deal.
- He clearly can’t stand Barack ‘that one‘ Obama – and Obama is subtly feeding his anger.
- When cornered, McCain’s instinct is to do something dramatic – pick Palin as VP, suspend his campaign to fight the financial meltdown etc.
- Sarah Palin has haemorrhaged support with mainstream voters, but is building a strong bond with the base. Her main political interest in now in 2012 not 2008.
- The Alaskan legislature will report on the Troopergate mess today and there are signs that the report could be damaging (though not necessarily fatally so).
Now one would expect the McCain/Palin campaign to tough Troopergate out – after all, they’ve played a pretty ruthless offense so far. But what if McCain wanted to make one last attempt to reclaim the election. Imagine how it might play out…
- Report is published. McCain/Palin campaign let the flames burn for a while (rather than rushing into douse them). Media frenzy builds.
- Tearful Sarah Palin gives press conference to withdraw as VP. Presents herself as the victim of a sexist, elitist media that has drunk the Obama Kool-Aid. Can’t bear to be a distraction any longer, but promises to be back once she’s cleared her name in Alaska.
- A shaken and angry McCain accepts her resignation. The base is in flames. The McCain camp seemingly in disarray.
- A news cycle later – McCain is back with Romney as his new pick for VP. Announces that Romney’s job will be to work exclusively on the fallout from the financial meltdown. He’s the only man with the CV to get the US out of this mess.
- McCain/Romney then run on experience in public, Obama’s character behidn the scenes and through surrogates (all the old stuff – but now also ‘He killed Sarah! The bastard’)
- We all sit back to see whether, this time, the stunt will work.
Will it happen? Probably not. But if it does, you read it here first…
Update: It doesn’t need to be Romney who replaces Palin. Indeed, McCain could pick anyone who he thought would be the most plausible White Knight to ride in and rescue the American (and global) economy. Bloomberg? Greenspan? Anyone who would seem right today and for at least the rest of the month…
