Spin Cycle

Obama throws a sharp elbow at Sarah Palin, who has been spending a fair amount of time living off a puffed resume with a claim to have opposed earmarks that doesn't seem to be true:

“She’s a skillful politician. But, you know, when you’ve been taking all these earmarks when it’s convenient, and then suddenly you’re the champion anti-earmark person, that’s not change. Come on! I mean, words mean something, you can’t just make stuff up.”

McCain response is... unresponsive: “Just like so many other issues Barack Obama is all talk, has no record to back it up and isn’t ready to make change.”

Translation: "We can't make stuff up? Just watch us."

A bright spot in a campaign that was supposed to be classy, and has so far been a trivialized and somewhat nasty disappointment. Obama and McCain agree on a unified statement and a joint appearance at Ground Zero on September 11:

“On September 11, 2008, we will join together to mark the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks at Ground Zero.

“All of us came together on 9/11 - not as Democrats or Republicans – but as Americans. In smoke-filled corridors and on the steps of the Capitol; at blood banks and at vigils - we were united as one American family. On Thursday, we will put aside politics and come together to renew that unity, to honor the memory of each and every American who died, and to grieve with the families and friends who lost loved ones. We will also give thanks for the firefighters, police, and emergency responders who set a heroic example of selfless service, and for the men and women who serve today in defense of the freedom and security that came under attack in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.”

Gov. David Paterson stumped for Democratic Assemb. Philip Ramos in Brentwood Friday calling him a “great resource” and his "partner in state government,” but added his appearance was no “message” to Suffolk County Executve Steve Levy who is backing primary challenger Waldo Cabrera.

“There are a lot of people you’ve touched in six years of service and they are not going to let anything happen to you,” Paterson told the crowd of abut 130 during the mid afternoon fundraiser at the Portuguese American Center.

The governor was joined by Rep Steve Israel(D-Huntington) the supervisors from Brookhaven Brian Foley and Philip Nolan of Islip as well as a half dozen of Ramos’ fellow Assembly members.

Cabrera, reached later, called Paterson’s comments “expected rhetoric” and his appearance a sign that Ramos “is a candidate who is floundering and needs to be propped up by the governor" and others. "If he was a solid candidate he could fight his own fight,” he added.

Paterson also appeared to make an indirect reference to the Levy’s dispute with Ramos for delaying the extension ....

Continue reading "Gov. calls Suffolk's Assemb. Ramos "a great resource"" »

After a four years and eight months in office, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy Thursday night finally gave his first hint of his future ambitions — he wants to be vice president.

Levy got the attention of the crowd of 300 at his $400 a head fall fundraiser at Villa Lombardi’s in Holbrook by describing how he was “especially fixated” by GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s speech.

“I was sitting there listening," said the county executive."She represents 600,000 people and been there for for two years. I represent 1.5 million and been around for 20 years.”

Then to howls, Levy deadpanned: “I hereby am declaring I am running for vice president of the United States of America.”

The county executive quickly added, “The only problem is that there is no place for me to go except to be Ron Paul’s running mate.”

Levy’s event, unlike the past, used only half the Holbrook catering hall’s space, and some officials say they were "comped" on their tickets, something the county executive had not done in the past. However, aides say the size of the crowd and the take, about $250,00, was the same as past Levy fundraisers.

Rick Brand

Knowing a good thing when he sees it, McCain hands over his weekly radio package to Palin. Text, after the jump. Nothing that new, but here's the audio and the text is after the jump if you're interested.

Continue reading "Radio Sarah!" »

Camp McCain flags a Wilmington News Journal story today that flags some problematic questions about Joe Biden's real estate dealings:

Essentially, the story reports that most of Biden's net worth is the result of two lucrative deals with campaign contributors in the 1990s. In one, he sold his house for the asking price of $1.2 million -- six times what he had paid two decades earlier -- to an executive at MBNA, the credit card company.

Then he turned around and used the proceeds to buy a prime lot for his new house from another political backer, a real estate developer, for $350,000 -- the same price the developer had paid for it five years earlier. Experts say the land alone is now worth $1 million.

Not clear anything was wrong here -- but with all the attention being paid to Sarah Palin's firing of Alaska's public safety director, Biden's dealings merit some notice, too.

Yesterday was an extraordinarily busy day, and we didn't get to posting a few things that merit some notice:

1. McCain slightly exceeded Obama's Nielsen rating for his acceptance speech, with both topping 38 million viewers. This is a surprise, and a good sign for McCain. It would be a better sign if he had given a great acceptance speech for all those folks to see.

2. Oprah Winfrey said she's not having any of the candidates on her show, which the NYPost sees as an insult to Sarah Palin because seeing it that way gives them a cover.

3. The Wilson sisters of the group Heart got headlines yesterday by complaining about the GOP's use of its song "Barracuda" as an anthem for Sarah Palin at the convention this week, but apparently the Xcel Center had a license to use it. From the LATimes: "Copyright law may not be on the Wilsons' side, however, as the song is licensed for public performance under a blanket fee paid by the venue to ASCAP, the firm that collects royalties on behalf of composers and copyright owners." Also: Reuters. (Thanks, Tom.)

4. The McCain campign is running ads in Michigan and elsewhere which falsely suggest that Obama will raise taxes on most people, but that turns out to be the high road. A conservative group called Freedom's Defense Fund is pushing a dark ad focused on Obama and Kwame Kilpatrick, the disgraced mayor of Detroit:

Everybody take a deep breath:

60 days to go.

Here's a good, pretty long story from Anchorage that tries to get to the bottom of whether Sarah Palin really tried to ban books at the library when she was mayor of Wasilla.

Palin eventually tried to fire the librarian who resisted, and who had been a supporter of Palin's predecessor as mayor: "A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn't fully support her and had to go."

Strange town. You have to fully support the mayor to be the librarian?

The GOP also aired a Sept. 11 film at its convention last night. If you want to see it, it's posted on the left.

It's provoked some considerable blowback. The idea is that there is a taboo of sorts on the use of 9/11 for political ends, which the GOP violated. After the film, you'll see Keith Olbermann reacting negatively in the clip below. The Boston Globe's blog: "The September 11 precedent was one of the few surviving campaign-season taboos. It is survived by direct comparisons of one's opponents to Hitler."

There's no doubt that 9/11 can be used inappropriately for political purposes, and it's clearly something people have strong feelings about. But it's not exactly clear why this particular film goes over a line. It was a national trauma triggering a panoply of policy issues. Politicians have to talk about it and do talk about. If they can talk about it, why can't they include it in films? Does this film try to appropriate the trauma for the GOP in some particularly ugly way that we're missing here?

The whiskeyfire blog, however, does make one good point in its criticism: The GOP Sept. 11 film was incomplete. It didn't have a single shot of this guy:

Via RB, who disagrees with me.

Now, Palin is even bigger than Obama, and we know even less about her. From the (very) conservative Powerline blog:

"We conservatives have had a good time ridiculing the Obama phenomenon, especially its messianic feel -- the willingness of its adherents to pour so much hope and belief into such an empty, or at least incomplete, vessel -- and its elevation of 'narrative' over substance.

"It turns out that we were dying to have basically the same experience."

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Sarah Palin's biographic introduction video at the Republican convention was scrubbed Wednesday night because Rudy Giuliani's speech ran long, and the party wanted Palin at the podium in prime time. But the biographical film was released later.

Here it is, if you're interested:

From ABC, a pretty tight summary on the state of play in the Palin Troopergate investigation. Sarah Barracuda expects to always get her way?

A new McCain ad, to run in multiple battleground states, mocks (what else?) Obama's speeches and neoclassical settings, and then ties him to establishment Dem pols and traditional Democratic ideas (higher taxes etc.).

It's worth noting the role reversal that is going on here: McCain is trying to re-brand Obama from fresh face to traditional establishment Democrat ("old ideas masquerading as change") even as he tries to rebrand himself from 30-year veteran of the GOP Washington establishment to a maverick change agent.

The ad is leavened with the by-now routine McCain tax lie: "Obama and his allies promise higher taxes on your income." In fact, Obama's plan would cut taxes for 81 percent of working families and 95 percent of families with children, bigger cuts than McCain has promised, according to the Tax Policy Center. The Annenberg School's Factcheck.org has accused McCain of a "pattern of decit" for multiple ads suggesting the opposite. Even Fox News has reported that McCain's ads on Obama's tax plan "contain serious distortions, if not outright lies."

McCain's response? Tell it again, Sam:

Our Tom Brune, on the road with McCain and Palin in Wisconsi and Michigan today, reports that the GOP is carrying nice momentum out of the convention -- a crowd estimated at 12,000 in Cedarburg, Wis., the congressional district of GOP stalwart Jim Sensenbrenner (who battled McCain on immigration issues).

The crowd: "Very enthusiastic, very large, very white, very Republican" -- and a lot of women anxious to get a look at Palin, referring to her already by her first name, "Sarah." There even seems to be a little overshadowing going on. Here's Pat Mantel, a retired housewife born and raised in Cedarburg:

"I do enjoy that vice president that he picked. I think she's going to be with the hometown people, the middle class. I came out to see her."

What about McCain's big acceptance speech last night?

"I liked his speech all right. But I'm very excited and I can't wait to see her."

CNN "Red and Blue" cartoonist Dan Shefelman's take on Palin's speech. Buzz words!

Anchorage Daily News reports that Legislative Council has authorized subpoenas of seven witnesses who have begun resisting cooperation in a probe of Gov. Palin's firing of state public safety director Walt Monegan.

But Palin won't be subpoenaed, because there's still hope she'll cooperate without a subpoena.

Investigation centers on whether Palin abused her power by firing Monegan to retaliate for him not axing a trooper, Palin's ex-brother-in-law, who was involved in a custody fight with the governor's sister.

McCain's stumble over the question of how many houses he owned continues to be a gift from the Gods for those trying to cast him as an elitist. Here's a pretty good spoof, based on the Real Men of Genius Bud Light ads, put together by Change to Win, a pro-Dem labor coalition:

Gov. Palin being a huntress sounds good, and is certainly attractive to a certain portion of the electorate. Unless you're the dead caribou....

AP photo. Maybe it's old, but we hadn't seen it before. Via the Washington Note.

Yesterday, we posted an item complaining that Sarah Palin was a little misleading in her speech when she said she put a state jet up for sale on eBay -- not mentioning that the clever-sounding eBay idea didn't work, and the state ended up dropping the $2.5 million listing and selling the plane through a plane broker, instead, for $2.1 million.

Apparently, she faked out at least one other person: Her running mate, John McCain, who said today:

"You know what i enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay -- made a profit."

Not true. The state bought it for $2.7 million, by the way -- so it wasn't a profit, either.

It's a small thing, but it's just like the claim that she was a courageous opponent of the Bridge To Nowhere and earmarks, when she wasn't. Little false stories build into a big false image. We all know how to puff up a resume, but that doesn't make it right.

Jobless numbers:6.1 percent.

Sarah Palin or not, that's a number that rarely bodes well for the party in power.

The Anchorage Daily News is not happy that since getting the v-p nod, Gov. Palin has shifted from cooperation to resistance in the probe of her firing of state public safety director Walter Monegan:

"Gov. Sarah Palin is taking the wrong approach to Troopergate. She should be practicing the open and transparent, ethical and accountable government she promised when running for governor and boasts about now that she's on the national stage.

"Instead, Gov. Palin has begun stonewalling the Legislature's attempt to get the bottom of allegations that she, her family or staff violated ethical or state personnel rules.

"As a result, the Troopergate allegations hang over Palin's future and cloud her candidacy for vice president."

For all the claims that the media bashed Sarah Palin, the media has now declared her a star.

But the first meaningful poll -- conducted yesterday, after her big speech -- shows that Joe Biden, who got nowhere near the style points for his convention speech that Palin got for hers -- is actually doing his running mate more good. According to ABC:

Palin's favorable/unfavorable rating is 50/37. Biden's is 54/30. She is more polarizing -- doing worse among Dems than Biden does among Rs.

Also: Palin makes 25 percent of voters more likely to support McCain, 19 percent less likely, and 55 percent are unaffected. Biden makes 22 percent more likely to support Obama, 10 percent less likely, 67 percent unaffected.

Experience: Voters by a margin of 50-42 do not think Palin has the right experience to serve as president, while by a 66-21 margin they think that Biden does.

Also: We noted yesterday that reports on her pursuit of earmarks for her hometown weren't going to hurt her. The poll bears it out: By 32-19, voters think better of her for bringing home the bacon to Wasilla.

So this was inevitable. Within 48 hours of the GOP's unprovoked broadsides against community organizers -- George Pataki: "What in God's name is a community organizer? I don't even know if that's a job." -- and Barack Obama's time working as one, community organizers are defending themselves.

A story in today's New York Sun concludes that Republicans are using it to start a class war (rural v. urban, black v. white, people who need help v people who think they've made it without help, etc) that surely they think they can win.

And Paul Newell, who is running a longshot primary campaign against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) defended community organizers in a campaign email and described himself as one.

What Lower Manhattanites need right now is someone who can listen to them - not the Republican luxury condo developers who fund Sheldon Silver's Political Action Committees. Someone who will work to bring people together to protect our housing, build new schools and bring new ideas on transportation.

That sounds like a Community Organizer. That sounds like Paul Newell.

Sarah Palin earned the nickname "barracuda" as a HS basketball player, because she was thought to be so tough/mean/driven. It has stuck with her, and last night the song "Barracuda" by Heart blared out over Xcel's speakers.

Today: The Hollywood Insider blog reports that Heart's Nancy Wilson has asked the campaign to stop:

"Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there."

Issues of song use have been a persistent problem for the McCain campaign -- it ain't easy to put on a show when you're the campaign less favored by the cool and the hip......

Sorry for the late start this morning -- it's been a long week. Here's some headlines:

McCain tried to move past partisanship, and cast himself as a change agent ready to defy his own party in his acceptance speech.

Newday's Craig Gordon sees his attempt to seize the change mantle as an act of "brazen political larceny."And by and large, the NYT notes, it's "easier to run as the opposition party if you actually are the opposition party."

The speech itself? Well, McCain managed to stay awake and get through it, even if his audience suffered from some heavy eyelids. Goodwin of the News: "Lackluster."

Over the course of the two conventions, the biggest development was probably the Republicans' success in closing the "enthusiasm gap" with Democrats, primarily because of Palin.

On the stagecraft front, the Republicans may have intended to put a picture of Walter Reed Medical Center behind John McCain last night, but instead that big mansion was Walter Reed Middle School in California.

Sarah Palin's hometown of Wasilla is right smack in the middle of an area known as the meth capital of Alaska.

And her press vetting continues: A look at how she pushed a version of health-care reform in Alaska that benefited her campaign benefactors.

Charlie Rangel's lawyer admits he hasn't been reporting income from a Dominican vacation villa he owns. Picture, left, is the cover of Sunday's NYPost.

Nassau County still thinks it's a good idea to humiliate its citizens by posting pictures of those arrested for drunk driving, and Newsday still thinks it's a good idea to help.

Bloomberg term-limits game-playing seems to be a permanent fixture.

The convention's biggest success:

Palin became a star, and then McCain looked old and showed how desperately he needs Palin to provide her energy.

The convention's biggest failure:

McCain/Palin got millions of people to tune in, and then did nothing to separate a bit from Bush, who is one of the most unpopular presidents in history. Where is the change???

Here's the response from the Obama campaign:

“Tonight, John McCain said that his party was elected to change Washington, but that they let Washington change them. He’s right. He admonished the ‘old, do-nothing crowd’ in Washington, but ignored the fact that he’s been part of that crowd for twenty-six years, opposing solutions on health care, energy, and education.

"He talked about bipartisanship, but didn’t mention that he’s been a Bush partisan 90% of the time, that he’s run a Karl Rove campaign, and that he wants to continue this President’s disastrous economic and foreign policies for another four years. With John McCain, it’s more of the same.

“That’s not the change Americans need. Barack Obama has taken on the special interests and the lobbyists in Illinois and in Washington, and he’s won. As President, he’ll cut taxes for 95% of all working families, provide affordable health care to every American, end the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in ten years.”

How many Republicans wish their convention had ended last night?

Here's the McCain speech:

Immediate reactions:

1. McCain just isn't that good at giving a speech, and will leave a lot of Republicans thanking their lucky stars that Palin delivered last night. His nervous smile is discomfiting. But his POW story is so powerful, the speech packed an emotional punch at the end.

2. He didn't launch any seriously nasty attacks on Obama -- which is smart to get the votes of swing voters -- but more people probably watched Palin last night as she went negative.

3. If the complaint has been that the Republicans ignored issues, McCain at least provided the skeleton of a response with a laundry list of issues.

4. He praised Bush, then tried to argue that he could be a Republican change agent after 8 years of GOP control of the WH and 30 years in the Washington establishment. Palin went for the base, McCain tried to reach swing voters. He even criticized his own party for being corrupted by power. A better speaker might have carried it off, but the argument seemed to get lost.

In an emotional litany, he calls on people to serve the country instead of complaining about it -- "comfort the afflicted, efend the rights of the oppressed."

How could he have allowed his surrogates last night to mock Obama for being a community organizer? What principle connects last night's attacks with those words?

Moving toward the end of his speech, he recounts the POW story -- of his capture, his captivity, his rejection of release. He gets a standing ovation at that.

"I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's.... I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man any more. I was my country's."

My country saved me: "I will fight for her so long as I draw breath, so help me God."