Simon Rosenberg's blog

On last night's SNL, Tina Fey knocked another one out of the park.  This one is my favorite yet. 

Has any actor or comedian since Chevy Chase played such a major role in an election?

For the last several years NDN has been making an argument that a "new politics" of the 21st century is emerging.  Driven by vast changes in demography, media and technology, and the a whole new set of very 21st century challenges (and one could add the utter collapse of modern conservatism) a new politics was emerging in America that would be very different from the century just past.  

Reflecting on the morning papers 3 stories stuck out as interesting examples of how the world is changing around us.  1st up is how the Army is starting to see nation building and the shoring up of "fragile states" as a primary area of responsibility.  2nd is a fascinating piece by Eve Fairbanks on the sensibility of the next generation of Congressional Republicans.  Finally, a wide ranging and important piece by our friend David Rothkopf, who argues: 

The current economic debacle is far more likely to be seen by historians as a true global watershed: the end of one period and the beginning of another. The financial chaos has brought down the curtain on a wide range of basic and enduring tenets also closely linked with the Reagan era, those associated with neoliberal economics, the system that the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has called "that grab-bag of ideas based on the fundamentalist notion that markets are self-correcting, allocate resources efficiently and serve the public interest well." Already this crisis has seen not just our enemies but even some of our closest allies wondering whether we are at the beginning of the end of both American-style capitalism and of American supremacy.  

Change is indeed coming to Washington.  And this next Presidency will without doubt be among the most important in American history. 

Catch the latest poll analysis from DemFromCT this morning, showing among many other things the poll average now at 7 points. 

The Post has a story this morning detailing the McCain's camp decision to go scorched earth all the way to the end now. 

1045am Update - Rasmussen's daily starts this way: 

With one month to go until Election Day, the Rasmussen Reports daily
Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama attracting
51% of the vote while John McCain earns 45%. For each of the past nine
days, Obama has been at 50% or 51% and McCain has been at 44% or 45% (see trends). The stability of these results suggests that the McCain campaign faces a very steep challenge in the remaining few weeks of Election 2008.

I'm sure the McCain camp is loving this one.   That Governor sure is feisty, isnt she?

From his column today:

The House will probably vote on Friday on the latest version of the $700 billion bailout plan - originally the Paulson plan, then the Paulson-Dodd-Frank plan, and now, I guess, the Paulson-Dodd-Frank-Pork plan (it's been larded up since the House rejected it on Monday). I hope that it passes, simply because we're in the middle of a financial panic, and another no vote would make the panic even worse. But that's just another way of saying that the economy is now hostage to the Treasury Department's blunders.

For the fact is that the plan on offer is a stinker - and inexcusably so. The financial system has been under severe stress for more than a year, and there should have been carefully thought-out contingency plans ready to roll out in case the markets melted down. Obviously, there weren't: the Paulson plan was clearly drawn up in haste and confusion. And Treasury officials have yet to offer any clear explanation of how the plan is supposed to work, probably because they themselves have no idea what they're doing.

As readers of this blog are aware NDN has been raising similar concerns about the plan - that it is not clear that it will work.  One thing that will have to be done, perhaps during the lameduck session in November, is the passage of a plan to keep people in their homes.  For as the new housing data shows housing prices continue to plummet, causing more foreclosures, which is then in turn bringing down home prices even more which is then doing to bring down the core assets whose drop is bringing down the financial house of cards on top of it all. 

Nothing in this now enormous bill will address this fundamental problem. which of course has been driving this entire crisis.  Our fear is that without it we are not doing all that we can to stabilize our wobbly financial markets, and do the right thing by the taxpayers who are footing the bill for this incredible bailout. 

901pm - I think Palin will do well tonight.  She's a natural. 

903pm - My CNN HD has a running dial group with Ohio undecideds.  It's a wild way to watch the debate. I will resist referencing it during my blogging.  Biden had a solid start.  She tried hard but didn't do so much. 

907pm - Palin - we bring new energy.  John McCain! 

910pm - She's just getting out there, delivering her message, making her case.  She's not responding to Biden, not attacking.  Just using this time to make her case.  She's a very good messenger.  Biden is arguing, not making the simple case for the Obama message.  He's not making his case to the audience....

925pm - I dont really understand her argument when Governor Palin makes the case that she is the one who will take on the oil companies, not Obama Biden.  The McCain Palin ticket has so little to work with.  

928pm - Biden makes the case for keeping people in their homes!  Thanks Joe.

930pm - Palin just repeated the most crazy fringe thing she has ever said - that it doesn't matter what has created climate change we just have to fix it.  That climate change may also have been caused by cyclical weather patters? Friends, what does this mean?  Don't we need to understand what has caused it in order to combat it?  Oh, Biden just said this.  Well done Joe. Of all the wild stuff she has ever said this is the craziest and most dangerous.

939pm - Iraq.  Man she really sounds like she is over her head now.  Hate it when all these talking points run together! Biden's answer got off the charts ratings from the Ohio dial group.  Biden is just burying her in this portion of this show.  She seems so out of her depth.  He is raising the bar now. 

951pm - Maybe she's a little tired now.  Biden is finally, finally making the case now that the Bush strategy for the Middle East has been an abject failure.  Her response - change the subject!  This part of the debate has been a rout, a rout.

10pm - Biden just knocked the ball out of the park on Darfur, and on Iraq.  She just can't play at this level.  This part has left her smaller, diminished.  And she knows it. 

1015pm - Biden has kept his game at a very high level for a long time now.  She is trying hard to get back in the game but just can't keep up.  

1019pm - Exceptionalism.  Beacon of Hope.  My old boss Linda Ellerbee had a great line - the words are all there they are just in the wrong order.  She is awfully likable but she comes off as a well-intentioned local pol fighting way above her weight. "Quasi-caved in."

1028pm - This has been a good night for Joe Biden, and Barack Obama.  Palin did all right, but simply could not play at this level.  Biden gained confidence, strength and his voice as the night went along.  All in all I think Senator Biden just got much more out of tonight than Governor Palin, which of course is a problem for the McCain Palin ticket.

Apparently the McCain campaign announced late today that they have to win MN, PA or WI to win. 

According to every poll, every map this is not looking likely,perhaps even possible.

What was this announcement exactly?  

Am a little amazed by this admission.  It is close to a public admission of defeat as you can get at this level of politics.

As many of you know I've been using the polling aggregate and maps of Real Clear Politics as my baseline.  A new and interesting site, 538, takes a very tough look at their performance in the last few weeks. 

This is one of Markos's more inspired posts of late....

Josh Marshall has put together the Governor's greatest YouTube hits. 

Watch it here. 

It is a good prep for tomorrow night's debate.