Marc Ambinder over at the Atlantic does a good job summing up today's political messaging as it relates to the economy. In "Fannie, Freddie, or the Future," Ambinder argues that speaking about the future of the American economy is a better political strategy, and, that going for the gutter, as the McCain camp announced they were going to do, while politically enticing, might not be the best way to win (especially executed this poorly).
[Keating economics] successfully jammed up McCain's message of the day, which is that Obama is somehow to blame for the excesses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Blaming Democrats for Fannie and Freddie's collapse -- implicity, blaming the government for giving people home loans who couldn't afford -- isn't beanbag, but the McCain campaign is using it the way that Democrats used to respond to foreign policy questions: by stumbling around, latching on to a poll-tested response, and ignoring the bigger picture.
Ayers and Keating aside, the leading edge of this debate is about what do we do post-bailout to restore confidence in our economy. The public will rightly pressure both candidates for more answers. It's an opportunity for somebody to come up with a newer, global message. or at least sound like they get the international dimension of our meltdown.
Hitting back with the Keating Five was political necessity from the Obama camp, and as Ambinder writes, has worked today, but Obama's real strength in recent weeks has come on the back of his strong response to the financial crisis. The current narrative about Obama's calm reaction compared with McCain's erratic reaction, believeable because it reinforced preexisting memes about both candidates, will serve Obama well for the next month.
Now, as the Obama campaign launches its Keating Economics piece, Obama himself expands his message on the economy and hits McCain on trying to turn the page. Today in Asheville, North Carolina, Obama had this to say:
We are going to have to then move on an aggressive plan to deal with some of the underlying structural problems in the economy, including the continuing decline in the housing market. Now Senator McCain and I have a debate tomorrow night, and obviously the American people are going to be anxious to hear from one of the two people who’s going to be the next president and responsible for dealing with this economic mess, what their plans are.
As NDN has argued, that plan must include action from Congress and the President to do more to keep people in their homes. For more on NDN's reponse to the financial crisis, visit Keep People in Their Homes.
PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, USC's Annenberg School for Communication, Latino Public Broadcasting and Southwest Airlines are presenting a compelling new documentary by Phillip Rodriguez -- "Latinos '08" -- this Wednesday, October 8, at 9 p.m. ET.
PBS interviewed Simon for the new documentary, which is described here:
From Immigrants to Mainstream to Majority, Latinos '08 Focuses on the Unprecedented Clout of the Country;'s Fastest Growing Demographic - How Latinos Will Impact this Election and American Politics for Decades to Come
In early September, NDN released new polling by long-time NDN collaborator Sergio Bendixen on how the immigration issue is playing in key battleground states. In May, NDN released Hispanics Rising II, an important report on Hispanic electoral and demographic trends.
Check TV listings for your local PBS station and tune in Wednesday night!
NARAL Pro-Choice Amererica has produced this video on U.S. Sen. John McCain's position on the fairness of insurance companies covering Viagra but not birth control.
The Washington Postreported Saturday that it's going to get ugly.
Gov. Sarah Palin didn't waste any time that day. According to ABC News:
At a private fundraiser in Englewood, Colo., this morning, and later at a rally in Carson, Calif., this afternoon, Palin for the first time raised Obama’s connection to Ayers, one of the founding members of the Weather Underground, a '60s radical group that took credit for bombing attacks around the country, including explosions set off at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol.
"Our opponent, though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," Palin told supporters at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser in Englewood. "Americans need to know this."
Palin cited a front-page article in today’s New York Times that explored the ties between Obama and Ayers. Obama had served on a charity board with Ayers in Chicago during the mid-90s, and Ayers was present at an organizing meeting in 1995 to kick off Obama's first election campaign for the Illinois State Senate.
More incoming fire today. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's team is pushing back against U.S. Sen. John McCain's "guilt by association" campaign.
According to a 6:30 a.m. ET report by Politico's Mike Allen:
Pushing back against what it calls McCain's “guilt-by-association” tactics, the Obama campaign overnight began e-mailing millions of supporters a link to a website, KeatingEconomics.com, which will have a 13-minute documentary on the scandal beginning at noon Eastern time on Monday. The e-mails urge recipients to pass the link on to friends.
The Obama campaign, including its surrogates appearing on radio and television, will argue that the deregulatory fervor that caused massive, cascading savings-and-loan collapses in the late ‘80s was pursued by McCain throughout his career, and helped cause the current credit crisis.
The 13-minute Web video documentary is now live:
Update at 3:41 p.m. ET: Politico's Ben Smith reports that Obama's Keating campaign may be paying off:
Obama apparently had today's Charles Keating attack in the can, ready to deploy against an attempt to revive Bill Ayers, and it seems to be working.
A glance at Google Trends finds "keating economics" the second-most-popular search term right now. Numbers 8, 11, 12, and 21 are terms like "keating five" and "charles keating."
Bill Ayers shows up at 36, just after "mccain keating."
The first term is Neal Kashkari, newly tapped to head the bailout. Voter registration terms also rank high.
Two major articles in today's Washington Post and New York Timesfocus in-depth on how the nation's worsening economy is presenting new opportunities -- and new challenges -- for the campaigns of U.S. Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain.
It looks like things were going McCain's way after the GOP convention -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had electrified the base, Obama was losing ground and the Arizona senator took a slim lead.
Then the nation's finanical markets crashed, Palin-mania has subsided as many Americans didn't like what they've seen post-St. Paul and Democrats traditionally do better with pocketbook issues.
Now McCain has pulled out of Michigan and Obama is competitive in traditionally red states like Florida where foreclosures are epidemic; nationally, the economic news just keeps getting worse.
Amidst all of this, yesterday, I picked up a book, "Deer Hunting with Jesus" by Joe Bageant. It is in turn fascinating, frightening and depressing. The book addresses a question that has always bothered me: why do people who are so clearly hurt by the GOP's economic policies keep voting for them again and again and again? Another article in today's Washington Post highlights the economic struggles of a suburban Michigan enclave and focues on why, while some people there may vote for Obama, others struggling to make ends meet are still planning to vote for McCain, despite the fact that his economic proposals do nothing to help them or their children.
Until progressives find a way to reach the voters written about in "Deer Hunting with Jesus" and the Washington Post article, we will continue to lose their votes because they will continue to vote, not on economic issues, but social "hot button issues" such as abortion, guns and sex education. And, sadly, as many of them admitted, they simply will not vote for an African-American candidate. All in all, it is not their failure, but our failure, to explain to them how we will not allow globalization to leave them behind; how we will invest in their education; how we will ready them as we accelerate toward a 21st century economy.
In 2007, NDN conducted a series of polls on the how Americans view the economy. They are well worth reading here and here. I know I will be looking at them for answers.
Lastly, in what can be at best called a sophmoric effort to change the subject, the McCain campaign said yesterday that:
We are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days," said Greg Strimple, one of McCain's top advisers. "We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans." "We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here," said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity. [Washington Post, 10/04/08]
In response, the Obama campaign has launched a new ad on the economy, highlighting what has happened over the last eight years during the Bush-Cheney reign.
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.
This just in from Nielsen: 70 million people watched last night's vice presidential debate between Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and U.S. Sen. Joe Biden.
That's means 17.5 million more folks tuned in to see Joe and Sarah go at it than watched U.S. Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain debate, according to the Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet.
And get this:
69.9 million people watched the debate, tying it for second place among all Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. (The second Bush/Clinton/Perot debate of 1992 also have 69.9 million. The all-time debate leader is the Carter/Reagan debate of 1980.)
To read more from Nielsen, click here. A few more interesting tidbits before I sign off:
The Biden-Palin matchup set a new V.P. debate TV audience record, beating the previous high of 56.7 million viewers set by the debate between Rep. Geraldine Ferraro and then-V.P. George H.W. Bush in 1984.
Biden and Palin’s debate also surpassed the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, which drew an audience of 52.4 million last Friday night.
During the last presidential election in 2004, the vice presidential debate between V.P. Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards drew 43.6 million viewers.
It happened so quick, you'd have missed it if you closed your eyes.
That's right. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has lowered the political bar even further. She's mainstreamed the political wink, according to the Washington Post's Joel Achenbach.
Palin's wink was working overtime during last night's presidential debate. Check out this hilarious montage -- complete with soundtrack -- of some of Palin's saucier optical acrobatics:
If you don't want to answer the question, just say so. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin did last night in the vice presidential debate in St. Louis:
According to a CNN transcript, Palin basically told moderator Gwen Ifill and opponent Joe Biden they could shove her lectern where the sun don't shine. Palin was taking her case to the people:
And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.
The Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports that Palin, oddly speaking of herself in third person, talked later with FOX News' Carl Cameron about answering pesky questions:
"The Sarah Palin in those interviews was a little bit annoyed," she said. "It's like, man, no matter what you say, you are going to get clobbered. If you choose to answer a question, you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try to pivot and go to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that too."
She helpfully added what Couric should have asked her about (don't forget Palin does have a degree in journalism):
"In those Katie Couric interviews, I did feel that there were lot of things that she was missing in terms of an opportunity to ask what a VP candidate stands for, what the values are represented in our ticket. I wanted to talk about Barack Obama increasing taxes, which would lead to killing jobs. I wanted to talk about his proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars. Some of his comments that he's made about the war, that I think may, in my world, disqualify someone from consideration as the next commander in chief. Some of the comments that he has made about Afghanistan -- what we are doing there, supposedly just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That's reckless. I want to talk about things like that. So I guess I have to apologize for being a bit annoyed, but that's also an indication of being outside the Washington elite, outside of the media elite also. I just wanted to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for."
Maybe because she was on friendly FOX, Palin just let it all hang out. Darn right she's outside the Washington elite, the media elite. From now on, all interviews are going to be on her terms. You betcha.
Thoughts about our content? Suggestions for how we can improve our blog? Anything else on your mind that you want to share with us? Please, send it our way - shoot me an e-mail at dboscov-ellen@ndn.org. Thanks, and hope to hear from you!
