Month: November 2008

Now that all is said and done, I confess that I used to like McCain. Honesty, I think that 2000-era John McCain would have made a half-decent president and he'd be the ideal choice if it was 1952. But it isn't 1952. And 2000 McCain disappeared sometime in mid-January, re-appearing just last evening during his concession speech. The candidate who ran in his stead lost this election (or at the very least turned it into a rout) because he declined to do what he so often touted as a strength: listen to his own judgment. Instead he chose the counsel of hired hacks who urged him to run a Rove-style campaign in the persona of someone who looked like John McCain but clearly wasn't. This election was over the moment he overruled himself and started listening to Rick Davis, Bill Kristol, and other loud-mouthed boors who dole out advice that amounts to, in essence, gambling with other people's money.
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Imagine, if you will, a personal trainer. He charges astronomical fees because he is widely recognized to be something of an expert. He's more than happy to regale you with stories of his past success to justify the price tag. For instance, he helped famous athletes X, Y, and Z bring home gold at the Olympics. In fact, hand this trainer any athlete and he will turn him or her into a legend in no time.
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But let's say some very wealthy people hire him to work his magic on a 60 year old overweight housewife. If he's actually a good trainer he'll say "Hmm, I probably can't put her through the same program that I use on professional athletes." If he's an overpriced moron he'll put her on the Olympic powerlifting plan and call someone to pick up the corpse in a few hours. In other words, there's a crucial difference between a smart trainer and a guy who just happens to do one thing really well.
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McCain allowed himself to be convinced that his Expert Advisors knew better, that he couldn't compete by being himself. The hired guns proved their incompetence by failing to recognize what would or would not work with the candidate in question; instead they simply did the only thing they know how to do. The only way to compete, according to the carved-in-stone rules borne of the 2004 Election, was to relentlessly pander to fear and the borderline-crazy right. That McCain could never pull this off was irrelevant. There simply is no other option in their world. Metaphors about ponies who know a limited number of tricks come to mind.

When it became clear that McCain did have a limit – a point beneath which he would not sink – they saw the perfect solution: find a running mate with absolutely no shame. Find some rube, some county fair livestock princess who would say and do anything for the chance to stand under the pretty lights. "Don't worry, John. We'll bring her up to speed on the issues. Trust us. We're professionals. We can turn anyone into Daniel Webster. And this will really help your numbers in the sticks!" Hence the decision, the self-inflicted wound, from which McCain never recovered. His discomfort with his arranged marriage to Palin showed. It was the resigned, simmering anger of a man who realized that he had been sold a ration of horseshit by con artists.

The old saying goes that a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient. In the political arena, though, the patient is actually quite wise. Candidates learn from experience what works for them and if McCain had one advantage in this race it was political experience. Only arrogance or ignorance would prompt someone to tell a 72 year-old man to try something brand new after crafting a well-defined persona over three decades in Washington. McCain got a healthy dose of both. The arrogant doled out advice based on their ideological biases irrespective of how it would affect the candidate. It's no skin off Kristol's back when McCain gets routed, so let the far right "wisdom" fly!
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The ignorant, the people paid collective millions to separate the meat from the fat, looked at the advice of the arrogant and said "This is a prime cut, John. Dig in."

Let me take the first crack at some discussion of what happened last night, although it is complicated by results that remain unknown in several races.

1. The evening was very short on presidential election drama. In my mind the election was over at about 7:30 EST. When John McCain was leading 51-49 in the early returns from Indiana (gathered from the most rural parts of the state) that was all we needed to see. A Republican who needs to struggle in order to hold Indiana is deeply fucked.

After that data was released it simply became a matter of Obama's margin of victory in the Electoral College.

2. I will talk about this at length next week but, for all intents and purposes, polling was dead-on in this election. I rip on polls a lot and I listened to eight weeks of people dreaming up scenarios (fueled by either Democratic pessimism or GOP optimism) about how they were totally fabricated and unreliable. But it turns out that aggregated state polling was essentially 100% correct in the presidential race. Blue states went blue. Red states went red. Toss-up states had extremely tight margins of victory for one candidate or the other.

3. The uncompetitiveness of PA is the only state-level result that surprised me (although Obama's 200,000 vote win in Florida was a pleasant surprise too). Perhaps the GOP spin about how McCain was pouring every dollar into PA and pinning all of his hopes on it subconsciously affected my expectations. Given all the time, money, and talk that McCain poured into the state I expected a narrow Obama win similar to Kerry's razor-thin win in 2004. Turns out the state was a total blowout – with exactly the 10-12 point gap predicted by the polls.

4. In the Senate races, nothing shocked me except Ted Stevens. I am floored by that one. Not only did Begich lead before the indictments, but the few post-indictment polls showed double-digit margins.
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It's embarrassing to whiff on a race like this and I'd love to say that I have a convenient explanation for what happened. Unfortunately I'm speechless. Every result, even when I guessed wrong, made sense except for this one.

5. We're going to be waiting several days, possibly weeks, for Franken-Coleman results. Not until the last military and absentee ballots arrive in the mail will we know who squeaked out a win.

6. With overwhelmingly Democratic Lane County (Eugene) still only 25% reported, I like Jeff Merkley's chances to close a 14,000-vote gap with Gordon Smith.

Merkley also leads big in Clatsop and Benton counties, both of which are only half-reported.

7. The combined races that will be decided by less than 0.5% of the vote – OR and MN Senate seats as well as presidential results in NC, IN, and MO – make clear that turnout matters. That a state like MO can have 4.3 million ballots cast with only 6,000 votes separating the candidates should remind us all that, in many instances, our vote does actually count. Of course, I suppose many more races support the argument that staying home is OK too. But let's be optimistic for the moment.

8. Excepting the Senators from Maine, the purge of New England Republicans from Congress is complete with the defeat of Christopher Shays.

9. Fox News may have hit a new low last night. I am convinced that their audience is 50% talk radio fanboys and 50% hipsters watching them ironically to mock them. Brit Hume's effort to lead a panel chat on "Will a President Obama raise our taxes or just jack up the deficit to pay for his trillions in new spending?" as the results rolled in was too amusing to be sincere. Extra credit for trotting out Juan Williams (the Clarence Page-style "inarticulate token black liberal" character) who couldn't name a single policy proposal Obama made during the campaign.
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10. The right-wingers trying to take solace in how "close" McCain made the race should note that this is the most sizeable margin of victory since 1988. George W. Bush could only envy this kind of win. I think "mandates" are bullshit, but America went more solidly for Obama than it ever did for Our Leader.

More later. Add your observations and thoughts.

(Note: actual analysis coming. Must sleep. Enjoy light humor for now.)

1. All property-owning classes will report for field work in our new collective sorghum farms at 4:15 AM tomorrow. Subversives and malingerers will not be tolerated. The Politburo (formerly Congress) will compile a list of non-contributors in need of re-education in Siberia (formerly Alaska).

2. All pregnant women must report for mandatory coat-hanger abortions by Friday. All children under 4 will also be retroactively aborted.

3. The top income tax bracket is increased from 36% to "confiscatory". This term is to be followed with maniacal laughter and songs of praise for Comrade Lenin.

4. Members of the Politburo will meet at 6:00 AM Thursday morning to sign a formal instrument of surrender to Radical Islam.

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Field work may be interrupted six times daily for prayer toward Mecca (formerly Harrisburg, PA).

5. In tribute to Comrade Obama's closest personal friend, William Ayers, it is now illegal to not bomb your state capitol.

I know you will all cooperate and put significant effort into making our transition to Commie Islam smooth and seamless. Allaobama be praised. You must work to meet our sorghum production targets for the motherland.

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Never forget our enemy – bourgeois capitalism and prosperity.

Obscure race to watch: if Christopher Shays loses his House seat in Connecticut, there will not be a single Republican in the House from any of the six states in New England (VT, NH, ME, CT, RI, MA) barring a huge upset in another race.

We may not be in for as long of a night as you think. Indiana and Virginia have the first poll-close time and the results should be fully reported by 10 (barring an unforseen delay) with no paper ballots involved.

Sure, it's only two states. But trust me – if McCain loses Indiana and/or Virginia, he's fucked.