It’s never happened before, and I pray it will never happen again, but I do find myself chuckling over Buchanan’s no-nonsense summary of the past week
Barack Obama just had the worst week since his beloved pastor, Jeremiah Wright, decided to expatiate on black liberation theology at the National Press Club.
Coming off his royal progress through the Near and Middle East, Berlin, Paris and London, Barack had surged to a nine-point lead in the Gallup tracking poll. By Friday, he was back to a dead heat with a 72-year-old opponent with none of his natural skills, in a year when grocers are pulling Republican brands off the shelves.
For all its gracelessness, the McCain campaign, given openings by Barack, stepped in and put Muhammad Ali on the canvas.
Key grafs:
The first opening was the clumsiness with which Barack dealt with a planned visit to wounded U.S. troops in Landshul, Germany.
While the first half of his foreign trip, to Afghanistan and Iraq, was official, the European tour was campaign related. Yet, it was on this leg that a visit to wounded U.S. soldiers had been scheduled. As campaigning in a military hospital is prohibited, the visit was canceled.
But, instead of going ahead and visiting the troops alone, without aides, press or cameras, Barack bailed out and flew on to Paris.
This left the McCain folks an opening to paint Obama as a cold-hearted opportunist avid to visit a military hospital only if he could bring in press and cameras to record his compassion.
Enraged Obama aides savagely accused McCain of running a dishonorable campaign. This reflex reaction, and the ugly brawl that ensued, made some Americans think less of Obama, but many more forget what a success his foreign trip had been.
Never fear, though, Obamaphiles. Kevin Drum predicts Obama will win the general by 6 to 8 points!
Always! Isn’t that the iron rule of the MSM—make sure that people tune in for the bad news that will surely follow the good news?
Oil prices are falling sharply, and that’s good news. But not nearly as good as you might think.
No doubt the drop, down to $120 by mid-day Monday, gives strapped consumers relief at the gas pump. Prices have dropped below $4 a gallon and could be headed toward $3.50, going by trading in wholesale futures markets. Any decline will be welcomed by Americans struggling under the burden of falling house prices, rising layoffs and stagnant wages.
But falling oil prices also suggest that the recession the U.S. has so far avoided is well on its way, as consumers pull back from the spending spree that drove economic growth earlier this decade. A weakening economy will mean more layoffs, further pressuring already reduced spending.
This time it’s courtesy of a totally tone-deaf Michelle Obama, who suggests that Barack is an accessory:
“Barack and I — as partners, as friends and as lovers — we accessorize each other in many ways,” said Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. “The best thing I love having on me is Barack on my arm and vice versa, whether it’s having him standing there smiling at me, or watching him mesmerize a crowd or talk to some seniors in a senior center.”
That is sure to improve Obama’s image as a potential commander in chief, dontcha think? There will be more in this vein, too. HuffPo reports:
Among the highlights in the Essence story, Ifill reports from the campaign bus as the family travels to Montana, and how they interact with supporters and with each other. “The Obamas pride themselves on creating a family picture that is authentically black with shades of Norman Rockwell,” she summarizes.
Listen up: I totally understand the cultural fascination with the Obama family. Even I am fascinated by the Obama family. But selling the family—printing the legend, as it were—only gets you fans. It is no guarantee of votes.
Minor correction: It may get you votes in the primary if your fairy godmother’s name is Oprah.
In this paper, we use geographic differences in subscriptions to O! – The Oprah Magazine and the sale of books Winfrey recommended as part of Oprah’s Book Club to assess whether her endorsement affected the Primary outcomes. We find her endorsement had a positive effect on the votes Obama received, increased the overall voter participation rate, and increased the number of contributions received by Obama. No connection is found between the measures of Oprah’s influence and Obama’s success in previous elections, nor with underlying local political preferences. Our results suggest that Winfrey’s endorsement was responsible for approximately additional 1,000,000 votes for Obama.
I wrote about the Oprah-Obama nexus here, where I also discussed Matthew Baum’s research about the impact of “soft news” on “low information voters.” Maybe all that overexposure did have an effect for Obama in the primaries. But even if it did, Oprah’s endorsement is not helping him today, in the general, where some pollling tells rather a different story.
Barack Obama has lost ground among some of his strongest bases of support, including young people, women, Democrats and independents, according to a new ATV/Zogby poll. …
Zogby called the results a “notable turnaround” from a July survey he did that showed Obama leading by 46-36.
“McCain made signifciant gains at Obama’s expense among some of what had been Obama’s strongest demographic groups,” Zogby said.
His findings:
-Among voters aged 18-29, Obama lost 16 percent and McCain gained 20. Obama still leads, 49-38;
-Among women, McCain gained 10 percentage points. Obama now leads 43-38;
-Among independents, Obama lost an 11 point lead. They’re now tied;
-Among Democrats, Obama’s support dropped from 83 percent to 74 percent;
-Among Catholics, Obama lost the 11 point lead he had in July and now trails McCain by 15.
Zogby said Obama also lost ground among minorities.
He attributed Obama’s erosion of support to McCain’s criticisms of Obama as inexperienced in the wake of Obama’s trip to Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq and to Obama’s flips on some issues.
Does anyone doubt that Jacksonianism (which I discussed here earlier today) has become the subtext of McCain’s campaign, that he’s trying to unearth his all-American war-hero “country first” image from under the avalanche of celebrity love that his opponent has received?
Check this out:
STURGIS, South Dakota (CNN) – Standing on the main stage at a world famous motorcycle rally in rural South Dakota on Monday, John McCain looked out on a sea of denim-wearing bikers and told them he enjoyed their company much more than that of the 200,000 Germans who turned out to see Barack Obama last month.
“As you may know,” he told the tens of thousands gathered at the 68th annual Sturgis Rally at Buffalo Chip campground, “not long ago, a couple of hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I’ll take the roar of fifty thousand Harleys any day.”
Bikers in the crowd, who had arrived from around the country to partake in the massive outdoor party, revved their engines numerous times in support of the presumptive GOP nominee. McCain said it was music to his ears.
“This is my first time here,” he said, “but I recognize that sound. It’s the sound of freedom.”
If McCain seemed more energized than usual, it might have been because the rally was one the campaign’s most colorful (and noisy) events in recent months. He even purchased four commemorative t-shirts.
I think it’s probably pretty safe to say that the Obama Messiah seems to be falling short. Various people pile on here, here, here, here, and (very shrilly) here.
Most amusingly, this turn of fortunes for his favorite candidate has caused Keith Olbermann to excommunicate his longtime pal and interviewee Dana Milbank—on whom he blames this mess—from Countdown:
For nearly a week we’d been waiting for him to offer a correction or an explanation for his column from last week in which he apparently reported an Obama quote without a full context turned the meaning of the quote inside-out. …
We had decided not to have Dana on this news-hour again until this was cleared up, and, sadly after some very happy years, he’s apparently chosen to make that cloud permanent.
Cloudy days ahead for Olbermann.
I swear that I haven’t been looking for this evidence—which happens to support my thesis that infotainment rules—but all of my casual reading in the last ten days has led to the same conclusion: culture is a far more influential force than politics in campaign ‘08.
[[You'll have to bear with me, though, if you want to get my argument. I'm not in Sound Bite Territory here. This blog is my playground for the ideas I've been thinking about for more than a decade. So if you're with me, read on. If not, skip to the next post.]]
Let’s back up a minute and think about culture and how it influences many domains in our lives and in our society. Here’s Peter Wood, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, about “How Culture Keeps Students out of Science”:
The precipitous drop in American science students has been visible for years. In 1998 the House released a national science-policy report, “Unlocking Our Future,” that fussily described “a serious incongruity between the perceived utility of a degree in science and engineering by potential students and the present and future need for those with training.”
Let me offer a different explanation. Students respond more profoundly to cultural imperatives than to market forces. In the United States, students are insulated from the commercial market’s demand for their knowledge and skills. That market lies a long way off — often too far to see. But they are not insulated one bit from the worldview promoted by their teachers, textbooks, and entertainment. From those sources, students pick up attitudes, motivations, and a lively sense of what life is about. School has always been as much about learning the ropes as it is about learning the rotes. We do, however, have some new ropes, and they aren’t very science-friendly. Rather, they lead students who look upon the difficulties of pursuing science to ask, “Why bother?”
Success in the sciences unquestionably takes a lot of hard work, sustained over many years. Students usually have to catch the science bug in grade school and stick with it to develop the competencies in math and the mastery of complex theories they need to progress up the ladder. Those who succeed at the level where they can eventually pursue graduate degrees must have not only abundant intellectual talent but also a powerful interest in sticking to a long course of cumulative study. A century ago, Max Weber wrote of “Science as a Vocation,” and, indeed, students need to feel something like a calling for science to surmount the numerous obstacles on the way to an advanced degree.
At least on the emotional level, contemporary American education sides with the obstacles. It begins by treating children as psychologically fragile beings who will fail to learn — and worse, fail to develop as “whole persons” — if not constantly praised. The self-esteem movement may have its merits, but preparing students for arduous intellectual ascents aren’t among them. What the movement most commonly yields is a surfeit of college freshmen who “feel good” about themselves for no discernible reason and who grossly overrate their meager attainments.
One of the things that I really like about Barack Obama is that he addresses these kinds of cultural issues head-on:
ABC News’ Sunlen Miller Reports: Barack Obama took a “tough love” message to African American youth, telling that finishing high school is a better route to success in life than an unlikely trip to the NBA or the top of the rap industry.
“You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Lil’ Wayne, but probably not, in which case you need to stay in school,” Obama, D-Ill., told a cheering crowd, brought to a standing ovation at a town hall meeting in Powder Springs, Georgia.
The presumptive Democratic nominee was speaking about high school drop out rates and the need for people to be committed to working hard in school so they can get a job after school.
Obama said he knows some young men think they can’t find a job unless they are a really good basketball player.
“Which most of you brothas are not,” Obama, who played basketball in high school, a sport he continues to play to this day, said jokingly. “I know you think you are, but you’re not. You are over-rated in your own mind. You will not play in the NBA.”
Obama’s number-one Internet fan has often claimed that he loves his idol precisely because Obama will put the culture war to rest.
What a crock!
Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
In case you haven’t noticed, this election is about the quintessential “Jacksonian” *** versus the quintessential post-Jacksonian (excuse me: I mean post-partisan) American.
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*** It would be paranoid to note [Kaus's "paranoia" continues here ---ed.] that Walter Russell Mead’s article is no longer available at the CFR’s site.
Not to worry! It’s available here. And here’s a link to the book where he lays things out in detail.
Would it be paranoid to wonder why conservative ideas don’t get a lot of traction in our culture?
Adam Bellow doesn’t sound too paranoid [e.a.]:
[N]o matter what happens to those [failing conservative] imprints, conservative publishing will certainly survive—and thrive. If liberals continue to ignore the power of conservative books, moreover, the losers will not be conservatives—who cannot help but be endlessly exposed to left-wing views through the networks and leading newspapers—but liberals themselves, complacent in their ignorance of the other side. “There’s always another side, that’s a classically liberal argument,” observes Bellow with a laugh. “The problem for contemporary liberals is that they really don’t understand it applies to them.”
Onward, and may the best ideas win!
And may some strong, righteous characters with a strong moral compass continue to press on fighting the good fight even when the odds and the currents are strongly against them:
Approached at a park in Moscow, Taisiya Gunicheva, 17, a college student, said she had heard of Mr. Solzhenitsyn, but could not name any of his books.
She said his work was largely absent from her school curriculum. “Can you imagine, there is nothing about it at all,” she said. “It is sad, but unfortunately, it’s true.”
Nearby was Anton Zimin, 26, an advertising copywriter, who said he was quite familiar with Mr. Solzhenitsyn but doubted that others in his generation were. He said people his age had lost touch with the struggles of their parents and grandparents.
“The problem is that now, it’s all about consumption — this spirit that has engulfed everybody,” Mr. Zimin said. “People prefer to consume everything, the simplest things, and the faster, the better. Books are something that force you to think, reading books requires some effort. But they prefer entertainment.”
Andrei V. Vasilevsky is accustomed to such sentiments. Mr. Vasilevsky, 52, is editor in chief of Novy Mir, the magazine that published Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s first major work, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” in 1962.
Mr. Vasilevsky said on Monday that young people considered figures like Mr. Solzhenitsyn to be artifacts, and that Russian society in general was no longer interested in towering cultural or social figures.
“There is no demand for great people,” he said. “I can’t say why, but this fact is simply obvious to me. Famous, notable, popular — yes. But not great, in the fullest sense of the word.”
And that, dear readers, is what McCain’s ad campaign of the last week was about: fame versus character. And it will stick, because people get that argument.
