Joseph Biden's White Flag of Surrender

I need to state, right away, that I respect Senator Joseph Biden. He's a good man, who, unfortunately, made licentious mistakes earlier in his career, especially on questions of serial plagiarism. Yet, if the Obama/Biden ticket wins in November, frankly, the Delaware Senator's more qualified to serve in the Oval Office than is Barack Obama.

That said, Senator Biden got pwned by Alaska Govenor Sarah Palin in tonight's debate at Washington University, in St. Louis.

I mean, let's face it, things were going along routinely, with each candidate holding their own on taxes and domestic policy, until (alleged) moderator Gwen Ifill shifted topics to foreign policy. Biden went off on how Barack Obama's on the same page as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, blah, blah ... and then, Ifill turned to Governor Palin, asking for her response on Iraq, to which the Alaska Governor replied, directing her answer to Senator Biden:

Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq and that is not what our troops need to hear today, that's for sure. And it's not what our nation needs to be able to count on. You guys opposed the surge. The surge worked...

Wham!

I kept noticing, throughout the debate, the big smiles Senator Biden kept flashing - helpless smiles indicating that he was getting hammered!

There was a point, moreover, earlier in the debate, where I think Governor Palin set concrete parameters: Senator Biden was trying to set the record straight on Barack Obama's record on regulatory policy, where he says:

Gwen, the governor did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild.

But check out Sarah Palin in response, and with EMPHASIS:

I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again ... 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 themmy track record also.

Wham!

Beyond this, I think the debate was pretty much thrust and parry.

Senator Biden knows what he's talking about. But throughout I was wondering if he actually prepped for this: I mean, really, it was Governor Palin who delivered the memorable lines. I especially thought the "Say it ain't so, Joe!" line, delivered late in the debate, when Biden was riffing about the middle class, was killer:

Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future.

These are the exact moments that hit home with Main Street Americans.

Governor Palin made no gaffes. She was in command of the facts and was careful to redirect the debate to talking points comfortable to her experience.

But most of all, Senator Biden seemed on defense through most of the night. At first, it seemed, Governor Palin was nervous ... on edge even. But as she got going, her comfort level heightened dramatically, and toward the end she was relishing her rejoinders - I mean nothing - nothing - was out of her league! Iraq? Iran? Show me what you got!

The Baltimore Sun nails it:

It was an unabashedly, one might even say relentlessly folksy and down-home Palin that greeted Americans Thursday night, with phrases like "Doggone it," ''You guys," ''Darn right" and, one she must have been saving 'til the end, "Say it ain't so, Joe!" You became "ya," change was "comin'" and a class of third-graders even got a "shout-out" from the Alaska governor.

You can bet Barack Obama was biting his knuckles, stressing in his campaign's inability to put McCain/Palin away.

I'll have more over the next few days ... but I can say now: Expect a decent Palin bounce in the polls. The Alaska Governor exceeded expectations by miles. I mean, c'mon, even Markos Moultisas' initial evaluation (subject to immediate revision) suggested Palin won. Further, even RawMuslesGlutes was restrained, conceding, "Palin didn't collapse ... " (and that's considering RMG's "Trig-trutherism"!).

Governor Palin captured the essence of complete authenticity in the debate, especially at the conclusion, where she noted:

We have to fight for our freedoms, also, economic and our national security freedoms.

It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.

These are the bedrock values to which middle Americans can relate. We'll see if she gets a bump, but at the end of the day, Sarah Palin demonstrated that she's ready to step in as chief executive in an emergency. The McCain campaign did themselves proud in their work preparing Governor Palin for her key moment of the presidential debates.

She exceeded expectations, and the American people saw it, live, large, and down home, baby!

Stocks Decline Amid Fears of Economic Slump

Stocks plummeted today as investors feared a continued collapse in the economy, amid congressional uncertainty and new data pointing to a slowdown:

The Dow drops 348.22 points to 10,482.85 on worries that the bailout plan won't pass in the House - or that it won't be enough to stave off recession.

As readers recall, I've written on the importance of state power in stabilizing markets and restoring confidence in economic institutions.

As the Wall Street Journal argued this morning, concerning the administration's bailout bill:

The Paulson plan isn't what we would have drawn up. It will not by itself inject capital into troubled banks, and it carries risks in how Treasury will price toxic assets when it buys them. But it is one more policy tool at a time when something needs to be done, and it is the only one currently up for a vote. Passing it won't by itself revive the banking system, but defeating it will guarantee far more damage to far more Americans.

Jason Pappas has a nice roundup of articles debating the issues.

I'll have more later.

YouTube Video Ads Battle Over Proposition 8

Political activists are increasingly creating their own campaign advertisments and distributing them via YouTube.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the campaign for California's Proposition 8, which would authorize a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriages, has seen the creation of a number of citizens' ads, like this one from Grant Johnson:

The key text suggests:

The historic purpose for governmental recognition of marriage has been about children and society, not the relationship of two adults.

That message is remarkably similar to an opinion piece in the Times a couple of weeks back by David Blankenhorn, "Protecting Marriage to Protect Children" (this is the best commentary I've read on gay marriage, so please read and distribute widely).

By chance, I was just thinking about citizens' YouTubes yesterday while visiting Mr. RawMusleGlutes, who posted this "No on 8" video.

It turns out that support for Proposition 8 is trailing in the polls, a trend so far attributed to the opposition of young voters (which consequently means that voter turnout is likely to be significant in determining the measure's fate).

Metrolink Engineer Sent Text Message Before Crash

Robert Sanchez, the Metrolink engineer who was piloting the train that crashed in Simi Valley on September 12, had sent a text message seconds before the crash that killed at least 25 people and injured 135, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that Sanchez had been text-messaging, but withheld additional information pending further investigation. The Times story, however, cites the reports from academic research on the crash:

Investigators have not said whether they think the text messages played any role in the crash or affected Sanchez's ability to operate the train. But the two USC academics calculated for The Times what may have happened just before the crash.

Using the NTSB figures that Sanchez's train was traveling 42 mph in the area from the red signal to the collision point and correlating the times of his text messaging, Najmedin Meshkati, a USC engineering professor and veteran transportation safety expert, estimated that the last text message would have been sent about five seconds after Sanchez sped past the signal.

Gokhan Esirgen, laboratory director for instructional physics at USC, also calculated that Sanchez would have sent the last message just after the light. He believes this timetable provided little or no time for Sanchez to react after he saw the oncoming train.

Even if Sanchez wasn't sending a text message at the exact moment of the crash, he may have had "inattention blindness," said David Strayer, a University of Utah psychology professor who's studied cellphone use's effect on motorists.

"If you're busy text messaging and you're taking a minute or so to key in a message, you're obviously not going to see the things that go by when you're looking at the keyboard and screen," said Strayer, adding that it often takes motorists five to 10 seconds to readjust their focus to the road.

Read the whole thing, here.

I followed the story closely the first couple of days after the crash, although I hadn't seen any formal confirmation of the text-messaging story beyond the first day's reporting (my wife first mentioned that the engineer had been sending text messages, which she had learned on the radio).

The Times ran an interesting graphic a couple of days after crash, which explained the deadly nature of the impact. It turns out that the two front engines of the freight train, which was heading southbound at about 41mph, weighed nearly twice as much as the entire Metrolink commuter train (545,000 each). The freight train's head-on impact drove the Metrolink locomotive back into the first passenger car of the commuter train, killing the occupants.

This story is devasting. My heart goes out the families and the survivors.

Congress will require that all train track-systems in the country will have smart technology to stop trains heading for collision by 2015. The systems are now in use in other parts of the country, but not California.

You Might Use It If You Feel Better...

Expectations are high for tonight's vice-presidential debate, and I'll have analysis on the event later today (but note for now that Gwen Ifill has permanently tarnished her reputation as an objective journalist, as she's blatantly in the tank for Obama).

In the meantime, please enjoy Steely Dan, "Rikki Don't Lose That Number":

Steely Dan is one of the great FM drive-time favorites, although I like the studio version of "Rikki" better than the live take here, particularly for its guitar solo (available here).

The Shape of the Race, 10-1-08

The New York Times reports that Barack Obama leads John McCain 48 to 42 percent in the latest NYT/CBS News poll.

The findings come as a number of other surveys also see Obama emerging as the frontrunner. Today's Pew Research poll, for example, finds Obama taking a 49 to 42 percent lead among registered voters, and CNN reports that the Illinois Senator's pulling ahead in a number of key battleground states (Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada and Virginia).

The Times piece puts things in perspective:

The contest between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama is far from over. It is being fought against the continued uncertainty over the turmoil on Wall Street and in the bailout negotiations in Washington. There are three potential turning points ahead — a vice-presidential debate on Thursday night and two more debates between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama — and this election has regularly been shaken up by outside events that have tested both candidates and altered voters’ views.

Still, the trends signaled by this new wave of polls — coming at what both sides view as a critical moment in the contest — suggest that the contours of this race are taking form, and in a way that is not encouraging for Mr. McCain’s prospects.

The election cycle is entering a time when voters historically begin to make final judgments; this year, in fact, many of them are actually beginning early voting in states. What is more, the poll suggests voters have been guided by how Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama did in their debate last Friday, and also how they have responded to the crisis on Wall Street and the resulting deadlock in Washington about how to respond to it.

Note that we could indeed see some kind of "October Surprise" that dramatically reshapes the race, but it does appear at this point - with five weeks left in the season - that the Democrats have turned a corner.

If there's a bright side for the McCain camp it's that the remaining debates may help the GOP regain some momentum (and that includes the vice-presidential debate tomorrow, which is highly anticipated); also, if Congress can reach a respectable bailout bill on Capitol Hill this week or next, the sense of economic crisis may subside just enough for the race to tighten back up in the last couple weeks of the campaign.

The Politico reported this week that Republicans are getting worried and are urging McCain to go on the offensive against Obama. They're right to be concerned, and I'm a little surprised that we haven't seen more of an effort among conservatives (or a more coordinated effort) to define Obama more forcefully.

Of course, one of the big unknowns at this point is whether the considerable shock and outrage during the primaries over Obama's ties to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, as well as to the remaining rogue's gallery of Obama's radical friends, has dissipated enough for the Democrats to slide into a win on November 4, to elect the most liberal presidential candidate since George McGovern.

**********

UPDATE: As a reminder of the era of partisanship that we're in, here's Markos Moulitsas' take on recent polling trends:

Many people will warn against "getting complacent". I like to approach this potential problem differently - we have a chance to rip out the GOP's jugular. We can throw them an anvil. We can kick them while they're down. No matter the metaphor, the underlying meaning remains - we can destroy the Republicans. Now's not the time to slack, it's the time to pick things up. We've got them in a near rout. Let's destroy them.

The word "campaign" has a military etymology, which comes through loud and clear with Kos' comments. I don't make predictions, but I can say that if the GOP turns it around, I'm won't be holding back from laying down some reciprocal phraseology.

Maybe We Could Last An Hour...

I'll be watching the Angels-Red Sox opener of the ALDS tonight, so political blogging might be light.

In meantime, please enjoy Joe Jackson's, "Breaking Us in Two," a song that popped into my mind yesterday morning for no particular reason:

I saw Jackson in concert at least three times in the 1980s, upon release of Night and Day, the chart-topping album featuring the hit "Stepping Out," in addition to "Breaking Us in Two."

Enjoy!

Grassroots Effort Ties Obama to Ayers, Rezko, and Wright

Via Wake Up America and the Politico, here's the anti-Obama ad buy from the Judicial Confirmation Network:

Here's an excerpt:

Choosing the right Justices is critical for America. We don't know who Barack Obama would choose, but we know this: He chose as one of his first financial backers a slumlord now convicted on 16 counts of corruption. Obama chose as an associate a man who helped to bomb the Pentagon and said he "didn't do enough." And Obama chose as his pastor a man who has blamed America for the 9/11 attacks. Obama chose to associate with these men, while voting against these men.

See more from the Judicial Confimation Network at the link.

Pelosi Sought Partisan Gain in Bailout Vote

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought partisan political gains for the Democratic Party, not economic rescue for the American people, in the vote on this week's Wall Street bailout bill. The Los Angeles Times reports:

When Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as the first Democratic House speaker in 12 years, she promised to reach across the aisle to Republicans, to be "speaker of the House -- the entire House." In tribute to that spirit, she dressed in purple -- blending the red and blue that are symbols of partisan division.

But she did not look like a speaker of the whole House this week, as the financial industry bailout she helped negotiate was unexpectedly defeated. Republicans deserted in droves, Democrats were split, and Pelosi ended the floor debate before the vote with a passionate critique of Republican economic policies.

The Wall Street meltdown is among the biggest issues to face Congress in decades, and it posed a daunting test of Pelosi's leadership abilities: Hardly anyone in either party wanted to vote for the bill to spend $700 billion to shore up ailing financial firms, but most everybody worried about the economic and political consequences of failing to act.

The bill's narrow defeat was in part a tribute to political forces far beyond Pelosi's control: The deep-seated mistrust between the parties has made it increasingly difficult for the House to address major national problems that cry out for bipartisan solutions. Her GOP counterpart, Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), is considered a weak minority leader, and President Bush's leverage within the party has all but vanished.

Still, Pelosi's handling of the issue provided a window onto her leadership style -- revealing the limits of her ability to win the trust of Republicans, to lean on her own rank and file, and to dispel her reputation as a polarizing figure.

Her closing speech was an assault on the Bush-era economic policies that Pelosi said had fueled the current financial woes. Some Republican leaders said Tuesday that her tone had cost them votes and contributed to the bill's defeat.

In truth, there was little in the San Francisco Democrat's speech that she had not said before. Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman, said she intended it as a last-ditch effort to increase support from balky liberal Democrats.

Still, some analysts said that Pelosi's onslaught may have been ill-timed and reinforced Republicans' view of her as too partisan.

"The moment to make that speech is after the vote, not before it," said Leon E. Panetta, a former House Democrat from California. "It's obviously a sensitive moment when you have a close vote on your hands."

"It was very provocative," said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist who has worked as a Senate staffer. "When the issue is still in doubt, you don't poke a stick in the eye of the opposition."

After the bailout plan failed, Pelosi blamed Republicans for not having lived up to an agreement -- designed to give bipartisan cover to incumbents -- that each party would deliver half of its members in support of the bill. In the end, 60% of Democrats but only 33% of House Republicans voted for it.

Congressional leaders usually will not bring legislation to the floor unless they are sure it will pass -- especially when the stakes are so high.

Some critics now are asking whether Pelosi had faulty vote-counting intelligence. GOP leaders who were urging the rank and file to support the bailout plan said they told Democrats in advance that they did not have a lock on their votes but did not ask them to delay the debate. Democrats believed that Republicans were lowballing the count and that the measure would pass.

Others have questioned how committed Pelosi was to passing the bill because, once it became clear that it was failing, she made only limited efforts to change minds. She asked members of the Congressional Black Caucus, a bastion of opposition to the deal, to change their votes -- but did not deploy the kind of hardball tactics that leaders often use to win close contests.

There's enough blame to go around for the causes of the Wall Street collapse, and I have avoided taking a partisan approach to the issue. And while conservatives are pleased with the initial bill's defeat, the failure of the legislation also represents the hyper-partisanship of recent years, and in this instance the Democratic leadership's attempts to exploit and profit from it.

Pelosi's also in the news today with revelations that the Speaker paid her husband's business utilities bills and accounting fees with nearly $100,000 from her political action committee.

The most ethical Congress ever? Post-partisanship? Change we can believe in?

Yeah, right.

Palin is Formidable in Debates

There's some buzz this morning over GOP running mate Sarah Palin's debating style.

It turns out that Governor Palin's a confident debater who doesn't fluster easily. She's said to turn potential liability into strength with an ability to remain unruffled on issues of less familiarity. And on social policy - especially the value of human life - Palin speaks with authority and without hesitation, as seen in her Alaska gubernatorial debate in 2006:

Compare Palin's responses on the question of rape and abortion to Democrat Tony Knowles, who is completely flustered on his response to such a tragedy.

As this morning's Wall Street Journal indicates, Palin's a formidable debater:

There are two things people here remember about Sarah Palin's debating style during her race for governor two years ago.

One is the stack of color-coded cue cards she took to the podium for help whenever she was asked a policy question. The other is how quickly she was able to shuck those props, master the thrust-and-parry of jousting with her opponents and inquisitors, and project confidence to an audience of television viewers watching from home.

That's the Sarah Palin I remember from the 2006 debates: positive, confident and upbeat," recalls Libby Casey, an Alaska public-radio reporter who served as a debate moderator on two occasions that year.

Even the New York Times concedes Palin's no lightweight:

A newcomer to the national scene, Ms. Palin has given little indication that she has been engaged in a serious way in the pressing national and international issues of the day.

But a review of a handful of her debate performances in the race for governor in 2006 shows a somewhat different persona from the one that has emerged since Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, named Ms. Palin as the vice-presidential nominee a month ago.

Ms. Palin, a former mayor who had become a whistle-blower about ethical misconduct in state government, held her own in those debates.

Note too that while Democrats are hoping to raise expectations for Palin in tomorrow's debate, Joseph Biden himself is reportedly planning a low-key strategy, where's he's likely to go easy on Palin should she make a gaffe.

Palin may well end up meeting - even exceeding - expectations, and Biden's fear of coming on too strong - i.e., contemptuous and sexist - will rebound the the advantage of the GOP ticket (as some on the radical left have noticed).

Even more importantly, as ABC News reports, Palin's small-town charm and outsider status may provide a winning angle amid the financial crisis, allowing Palin to "field dress" a new set of expectations on the direction of the presidential race.

Protect Values, Protect America: Vote Life

Via Jill Stanek, here's the powerful video from Catholic Vote 2008:

Life, faith, and family ... now more than any other time in history ... a new generation must stand for truth ...

Vote life in 2008.

Don't Proclaim the Obama Era Just Yet!

I need to follow up my earlier entry, "Obama's Landslide Projection is Risky," with this truly wonderful post from Hillbuzz, "Here’s What’s Going to Happen For the Next Five Weeks":

The financial meltdown in Washington has been coming for the last two years. Ironically, ever since Democrats regained Congress and Nancy Pelosi became Speaker. We did not expect things to come to a head at this moment — instead, we believed Democrats were trying to keep the bubble aloft until mid-October, so the meltdown would happen just before the election. For whatever reason, this financial situation happened now, and it’s benefitted SoetorObama in the short term. The narrative this week will continue to be about a struggling economy in recession — which benefits SoetorObama as long as voters don’t think too long about his actual ability to do anything about the situation. When they think long and hard about their financial problems, then look at SoetorObama’s complete dearth of experience in economic matters, the fact he’s never run any kind of a business, and his complete lack of experience ever dealing with large-scale problems like this on a bipartisan basis, with real accomplishment, we believe voters will not put this country in the hands of the media’s darling — not when jobs, lives, and the economy are at stake.

Hillbuzz has a provocative discussion of Democratic voter mobilization for Barry Soetoro (the black Democratic base is already mobilized as the most loyal voting constituency in the nation, so new registrants may not in fact turnout), and then concludes thus:

We’re in the middle of a pro-SoetorObama news cycle that will end this weekend — when Sarah Palin exceeds expectations in the debate this Thursday and people get together on the weekend to talk about how much they liked her and how well they thought she did....

Next week will be back to another upswing for McCain, followed by another SoetorObama week, give or take.

About two and a half weeks before the election, in mid-October, for all of SoetorObama’s shady connections to come to light and for the GOP to do what SoetorObama in his two autobiographies and his two years of running for president failed to do: define him. The GOP will prove to the American people that SoetorObama is unfit for the presidency: not ready to lead, but also morally questionable in his judgment and decisions through the years.

The Obama camp and some of his supporters are a bit too optimistic. Yet, the McCain camp has its work cut out for it, first with helping Sarah Palin master the national media spotlight, and next in repositioning McCain as the bare-knuckled fighter he'll need to be if he's going to successfully battle the left-wing media machine's attempted elevation of Barry Soetoro to the White House.

The Activist Fifth Column Probama Mass Media

I like Jeff Goldstein's take on the Glenn Reynolds' "media-in-the-tank-for-Obama" e-mail:

What strikes me as most odious is that last bit in the Instapundit excerpt — “The fix is in, and its [sic] working” — an admission made all the more disheartening to those of us who realize that the press is becoming a willing accomplice in election rigging because it was just 4-years ago that Evan Thomas of Newsweek acknowledged the media’s complicity in this attempted anti-democratic, anti-American gambit. But rather than feel shamed at their failure to honor a contract with the public, the press has decided instead to double down and give up any pretense of being neutral — all to help elect a Stepford candidate forged from 60s radicalism and polished by Alinsky, Gramsci, and the philosophical precepts of progressive fascism.

Proof positive that those who have suspected the press of being an increasingly activist fifth column are not so much paranoid as they are perspicacious.

But don't miss the other side on the Reynolds' scoop, for example, TBogg and Whiskey Fire (hat tip: Memeorandum).

Worst Case Scenario

Back to the future?

Ross Douthat, responding to the economic crisis and the congressional stalemate, suggests a depression is the worst of three scenarios ahead. But read David Brooks as well, "Revolt of the Nihilists":

What we need in this situation is authority. Not heavy-handed government regulation, but the steady and powerful hand of some public institutions that can guard against the corrupting influences of sloppy money and then prevent destructive contagions when the credit dries up.

That's reminiscent to what I wrote previously, in "Conservatism, Neoconservatism, and Economic Crisis."

Photo: Florence Owens Thompson, by Dorothea Lange.

In the Tank: Media Fix For Obama?

What's the definition of "in the tank"? Perhaps this:

I think your answer for why a thrown fight is considered “in the tank” is located directly above the entry for “in the tank” in the sports writer’s handbook. An easy fight may be “in the bag,” but a thrown fight? Well, that’s in an even sturdier, more reliable receptacle. It’s in the tank.

How about a thrown election? Could be:

A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM EMAILS: "Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working." I asked permission to reprint without attribution and it was granted.

Emphasis added, and there's more at the link.

Come to think about it, on abortion and ACORN alone, Barack Obama's skating free. He may get some critical press once in a while, but this notion that "editors refuse to publish anyting that would jeopardize" Obama's chances sounds eminently reasonable to me (for example, here).

Obama's Landslide Projection is Risky

The Daily Telegraph reports that Barack Obama believes he'll win the November election in a landslide:

Barack Obama's senior aides believe he is on course for a landslide election victory over John McCain and will comfortably exceed most current predictions in the race for the White House.

Their optimism, which is said to be shared by the Democratic candidate himself, is based on information from private polling and on faith in the powerful political organisation he has built in the key swing states.

Insiders say that Mr Obama's apparent calm through an unusually turbulent election season is because he believes that his strength among first time voters in several key states has been underestimated, both by the media and by the Republican Party.

Obama's confidence rests on his expectation to win in battlegrounds states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, where he suggests that extant polling has underestimated his appeal.

While there's no doubt that Obama's currently doing well relative to the GOP ticket, the Illinois Senator's theory underlying his landslide projection is suspect.

Gallup reported in June that voter enthusiasm dipped considerably at the conclusion of the primaries, and experts predict that young voters' enthusiasm turns into unreliable confusion in November. Additionally, it turns out that Obama's outreach efforts to unionized white-working class voters have proved difficult, as the New York Times reported this morning (from Wisconsin, where union activists say working-class voters often base their votes on non-economic issues, including race). Not only that, while dramatic turmoil in the economy continues, Americans see better times ahead, as soon as next year (58 percent as indicated in the new USA Today poll).

The way these variables interact depends on developments both in the economy and the campaign, although both Democratic and Republican operatives indicate things are looking good for the Obama camp.

Yet, Peter Wehner suggests a huge opening for John McCain:

Potentially, the most lethal political charge against Obama is that he is a deeply liberal/ideological figure who has associated with radical individuals in order to advance his political career. The question is whether Obama’s countenance and personal style make those charges seem far-fetched; or whether the McCain campaign can convince voters that Obama’s appeal is at its core fraudulent and his new-found centrism a mirage.

Members of both the left and right recognize Obama's genuine ideological radicalism, to the glee of the trolls of the left-wing fever swamps and to the consternation of conservatives (and see Stanley Kurtz's new essay, linking Obama to ACORN and the subprime mortgage crisis).

As it stands, other than Gallup, a number of other major surveys find Obama up only by four or five percentage points in national head-to-head matchups (today's Los Angeles Times and Rasmussen, for example); yet Obama is picking up ground in some key battleground states.

It remains to be seen, however, whether recent improvements warrant Obama's optimism.

Obama Sought Rape Victim for Ad Promoting Abortion

Jonathan Martin reports that Barack Obama looked into procuring the services of a rape victim to appear in a pro-abortion camaign ad buy:

Barack Obama's campaign earlier this month sought to find a rape victim to appear in a campaign commercial, according to an e-mail obtained by Politico.

Kiersten Steward, director of public policy at the Family Violence Prevention Fund, served as a conduit between the campaign and victims and women's advocates....

The Obama campaign wouldn't detail the strategy behind finding an individual to discuss such a sensitive topic but did suggest the ad may be aimed at underscoring their candidate's support for abortion rights and ongoing effort to retain those women who backed Hillary Clinton in the primary.

"Choice is an important issue, and we're going to continue talking about it in battleground states through the election," said spokesman Bill Burton.

Virginia is one of those swing states that Obama is especially focused on, and that's where one rape victim received the request to appear in an ad.

Mikele Shelton-Knight declined to do so, but said in an interview that she was glad the Obama campaign was seeking to highlight the issue.

There's likely more to it than that ... perhaps Shelton-Knight found distasteful the prospect of becoming the poster-girl of the Democratic-left's pro-abortion fanaticism.

Barack Obama's an abortion extremist, Senator Infanticide.

Obama's bid to exploit tragedy is just one more example of how the left devalues life. Family-planning organizations counsel abortion as a "solution" to rape, but research shows that women feel more guilt over aborting their pregnancies than being victims of sexual assualt. The abortion industry is all about rights, except those for the baby who might come into this world, an innocent child that in the end signal's God's ultimate blessing of healing.

Obama himself has said that women shouldn't have to be "punished" with a child, and he refused as a member of the Illinois state legislature to guarantee the right to life for infant abortion survivors.

It's no suprise that the driving factor in the radical left's demonization campaign against Sarah Palin has been the Alaska Governor's living threat to the ideology of abortion on demand. Obama's effort to exploit rape victims to advance the cause of abortion extremism is logically part and parcel to that.

Palin Operation Gets Upgrade Ahead of Veep Debate

The Wall Street Journal reports that GOP running mate Sarah Palin's campaign operation is getting an upgrade ahead of Thursday night's vice presidential debate:

The McCain campaign moved its top officials inside Gov. Sarah Palin's operation Sunday to prepare for what is certain to be the most important event of her vice-presidential campaign: her debate on Thursday with Democrat Joe Biden.

Additionally, at the urging of the Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, Gov. Palin will leave late Monday for his Arizona ranch to prepare for the high-stakes debate.

The moves follow several shaky performances by Gov. Palin last week and come amid concern and grumbling from Republicans, and even a few queries from her husband, Todd Palin, according to campaign operatives and Republican officials.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis and senior adviser Steve Schmidt are planning to coach the candidate ahead of the debate, according to senior advisers. They traveled Sunday to meet the Republican vice-presidential nominee in Philadelphia. After her appearance with Sen. McCain at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, these top officials plan to fly with her on Monday to Sen. McCain's ranch in Sedona, Ariz., which they hope she will find a comforting place to prep, these people said.

More broadly, the McCain campaign aims to halt what it sees as a perceived decline in the crispness and precision of Gov. Palin's latest remarks as well as a fall in recent polls, according to several advisers and party officials.

The concern's not without merit. But I don't think the left's demonic ridicule masters should start counting chickens.

As William Kristol notes this morning:

In the debate, Palin has to dispatch quickly any queries about herself, and confidently assert that of course she’s qualified to be vice president.

In other words, Palin needs to get back to being herself.

Joseph Biden is a 35-year veteran of the Congress, and bloviating sexist. He'll be walking on eggshells to avoid looking like an intemperate pig. Palin needs to have a ready comeback for Biden's over-confident preening, a "there you go again" moment that will put that stuffed suit in his place, revealing the utter hypocrisy of his attacks on Washington. A nice target will be the blatant corruption of Biden's son, Hunter, who just resigned as a corporate lobbyist in shame.

Conservatism, Economic Crisis, and American Power

I'm seeing an interesting reaction to last night's post, "Conservatism, Neoconservatism, and Economic Crisis."

It's not often that one gets attacked and ridiculed for having honesty and integrity, but that seems to be the case here.

Most vocal is the initial comment from an arch paleoconservative, "HarrisonBergeron2," of the Conservative Heritage Times. He's joined by a fellow who calls himself "The Angry Republican" in the comment thread. They're both followers of Ron Paul, and his tinfoil hat-style of extreme right-wing ideology (see "Ron Paul and the Fringe of American Politics"). Paleocons harbor a well-known hatred for neoconservatives, which in many respects puts them in bed with the antiwar left on questions of war and peace, and apparently on the economy as well.

So what's the beef?

The issue surrounds what might be called "the neocon approach" to the current economic crisis. Recall Jacob Heilbrunn's essay this weekend, which takes a look at variations of conservative thought. Heilbrunn argues that George W. Bush is hardly conservative when it comes to economic management and the expansion of the state sector. Not only does Bush's big goverment neoconservatism rile paleocons, but some of the top conservatives on the mainstream contemporary right as well, like Newt Gingrich and Michelle Malkin.

As I suggested at the post:

Americans expect an activist role for a substantial state sector, even conservatives. Until we are willing to peel back the entitlement culture and the regime of unchecked non-discretionary spending, much of the talk about fiscal conservativism is a ruse. The federal government is society's safety net, in most aspects of life. When things get rough, no other agent in American life has the legitimate power and resources to act to preserve basic functions and institutions, and hence to guarantee the survival of the republic.

Some may have read into this passage more than my meaning. The simple fact is that all modern industrialized democracies are advanced technocracies with large social welfare states. The notion of small-g conservative is fine in principle, but the U.S. has never really enjoyed a truly libertarian economic structure, the kind Hayekian libertarians advocate.

As the economist Robert Shiller points out today at the Washington Post, a strong role for government intervention in the economy is as old as the republic:

Americans may assume that the basics of capitalism have been firmly established here since time immemorial, but historical cataclysms such as the Great Depression strongly suggest otherwise. Simply put, capitalism evolves. And we need to understand its trajectory if we are to bring our economic system into greater accord with the other great source of American strength: the best principles of our democracy.

No, our economy is not a shining example of pure unfettered market forces. It never has been. In his farewell address back in 1796, 20 years after the publication of Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations," George Washington defined the new republic's own distinctive national economic sensibility: "Our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing." From the outset, Washington envisioned some government involvement in the commercial system, even as he recognized that commerce should belong to the people.

Capitalism is not really the best word to describe this arrangement. (The term was coined in the late 19th century as a way to describe the ideological opposite of communism.) Some decades later, people began to use a better term, "the American system," in which the government involved itself in the economy primarily to develop what we would now call infrastructure - highways, canals, railroads -- but otherwise let economic liberty prevail. I prefer to call this spectacularly successful arrangement "financial democracy" - a largely free system in which the U.S. government's role is to help citizens achieve their best potential, using all the economic weapons that our financial arsenal can provide.

So is the government's bailout a major departure? Hardly. Today's federal involvement offers bailouts as a strictly temporary measure to prevent a system-wide financial calamity. This is entirely in keeping with our basic principles - as long as the bailout promotes, rather than hinders, financial democracy.

Like myself, Shiller sees federal intervention as guaranteeing the survival of our economic institutions, and this is a temporary intervention that may well serve as the catalyst to a new wave of dynamism that transforms the American marketplace.

From a neoconservative perspective, which sees a role for government regulation of the economy and the military-industrial sector, the administration's policies are reminiscent of the response we saw to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The nation faces a fundamental crisis, and an expansion of the state in response is both necessary and proper.

Indeed, Anne Applebaum notes that the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15 was "an economic 9/11":

The September 11 metaphor is a weary one: too many events, in recent years, have been described as "a new September 11", or "England's September 11", or even "football's September 11". Still, it might be worth rescuing the phrase one last time.

For if September 11, 2001 was the day that we had to reassess our ideas about America's role in world politics, September 15, 2008, the day Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, may well be remembered as the day we had to reassess our ideas about America's role in the world economy. It's that cataclysmic, that decisive, that irreversible.

Beyond this comparison, Applebaum's thesis is that instead of uniting the country (as we say in 2001, the Wall Street's financial mess has sent the country into a partisan funk, upending "our national psyche."

Applebaum's conclusion offers some speculation on whether the current economic crisis marks the end of America's international economic preponderance. She doubts it, but amazingly, some anti-Americans on the left are hoping that this month's collapse will weaken the United States and foment the rise of a true multipolar world order that effectively rein-in U.S. power and ambition.

I wouldn't bet on it, however:

As the world grapples with the fallout from Wall Street's shenanigans, there's no shortage of consternation, and even anger. But so far the international image of the U.S. economic model has shown amazing resilience. Lehman Brothers may be in the morgue and AIG on government-funded life support, but most businesspeople think the U.S. is more about Silicon Valley and Hollywood than the erstwhile dynamos of Wall Street. Even in China—where broadcaster CCTV-2 has been running two hours of special programming every night about the financial crisis—the U.S. is still a land to be emulated.

It's more than perception, however. Every major international crisis or domestic setback the U.S. has faced has been met with cries on both left and right that America's in relative economic decline. Yet, the more likely scenario, as Applebaum notes, is that if the U.S. ecoonomy goes down, the rest of the world will go down with it. Not only that, there's no ready alternative to American world economic leadership. The dollar still finances more than 90 percent international trade in goods and services, and the U.S. market is the destination for both people and products from every shore abroad.

This is not to say the way out of our crisis is guaranteed, or that it will be easy. It does suggest that simplistic notions calling for some pastoral states-centered economic system in the U.S. is silly. On top of that, expectations that the Wall Street crash heralds the end of the American global protectorate is wishful thinking at best, and implacable America-bashing at worst.

Folks need to step back a bit, and think things through. We are facing a grave crisis, and in times of trauma often Americans turn to Washington for help as well as their own perserverance. Our traditions and our republic will endure, and they'll continue to adapt and evolve, as they always have.

Conservatism, Neoconservatism, and Economic Crisis

Last Sunday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich offered a compelling conservative critique to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's Wall Street rescue plan. According to Gingrich, "this gigantic power shift to Washington and this avalanche of taxpayer money is being proposed by a Republican administration, [and] the normal conservative voices have been silent or confused."

Not all conservatives were silent nor confused, however. The day after Gingrich spoke out, Michelle Malkin asked, "Will the real fiscal conservatives please stand up?"

In the comments here, at some of my posts on the bailout, I've seen considerable conservative skepticism and outrage at the enormity of Washington's financial rescue activities over the last few weeks. As readers may recall, I've mostly just reported on the developments, without advocating one way or the other (the exception being my post on the left-wing protests against the administration in New York and Washington). I have, of course, been amazed with the concentration of power in the Treasury Department under Secretary Paulson, and I've entertained the idea that the $700 billion rescue may indeed work to stablilize markets and restore confidence in the economy, helping to shift the system back toward financial recovery.

There's a couple of reasons for this: One, frankly, we're in a fast-moving and complicated period of economic crisis, and I'm like many others who are sorting their way through events, trying to get a handle on things. More than that, secondly, is that I don't disagree ideologically with the direction the adminstration has taken. The scale of the banking fallout certainly is unprecedented in my lifetime. Wall Street as it's been known throughout the 20th century - one composed of big investment banks and brokerages - no longer exists; and I see the Paulson plan as providing the stability and structure that will allow American capitalism to survive the seemingly existential shakeout now at hand.

That said, what's happening now economically and politically raises fundamental questions about the direction of conservatism, a continuation of the debate we were seeing on the right before the GOP primaries commenced in January: What happened to the Reagan legacy? Can small-g conservativism make a comeback?

While we may never again see another Ronald Reagan, lots of conservatives won't be too happy to see George W. Bush take his last ride out of Washingtion on Air Force One.

Jacob Heilbrunn takes a look at the Bush administration's handling of the crisis, with an eye toward the administration's legacy for the conservative movement:

Bush’s break with traditional conservatism is not a sudden development. Some of his most far-reaching measures — the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind education policy and, most emphatically, the costly Medicare prescription drug benefit — cut against the grain of that orthodoxy.

To Michael D. Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of “Leviathan on the Right,” Mr. Bush is not a conservative by any definition. “Anybody would be more restrained than Bush,” Mr. Tanner said. “Bill Clinton was a more conservative president than Bush” because Mr. Clinton “balanced the budget.”

Mr. Bush’s thinking, it appears, is rooted in a rival conservative vision. In this view, big government is here to stay and the job of conservatives is to convert it to the proper uses. The most articulate proponents of this idea include thinkers like Irving Kristol, who as early as the 1970s identified a new mission for conservatives — not to destroy government but rather to wrest control of it from a “new class” composed of professors, educators, environmentalists, city planners, sociologists and others trying to steer the economy toward a “system so stringently regulated in detail as to fulfill many of the traditional anticapitalist aspirations of the left.”

Mr. Kristol understood that Americans had grown accustomed to the services government provides. The conservative mission must be to transfer some of that power to private enterprise by slashing taxes while also fostering a religiously based moral vision for society.

And it is essentially this argument that has advanced throughout much of Mr. Bush’s presidency.

President Bush's vision, therefore, is a neoconservative vision that is far from hostile to the role of a large bureaucratic state in the development and administration of mass industrial policy, regulation, and social provision. As Irving Kristol once noted:

Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services. But they are impatient with the Hayekian notion that we are on "the road to serfdom." Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable.

One doesn't have to be neoconservative to agree with this view.

The development of the modern industrialized state has been the development of bureaucratic, technocratic government power and scope. To think that the U.S. will return to some kind of early-19th century agrarian model of state-centered federalism is naïve. That's not to say we shouldn't seek to downsize the role of the state. It's simply to realize that the massive size of the federal goverment today is the result of the increase in government responsibility in all aspects of life, economic, military, and social, and the hopes to turn back the tide to an earlier era of libertarian small government are a bit wistful.

Americans expect an activist role for a substantial state sector, even conservatives. Until we are willing to peel back the entitlement culture and the regime of unchecked non-discretionary spending, much of the talk about fiscal conservativism is a ruse. The federal government is society's safety net, in most aspects of life. When things get rough, no other agent in American life has the legitimate power and resources to act to preserve basic functions and institutions, and hence to guarantee the survival of the republic.