Predictions of American Decline are Overrated

The Washington Post reports on the new U.S. intelligence assessment of America's international standing in the decades ahead.

It turns out that Thomas Fingar, who is said to be the "U.S. intelligence community's top analyst," argues that the United States is looking to a near-term erosion in its international standing, with the most significant decline taking place outside the military realm:

An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy.

The report, previewed in a speech by Thomas Fingar, the U.S. intelligence community's top analyst, also concludes that the one key area of continued U.S. superiority -- military power -- will "be the least significant" asset in the increasingly competitive world of the future, because "nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional force."

Fingar's remarks last week were based on a partially completed "Global Trends 2025" report that assesses how international events could affect the United States in the next 15 to 17 years. Speaking at a conference of intelligence professionals in Orlando, Fingar gave an overview of key findings that he said will be presented to the next occupant of the White House early in the new year.

"The U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will be much diminished," Fingar said, according to a transcript of the Thursday speech. He saw U.S. leadership eroding "at an accelerating pace" in "political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas."

Fingar's thesis is the official governmental version of the academic theory of American international decline in world politics, dubbed "declinism."

This debate's been around a long time, for example, during the 1980s and the Reagan aministration, and the predictions have proved wrong time and time again.

Fingar, as noted in the Post's essay, sees a bright spot in how demographic trends will favor the United States (national strength will be propped up by high rates of immigration), as he should. Indeed, America's openness to people and ideas will continue to buoy American dynamism throughout the 21st century. Not only that, there's really no indication in Fingar's preliminary comments as to why we should see the collapse of American power relative to the other nation-states in the international system (other than the fissiparous effects of "globalization").

Robert Lieber, at World Affairs, has a penetrating analysis of why no great power will rise to topple American preponderance in the period predicted by Fingar's analysis. Lieber, after reviewing the prospects for balance-of-power equlibrium, concludes:

In the end, then, this country’s structural advantages matter much more than economic cycles, trade imbalances, or surging and receding tides of anti-Americanism. These advantages include America’s size, wealth, human and material resources, military strength, competitiveness, and liberal political and economic traditions, but also a remarkable flexibility, dynamism, and capacity for reinvention. Neither the rise of important regional powers, nor a globalized world economy, nor “imperial overstretch,” nor domestic weaknesses seem likely to negate these advantages in ways the declinists anticipate, often with a fervor that makes their diagnoses and prescriptions resemble a species of wish fulfillment.

Over the years, America’s staying power has been regularly and chronically underestimated—by condescending French and British statesmen in the nineteenth century, by German, Japanese, and Soviet militarists in the twentieth, and by homegrown prophets of doom today. The critiques come and go. The object of their contempt never does.

Predictions of America's relative economic and military decline have long been overrated. I'm sure Fingar's got good company in that respect

Palin Can Do It!

I get the morning papers delivered, I'm looking at the front cover of the hard-copy edition of the Los Angeles Times right now, which features this photograph at the top:

The photo is paired with the paper's lead story, "Palin Bounce Has Democrats Off Balance."

I've been reporting regularly on the polling trends in the presidential horse race, and the Times' suggestion that the Democrats have been caught "off balance" is putting it mildly. Frankly, as my dad used to say, the Democrats have been "hit by a Mack truck."

John McCain, in his selection of Palin as vice-presidential running mate, apparently hoped to attract disaffected former Hillary Clinton supporters. Although the data on gender voting dynamics are still coming in, we're seeing some payoff for McCain's hunch already, as seen in this repor from the Irish Times, "White Women Flock to McCain Over Palin choice, Poll Reveals."

The Washington Post looks at the question of McCain/Palin's support among women in its piece, "Palin Energizing Women From All Walks of Life":

Susie Baron is a Republican, a mother of two and a home-schooler. She voted for Mike Huckabee in the Ohio primary, but now -- because of Sarah Palin -- she thinks she is part of something much bigger.

I wouldn't even call it a Palin movement, I'd call it a sleeping giant that has been awakened," Baron, 56, said at a rally here Tuesday. She described its members as a silent majority of women in Middle America who "are raising our families, who work if we have to, but love our country and our families first."

"And until now, we haven't had anyone to identify with," Baron said, adding that traditional feminist groups such as the National Organization for Women do "not represent me."

Since her rapid transition from obscure Alaska governor to GOP vice presidential nominee, Palin has reenergized the presidential race and also further polarized it, setting her instant fan base, which sees her as a pit bull with lipstick, against those who dismiss her as just another Republican who happens to be a woman and seems intent on rekindling a culture war.

Actually, it really is a "movement" we're seeing.

As a result, the Democrats seem like they're moving through the "Five Stages of Grief." Right now, the party's faithful are either "bargaining" over whether they can stretch out their "Hillary moment" by changing horses midstream to stave off the death of leftist feminist aspirations, or they've already moved on to the "depression" stage, and some perhaps even to "acceptance" (although I'm sure most radical feminists are still in the "anger" stage, and will be for some time).

The Politico capture this sense in its story, "Could Clinton Have Palin-Proofed Dems?"

Republican Rep. Candice S. Miller says Barack Obama had only one shot at Palin-proofing the Democratic ticket — and he missed it when he passed over Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate.

“Every woman in America knows what Barack Obama did to Hillary Clinton: He looked at her and thought, ‘There’s no way I’m doing that,’” said Miller. “If Hillary was on the ticket, he’d be in a much better position to win women voters.”

Sarah Palin’s presence — coupled with Clinton’s absence — may be altering one of the great verities of American politics: that women voters overwhelmingly favor Democrats.

The article goes on the discuss some of the same data I've cited above.

When John McCain decided to focus on change over experience in his vice-presidential pick, I don't think even he realized how much the selection of Sarah Palin would upend all political calculations this year. Of course, what matters for the election now is how well Palin validates McCain's judgment and strategic decisionmaking, and so far the transference of political energy from the left to the right of the political system is nothing short of history-making.

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times

Sarah Palin and the Frontier of American Feminism

This afternoon I confessed, "The main reason I'm so excited about Sarah Palin is in the way she's positively energized the Republican base."

While true, I should add that I'm absolutley blown away, frankly, at the radical feminist response to Palin's nomination as the GOP vice-presidential running mate.

If you haven't yet, be sure to read Michelle Cottle's case study in the depressing feminist lament, "A Bad Year For Feminism: Can Someone Please Tell Me What Happened?"

I think women of the contemporary left are feeling simply violated that a conservative mother from a non-contiguous outback state could credibly claim the mantle as America's top female politician. It has to be a shock, which explains the vehemence that accompanies attacks on any and all facets of Palin's version of the feminine mystique.

But don't take my word for it. Check out Camille Paglia's perspective, which endorses Barack Obama, but celebrates the audacity of Sarah Palin's gendered power (via Allahpundit):

Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment.

Kay Hymowitz, who we might expect to be more favorable to a GOP-style feminism, in any case, confirms Palin's feminine muscularity:

Whatever Palin’s political impact, her cultural significance is profound. For better and for worse, she introduces a new and likely long-running cultural type to the national stage—the red-state feminist.

Of course, the feminist commentariat, primarily coastal and upper-middle-class, has been quick to deny that Palin is any sort of feminist at all. Yes, Palin can boast political success, activism, authority, and self-confidence in front of an audience of 37 million, and, though less widely discussed (perhaps because so profoundly envied), an egalitarian marriage of the sort that has become the foundational principle of feminist utopia. But in most other respects, especially her position on abortion, she has struck female media types as something more like the Anti-Feminist. She is a “humiliation for America’s women” (Judith Warner for the New York Times) and a tool of the “patriarchs” (Gloria Steinem for the Los Angeles Times).

But the crucial point here is that Palin never wanted to be part of Steinem’s club, and in that respect she speaks for many of her sex. The large majority of women—surveys have put the number at somewhere around 75 percent—shy away from calling themselves feminists, even while supporting some movement goals like equal pay. The primary reason for their coyness: feminism’s ambivalence at best, and hostility at worst, toward motherhood and marriage. The refuseniks may or may not remember that Betty Friedan described full-time motherhood as a “waste of human self” and home as a “comfortable concentration camp.” They may or may not be able to quote Steinem on fish and bicycles. But on some level they understand that the framework of establishment feminism has motherhood, and often marriage, as the menacing 300-pound security guard whom men have hired to stand in the way of women’s achievement.

Palin represents a red-state version of feminism that completely deconstructs this framework. Sure, part of the red staters’ identification with Palin is a matter of lifestyle. Blue-state feminists live in big cities and suburbs; Palin lives in South Podunk. Blue staters’ kids play soccer; Palin’s play hockey. They have WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER bumper stickers; she’s a member of the NRA. They dine on sushi; she eats salmon that she caught and gutted. If you’re an Iowa toll collector married to a refrigerator repairman, Palin may well be your gal by reason of her origin and leisure activities alone.

But let's conclude this review with Paglia once again, who nails the secular demonology theme regularly showcased here:

The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

You go, girl!

Palin Attracts Women, Rural Voters, and Southerners

The impact of Sarah Palin's nomination as GOP vice-presidential running mate continues to lift the Republican Party's appeal in the electorate. A new Wall Street Journal poll indicates that in addition to consolidating the conservative base of the party, Palin is also attracting women, small-town voters to the Republican column:

Sen. John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate has shaken up the presidential race, lifting enthusiasm among his once-subdued supporters and boosting the ticket's appeal with women, rural voters and Southerners.

The new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll also shows that a majority of voters say they are comfortable with the idea of the first-term Alaska governor as vice president, despite a national debate over whether she is experienced enough for the job.

The Palin effect helps explain why Sen. McCain is now even with Sen. Barack Obama in the head-to-head race. With eight weeks until Election Day, the Journal survey found a dead heat: 46% of registered voters favor Sens. Obama and Joe Biden, and 45% favor the McCain-Palin ticket. The lift, if it grows, could also help other Republicans, particularly in close Senate races in the South.

The survey notes a number of bright spots for the Democrats (voters still know little about the Alaska Governor, in particular), but then stresses the increasing enthusiasm for the McCain/Palin ticket:

One in three voters say that Gov. Palin makes them more likely to support Sen. McCain for president, while 25% say the pick makes them less likely to vote for him. Enthusiasm among the McCain voters is way up: 34% now say they are excited about the ticket compared with 12% last month.

The bottom line is that the McCain/Palin ticket has narrowed the advantages Barack Obama once enjoyed. The GOP is looking especially good in the south, and Sarah Palin out-polls Joseph Biden among blue-collar voters.

Of course, the response of the mainstream press to the GOP's increasing gains has been to intensify scrutiny of Sarah Palin's record in Alaska, as Brent Baker indicates:

With fresh media polls showing Sarah Palin causing a sizable percent of women to shift to support John McCain from Barack Obama, CBS and NBC on Tuesday night devoted full stories to fact check examinations to discredit her, specifically on the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” even though all the newscasts have already run stories on how she was for the bridge earmark during her 2006 gubernatorial campaign.

While it's true that the press is playing accomplice to the radical left-wing's smear campaign against the GOP, a majority of voters perceive media bias against the GOP, and this may end up damaging the Democrats more that the ongoing anti-Palin smears.

Dreaming of Sarah Palin?

The main reason I'm so excited about Sarah Palin is in the way she's positively energized the Republican base. I still can't get over the campaign's absolute rejuvenation this last few weeks, and that's after McCain was already catching Barack Obama coming out of the Saddleback Civil Form. And while McCain's shown decisive strategic wisdom in selecting Palin, the Alaska Governor is turning out to be McCain's savior, particularly among the GOP's conservative base.

It's endlessly fascinating. Still, I do not dream of Governor Palin.

It turns out that's more than can be said for many on the left:

I rarely remember my dreams, but for the past week, GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been haunting me. Night after night, she appears in my dreams, always as a scolding, ominous figure.....

Palin has gripped the American imagination in a way that seems designed to burrow into our dream lives. Palin's supermom abilities provoke envy and anxiety in women, especially other working mothers. Her instant celebrity and dazzling speech have panicked Obama supporters who thought they had the election in the bag. And then there's her sex appeal. A couple of conservative men I know have mentioned that they've been having sexual fantasies about the Alaska governor. I'm sure they're not alone.

Even the radical Matthew Yglesias dreams of Sarah Palin!

Thankfully, Jonah Goldberg's on the case:

Guys, push away from the keyboard and take a walk around the block.

Good advice.

Meanwhile, the McCain/Palin ticket continues to climb in public opinion, and Palin's even pulling in white women voters.

Maybe it's not just the guys who're dreaming of that moose-hunting mom of the last American frontier!

Biden Attacks Palin as "Backward Step for Women"

I imagine we shouldn't be surprised, but it turns out that Senator Joseph Biden is again slamming Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with sexist remarks, saying "I assume she thinks and agrees with the same policies that George Bush and John McCain think ... And that's obviously a backward step for women."

Recall that Biden slipped-up earlier when he said Palin was a choice running mate, "not just on policy. She’s good-looking."

Meanwhile, the lefties are trying to make at least one of their attacks on Governor Palin stick. Think Progress has started keeping track of Palin's "lies to nowhere," but Palin's statements on Alaska's "bridge to nowhere" reveal nothing out of place:

Palin did abandon plans to build the nearly $400 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport. But she made her decision after the project had become an embarrassment to the state, after federal dollars for the project were pulled back and diverted to other uses in Alaska, and after she had appeared to support the bridge during her campaign for governor.

That's not all, of course.

Now the Democratic-left is attacking Palin for her travel expenses while on state business:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

Palin's enemies on the left are outraged at the news, and gleefully hammering the Governor in their ejacultory haste to detroy the GOP ticket.

But as Allahpundit notes:

After 10 days of digging through her and her kids’ trash, here are the media’s big scoops: (a) she supported the bridge to nowhere before killing it, unlike the two tools on the other ticket who supported it consistently; (b) she sought earmarks as mayor of Wasilla, the grand total of which was a fraction of what the “Change” duo has requested in its combined 40 years in Washington; and (c) she billed Alaska for per diem expenses to which she was perfectly entitled, including travel expenses that were roughly 75% less than the previous governor racked up, and actually declined to be reimbursed for some expenses she could have claimed. If you’re wondering why the left is so heavily invested in smears, it’s because the actual “dirt” on her is an inch thin. Better to photoshop her into a picture of a woman with a rifle in a bikini and send that around than take your chances with trying to explain why the state can’t afford to cover occasional airfare for the small children of a governor who doesn’t have a team of nannies to watch them while she’s on business trips.

Neptunus Lex adds this:

The Washington press corps has spent so much time shooting itself in the foot over l’affaire Palin that they appear to need more ammunition. Not a day goes by that Some New Outrage is reported on the front page, only to be quietly deconstructed the next day ....

Had they not been in such an unseemly frenzy to slime the Alaska governor in the first days after her nomination was announced, some of this newer matter might actually stick. But anyone paying attention quickly came to the realization that the press and their enablers were acting more out of indignation at being surprised and fear of the new possibilities: The script in hand read that an honorable old war horse would fight the good fight against The New Socialist Man, lose by a respectable margin and yield the field to the forces of a resurgent Camelot. Palin’s selection tore that script up and made for an exciting, unpredictable race whose outcome is very much in doubt.

Nope, none of these smears is gaining traction.

Meanwhile, Biden's sexism gets a free pass from the press, and Obama's long history of being one of the biggest earmarkers in Congress is convenently forgotten.

At least Alaska's State Democratic Party took down their pork-barrel "Bridge to Nowhere" credits at the homepage. Isn't it amazing that when the left digs dirt, they slime their own side.

Obama Supporters Vandalize Palin Wikipedia Entry

Members of the Barack Obama’s social network community at Obama's official campaign homepage have been involved in vandalizing Sarah Palin's Wikipedia entry. William Beutler has the report, in " Who is Encouraging Obama Supporters to Vandalize Sarah Palin’s Wikipedia Article?

Beutler has traced the origins of the Palin tampering to Stephen Ewen, an Obama social networker with ties to various other social networking and online information websites:

Stephen Ewen is a sometime critic of both Wikipedia and Sarah Palin, as of recently an active opponent of the governor on Wikipedia and, as of today at least, an activist using tools provided by the Obama campaign to suggest that fellow supporters make life difficult for the dozens of editors doing real work to improve the article.

Read the whole thing, here.

Beutler has made a note of this malicious activity at Wikipedia's talk page.

So far, it looks like there's absolutely nothing morally out of bounds to left-wing backers of "The One."

Obama Blows it on Left's Anti-Palin Smears

Kristen Powers, once again, provides her keen insight into Democratic Party imcompetence:

YESTERDAY'S Gallup poll had John McCain ahead of Barack Obama by an astonishing 10 points among likely voters. A Washington Post poll had that lead at only two points, but clearly showed a McCain surge - especially among women. This wasn't what Democrats were expecting when they left Denver - yet they have nobody to blame but themselves.

Obama's toughest challenge has always been to connect with working-class swing voters. So attacking the poster child for small-town values, Sarah Palin, was a bad strategy.

No, Obama didn't engage in the mass sneering at Palin - but he did fall into the trap of disrespecting her. When McCain chose her, the Obama campaign's first response was to ridicule the size of her town. Then the candidate himself began referring to her as a "former mayor" when she is in fact a sitting governor.

When she retaliated (justifiably) by mocking his stint as a organizer, the Obama camp was clearly rattled. Obama himself actually began arguing about the importance of community organizing. His supporters amplified this cry - claiming Palin's attack was a racist slur and passing around e-mails titled "Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor" ....

Most Americans think that the media are cheerleading for Obama, so they'll punish him for the reporters' and editors' sins.

So now he is weighted down with more baggage as he works to convince an important voting bloc that he and his party don't hold them in contempt.

The clock is ticking.

The smears continue this morning, with Juan Cole's extremist attack, "What's the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? Lipstick."

The Democrats will continue to trail in the polls amid their abject desperation at the audacity of John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Democrats Promote Trig Palin Listing on eBay

Via Little Green Footballs, the anti-Palin nihilists at Democratic Underground have a listing for Trig Palin at eBay:

The text of the listing reads:

Adorable special needs child desperately requires loving family. Used once as a prop during televised speech. Requires spit to style hair. Can shoot a rabbit with an air rifle at 35 feet. Mother is pushy social climber, unwilling to let pregnancy and children stand in way of ambition. Father unknown.

I thought we'd seen the depths of depravity with the "I Miss My Mommy" website dedicated to ridiculing Trig Palin, but this story sinks even lower.

Meanwhile, in Dayton, Ohio, a woman was sentenced to life in prison today without possibility of parole for microwaving to death her month-old baby after fighting with her boyfriend.

The woman's name is China Arnold.

A Google search on Arnold's background failed to turn up her party identification, although the remorseless murder of her baby, Paris Talley, was delayed only four-weeks longer that the "fetuses" who are left to die after the botched abortion procedures that Barack Obama voted to protect while he was a member of the Illinois state legislature.

At sentencing, Judge Mary Wiseman condemed Arnold, saying "No adjectives exist to adequately describe this heinous atrocity ... This act is shocking and utterly abhorrent for a civilized society."

The same could be said for the evil miscreant who put Trig Palin up for sale on eBay.

Democrats Launch Desperate Search for Scapegoats

Gripped by fear and horror now that Obamania has utterly collapsed, the hard-left partisans of the Democratic Party have launched a desperate but all-out search for scapegoats to explain the surging presidential ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin.

The left's massive scapegoating is the result of the latest polling numbers showing McCain/Palin generating a decent bounce from the Republican National Convention last week. Gallup's latest numbers show McCain leading Barack Obama in the presidential horse race by 5 points, 49 to 44 percent - a lead that represents a 13 percentage-point shift in Gallup's tracking data since last Tuesday (McCain is up 7, Obama is down 6).

The response on the left is approaching meltdown territory, as we're seing a growing number of angry and confused posts across the Democratic leftosphere. Here's a few:

* Sam Stein at the Huffington Post is claiming that Governor Palin mader her "first gaffe" while speaking at a rally in Colorado Springs, but Michelle Malkin indicates that Palin's suggestion that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers" is accurate, noting that "these public-private hybrids are two dangerous pigs feeding at the federal trough."

* Also at Huffington Post, Adam McKay is pulling his hair out, yelling "we're gonna frickin' lose this thing." McKay's explanation? It's the right-wing media: "There is no more fourth estate ... I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country."

* Picking up with the media scapegoating is Glenn Greenwald, who argues that "The Right Dictates MSNBC's Programming Decisions," an obvious reference to Keith Olbermann's sacking by NBC executives.

* Topping it all off is Michelle Cottle at the New Republic, who is despondent that the historic legacy of Hillary Clinton's pathbreaking feminist campaign for the presidency has been "hijacked" by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, whose candidacy is "a slap in the face to all women."

What's interesting about the left's desperation is that Barack Obama's nowhere near finished. We have two full months of campaigning to go, and much could happen.

That said, it's hard to resist the temptation that what we're witnessing is the beginning of the end for the Democratic electoral juggernaut of 2008.

Throughout 2007 commentators were speaking of the "GOP crack-up," with some Republicans writing off 2008 and refocusing their energies on 2012 or 2016. The Bush brand was disastrous, for example, to small-g conservatism, and the right had to get right with its roots as the party of limited government. Once John McCain wrapped-up his nomination in February, all eyes shifted to the Democrats and their epochal contest between a black and a woman candidate, with the victor emerging as the new face of the post-civil rights diversity agenda. From there it would be mostly downhill to the November election. The conflict in Iraq and the "weak" economy would lift the Democrats to victories in both the presidential and congressional elections.

That scenario, always ahistoric and epiphenomenal, is in shambles now.

In addtion to Gallup's numbers (which has McCain/Palin up 10 percentage-points among "likely" voters), the new CBS poll has McCain/Palin up 46 to 44 percent over Obama/Biden. Plus, the Washington Post's new survey has McCain/Palin leading the Democratic ticket 49 to 47 percent "among those who say they are most likely vote."

The Republicans have the momentum.

While current trends could be ephemeral, it's not often discussed that the selection of Sarah Palin as running mate comes in tandum with a number of other strategic campaign decisions - a series of savvy McCain ad buys, and the shrewed timing of the veep rollout - that provide substantial evidence for John McCain's superior judgement.

Perhaps, underneath the left's fears and scapegoating is the dreadful realization that this "old man" still got game.

Republican Enthusiasm Erupts as Democratic-Left Implodes

Gallup reports that Republicans are energized and enthusiastic on the heels of the party's rousing convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. The John McCain/Sarah Palin ticket has pulled in front of Barack Obama/Joseph Biden 50 to 46 percent in the presidential horse race:

The convention and/or McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate not only had the effect of moving the horserace needle in McCain's direction, but also increased several measures of enthusiasm for the GOP.

There has been a very substantial jump in the percentage of Republicans saying they are more enthusiastic about voting in this election, from 42% a week ago (after the Democratic convention, but before the Republican convention) to 60% today. Democrats still retain a slight lead on this measure, having increased their enthusiasm slightly this last week as well. But the enthusiasm gap, which has been so much a part of the story of the presidential election so far this year, has dwindled from 19 points in the Democrats' favor a week ago to only seven points today.

USA Today reported last night on the GOP bounce in the polls, and the paper's got a new piece this morning confirming the Republican enthusiasm: "Convention Rejuvenates GOP."

Even more interesting, which for the Democrats will be like kicking a man while he's down, is the news that NBC executives have dropped Keith Olbermann as anchor for the network's prime-time election newscasts.

It's hard to ignore the devastating psychological impact of the concatentantion of forces that has pummeled the American political left this last week and a half: McCain's selection of Sarah Palin has thown the left into fits of apoplexy. The Republicans are more fired up than they've been since Ronald Reagan was in office, and now the icon of the mass-media's combative left-wing voice on cable news - Olbermann - has been repudiated by his own network as beyond the pale of acceptable prime-time political discourse.

Texas Rainmaker quips that just like McCain announced in his acceptance speech last week, "change is coming" to Washington, and it's "apparently it’s starting with MSNBC."

Just a little over a month ago the political system will still agog over Obamania. Now the most we hear about "The One" is following an interview slip where some have suggested the Illinois Senator acknowledged his "Muslim faith."

Sarah Palin and Religious Conservatives

One of the key turning points in the 2008 presidential election was last month's candidate civil forum at Saddleback Church, in Orange County, California.

In responding to Pastor Rick Warren, Barack Obama - careful not to alienate voters on questions faith and traditional values - ended up looking like a nerdy Ivy League law professor parsing the opinion of some obscure obiter dicta from a long-lost Supreme Court ruling on the First Amendment's religious clauses.

John McCain, on the other hand, came out with such snappy minimal-syllable responses that the left went haywire with allegations of cheating, claiming that McCain was given interview questions in advance.

Now, with McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as vice-presidential running mate, the conservative base has demonstrated pure ecstasy with the GOP ticket, and the evangelical base of the party may be seeing in Palin its most significant standard-bearer since President Ronald Reagan mobilized the Moral Majority in the 1980s. Lisa Miller, at Newsweek, offers an interesting analysis of Palin's impact on the GOP's evangelical base:

Since 2004, the story goes, evangelicals have softened. Sure, they still care about abortion and gay marriage. But a new, outspoken generation also cares about global warming, Darfur, illiteracy, human trafficking, preventable disease. The era of divisive religious rhetoric, characterized by James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, is past. Eager to help care for the planet, these Christians are building bridges between left and right, between the secular and the devout, even among subscribers to different holy books. These "new" evangelicals, according to the mainstream press, are exciting now because they're politically powerful. As Frances Fitzgerald put it in The New Yorker this summer, they have the potential to "change the Republican Party beyond the recognition of Karl Rove or doom it to electoral defeat for many years to come."

Not so fast. If the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican veep candidate means anything, it's that conservative Christians—the kind who listen by the millions to Dobson's "Focus on the Family" radio program and were galvanized to vote for Ronald Reagan thanks to Falwell—are still numerous and powerful. Of the 60 million white evangelicals in this country, 60 percent of them believe the Bible is literally true. More than a third believe the end of the world will occur within their lifetimes. Palin, despite her fresh young visage, speaks directly to them. Her pro-life credentials are obvious and beyond dispute. She was raised in the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination with an end-times theology that emphasizes adherence to a strict moral code: no tobacco, no alcohol, no social dancing. (Also no premarital sex, but never mind.) The senior pastor of that church, in sermons that circulated online before they were taken down last week, preaches hell for anyone who isn't saved by Jesus. America does not know enough yet about what Palin personally believes, but her church background—she now worships at a nondenominational Bible church—puts her squarely in the tradition of the old-school religious right. The media narrative about the revitalized evangelical center isn't wrong. It's just half the story.

Miller goes on to say that some younger "new evangelicals" are upset that traditional values in other areas outside of reproductive health haven't been relaxed to conform to their less structured view of faith and values. Palin's nomination is thus doubly-troubling for people of this cultural persuasion (unfortunatlely for them, as there's no halfway-station for deeply-conservative Christians).

It's not just the new evangelicals, of course. Palin's ascent to the national political stage has rekindled the culture wars like no event in decades.

I'm particularly interested to see how the issue of teenage pregnancy gets played out in the months ahead, especially if the McCain-Palin ticket wins in November. The Palins' loving response to their daughter's pregnancy - and especially Bristol's pledge to marry her partner - energized conservatives who say that the family's handling of the troubles confirms traditional values and a culture of life.

The response on the left has been almost unreal. Charles Blow, at the New York Times, attacked America's "puritanical culture," then threw up his hands to say:

We need to take some bold steps beyond the borders of our moralizing and discomfort and create a sex education infrastructure that actually acknowledges reality and protects our children from unwanted pregnancies, or worse.

Those "bold steps" include Blow's endorsement of sex education classes for four-year olds. That's bold alright, and half-baked. Others even further to the leftist extreme have basically argued that Bristol Palin should get an abortion.

It's no wonder evangelical Christians have rallied to the GOP banner!

Cartoon Credit: Michael Ramirez

Sarah Palin's Working Class Appeal

There's debate in the media today on whether Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will attract working-class voters to the McCain-Palin presidential ticket. Particularly interesting is the gender angle. The Los Angeles Times, for example, offers a front-page report entitled, "Sarah Palin's Appeal to Working-Class Women May Be Limited":

Palin, a little-known 44-year-old mother of five, burst onto the scene just days ago, presenting herself as the woman to finally shatter the glass ceiling cracked by the Democratic New York senator's historic candidacy.

But now, after a chaotic introductory week that sparked national debates on McCain's judgment, Palin's experience and even her teenage daughter's pregnancy, the initial signs are not entirely positive for the reinvigorated Republican ticket.

Interviews with some two dozen women here after Palin's convention speech found that these voters were not swayed by the fiery dramatic speeches or compelling personal biographies that marked both the Republican and Democratic conventions. Instead, they were thinking about the price of milk - nearly $5 a gallon - or the healthcare coverage that many working families here cannot afford.

Even if they admire Palin's attempt to juggle political ambition, an infant son with Down syndrome and a pregnant unwed daughter, these women say that maternal grit is not enough to win their votes.

The Times piece actually says little about how well Palin may pull working-class voters into the GOP column. The article cites some polling data indicating the Alaska Governor's generic support in public opinion (and on the abortion issue, in one example), but after that most of the evidence for estimating working-class support comes from a roughly two-dozen focus-group panel.

In contrast, Carolyn Lochhead reports that the McCain campaign sees huge potential in Palin's working class appeal, and the organization is sending Todd Palin, Sarah's husband, out onto the hustings to rally the blue-collar vote:

Democrats do not think that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's arrival in the enemy camp changes Sen. Barack Obama's path to the White House. As far as they're concerned, Republican John McCain's running mate is President George W. Bush.

As Obama told voters in Pennsylvania on Friday, "This race is not a personality contest."

That bet is about to be tested.

Independent observers in Ohio think Palin does change the race, enhancing the GOP's appeal - not among the women who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but among white men. They say Palin's most potent weapon may even be her snowmobiler, union husband, Todd.

"If you see him turning up in Appalachian Ohio and up in Canton and Warren and the old steel towns, I think he would play very, very well," said Ken Heineman, an Ohio University political analyst. "If they try to go after his DUI conviction, jeez, his whole up-from-the-blue-collar thing? He's going to resonate very well among swing voters and among male Democrats, the blue-collar Democrats that Obama did not win in the primary. He would be an incredibly appealing figure, and of course, she is herself."

Discussions are underway to deploy Todd Palin, a McCain aide said, even though he has taken leave from his oil-field job to care for the couple's five children. He joked at an event Thursday, "If I had a crystal ball a few years ago, I might have asked a few more questions when Sarah decided to join the PTA."

I'm inclined to think that McCain may gain ground not only with working class voters, but with working-class women as well, many of whom do not fit the emerging Democratic demographic of appealing to highly educated "knowledge workers" and "bobos," and that's not to mention the Democrats' traditional appeal among urban minorities and racial identity groups. As Susan Page notes:

The nation is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, a diversity that has spread across the country. Aging Baby Boomers remain the biggest generational group in the electorate, but second in size are the Millennials — 18- to 31-year-olds who have distinctive attitudes toward race and politics. In the space of a generation, Americans have seen dramatic changes in the roles of women, the structure of families and the nature of the workplace. There has been a revolution in the technology that delivers information and knits communities.

Presidential nominees John McCain and Barack Obama personify that changing nation in striking ways. In age, race and life experience — even in use of innovative technology in the campaign — they mirror a nation in transition.

Some analysts are predicting that the 2008 election — like the one in 1980 that brought the election of Ronald Reagan as president and set the nation on a more conservative course — looms as a landmark contest in which the country is receptive to change.

"This is a pivotal moment in the sense that the politics is catching up to the demographic changes," says William Frey, a Brookings Institution scholar who analyzes population trends.

Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin calls Democrat Obama — who's 47, biracial and multiethnic — "the face of the new generation" who has mobilized millions of younger voters this year.

But Garin notes that some, especially older white voters, find Obama's message and background — he is a first-term Illinois senator who spent nearly as long as a community organizer as he has in Congress — unpersuasive and even discomfiting.

If the clear demographic differences between the party constituencies become even more prounounced over the next two months, then the McCain-Palin ticket may end up demonstrating the kind of traction with the working-class that marked the later stages of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

But note Michael van der Galien's take on the GOP's working class appeal:

... with ‘their nomination of Barack Obama, the Democrats have intensified their image as the party of minorities and the upper part of white America. Among whites, Democrats increasingly draw their votes from the educated, from those who have enjoyed success in a destabilizing postmodern culture and global economy.’ Republicans, on the other hand, have, by choosing Sarah Palin, ‘reasserted their identity as the party of white working-class America - of those who worry about cultural and economic threats to their families.’

The result may very well be that Republicans will once again succeed in getting the support from working class America; quite possibly to the great regret of Democrats, who may find it qutie hard to win elections without it.

That's sounds like a pretty good analysis to me.

Cartoon Credit: Cincinnati Enquirer

Daily Kos and Andrew Sullivan: Merchants of Hate

Some time back, when I reported on Daily Kos' vehemently anti-Semitic essay, "Eulogy Before the Inevitability of Self-Destruction: The Decline and Death of Israel," left-wing commenters here argued that the post was "just a diary," and did not reflect the views of Markos Moultisas himself.

I utterly reject that view, of course, and I've shown here repeatedly that Kos indeed welcomes both the diary contributions AND the individual comments found in the threads to his blog's diaries and essays (commenters at Daily Kos aren't just commenters, "They are creators of content”).

These facts are relevant to the recent left-wing smear attacks against Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Almost as soon as John McCain announced Palin as his vice-presidential running mate, Daily Kos began spreading rumors that Governor Palin's 17 year-old daughter Bristol was the mother of Palin's son Trig.

In response to the backlash from the McCain campaign and conservatives, Moultisas refused to take down the allegations, telling the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz that the smears were "legitimate" journalism:

The intensity of media inquiries [into Sarah Palin's background] hit a new level after an anonymous blogger on the liberal Web site Daily Kos last weekend charged that McCain's running mate is actually the grandmother of Trig Palin, the 4-month-old baby born with Down syndrome, and that the real mother is her daughter, 17-year-old Bristol Palin. That led to mainstream media inquiries, which prompted the McCain camp to disclose in a statement Monday that Bristol is five months pregnant and plans to have the baby and marry the teenage father.

The site's founder, Markos Moulitsas, said he did not know the contributor's identity but thought that the admittedly "weird" pregnancy questions were a legitimate line of inquiry that he should not suppress.

Keep in mind, that Moultisas has announced that Daily Kos represents the "mainstream" of the Democratic Party, and Moulitsas and Barack Obama openly coordinated on the publication of Obama's certification birth at Daily Kos in June.

Moultisas' key ally in spreading the anti-Palin hate rumors has been Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic, and Sullivan's in fact been the originator of some of the nastiest untruths seeking to destroy the Palin family.

Sullivan's extremism continues this morning. As Darleen Click shows, Sullivan's gone off the deep end with a post attacking Jewish influence in Sarah Palin's foreign policy coaching:

I’m posting a screenshot because I’d rather not link to RAWMUSLGLUTES more than necessary. This morning he is little more than Palin-vulva-phobia spewing. However, in one instance he likes to spread a thin film of anti-Semitism over the PDS like room-temperature cream cheese scraped across a nicely toasted bagel:

Plus, Ace of Spades takes the baton from Dean Barnett to shed additional light on Sullivan's smear merchandising:

Andrew Sullivan is known for many things -- general histrionics, "excitability," intellectual shallowness that requires him to blog about the only things he's marginally capable of discussing (emotion and scandal), unquenchable vanity, a guileless passion for conspiracy theories of all sort, "gobsmacking" outbursts of hypocrisy and inconsistency so laughable he's chiefly read for his inadvertent entertainment, casual antisemtism that was all the rage at British boarding schools but doesn't play as well in America, power glutes, seeking anonymous three-way sex, and an endless stream of insults that sound vaguely "smart" but are really just variations of "fascist" and "hater" tarted-up with a thesaurus and some memories of introductory-level college classes.

And that's the just the beginning! .

Sullivan's a mainstream journalist as well as a partisan blogger, and nowadays that's getting to be a distinction without a difference. Prominent hard-line leftist blogs and top journalists at previously respectable institutions like the Atlantic, can slime, smear, and slander, while the principle of journalistic objectivity is sacrificed upon the altar of Barack Hussein Obama, aka "The One."

There's no denying these facts.

Markos Moultisas and Andrew Sullivans are hate-filled smear merchants. Those who want to argue that Kos doesn't endorse this stuff, or Sullivan's a "legitimate" reporter, are living in an alternative reality.

All Palin, All the Time

As I was preparing to post John McCain's new campaign ad buy (seen below, via Captain Ed), I checked around at some of the national and regional dailies to see if I could find a corresponding news story on Barack Obama.

According to lthe evel of attention among Sunday news columnists, Sarah Palin's still the hot topic this morning, five days after the Alaska Governor made her prime-time debut in St. Paul:

* David Broder at the Washingoton Post compares presidential tickets in "Change vs. Change."

* Clarence Page at the Chicago Tribune says "Get Ready for the Real Fireworks."

* Kevin Rennie at the Hartford Courant notes "Palin's Pitch-Perfect Performance Inspires Shock and Awe."

* Frank Rich at the New York Times attacks "Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage."

* Joan Vennochi at the Boston Globe warns of "Sarah Palin's Song and Dance."

It's all interesting, but somewhat beside the point now.

Sarah Palin is now widely seen as the most important socio-political game-changer on the national scene in decades. As Jeffrey Bell noted earlier, "the Sarah Palin vice presidential candidacy may be regarded decades from now as a nationally shared Rorschach test of enormous cultural significance."

The McCain-Palin cultural tsunami's not going to be wearing off soon, mainly because the Democratic left is still trying to find its groove in attacking the Alaska Governor without further damaging Obama's negatives on patriotism and traditional values. Personality will trump policy for the time being.

Note that Gallup's new tracking numbers have John McCain moving ahead of Barack Obama, 48 to 45 percent among registered voters. Final post-convention data from Gallup will includes interviews after McCain's Thursday night acceptance speech, although additional surveys have clearly found a Palin bounce for the GOP.

McCain Surges on National Security Amid GOP Convention Bounce

Zogby's new survey finds the John McCain/Salin Palin ticket holding a 49.7 to 45.9 percent lead over Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the presidential horse race. The poll was conducted September 5-6, so it clearly captures a post-convention bounce for the Republicans coming out of St. Paul.

While Zogby shows McCain/Palin with a modest lead, a new survey from Greenberg, Quinlan, and Rosner indicates that the public sees the GOP as much stronger on national security, which could be problematic for the Democrats as the campaign moves forward.

Andrew Malcolm has a report:

Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner has just released a survey that indicates voters perceive Republicans once again as far and away better on national security issues than Democrats.

Forty nine percent of those surveyed thought....

...Republicans were better on national security while 35% thought Democrats better. When it came to combating terrorism, 48% thought Republicans superior to Democrats while 33% gave Democrats the advantage.

It shows voters once again seeing Democrats as following the polls to determine their national security stances and appearing timid to use force in the nation's defense.

This could blossom into a serious problem for the Obama-Biden ticket and down-ballot races -- or opportunity for Republicans -- by Nov. 4.

The presence of Sen. John McCain, a former POW and the only military veteran on either ticket, atop the Republican ballot could be crucial.

According to the Greenberg study's researchers:

"The national security credibility gap is returning. Old doubts about Democrats on security, after diminishing during 2006-2007, have begun to re-emerge:

"concerns that Democrats follow the polls rather than principle;

"that Democrats are indecisive and are afraid to use force;

"and that Democrats don't support the military.

"Because these weaknesses are longstanding and deeply ingrained, and because Republican weaknesses are newer and do not yet have a label associated with them, Republicans continue to win on many security issues."

The Greenberg poll, done for the think tank Third Way, echoes a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll which found a large lead for Republican McCain over his Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama, with McCain holding a 10 point lead over Obama on the question: who would be better on the Iraq war, a 25 point lead on the handling of international crises and a 28 point lead on being better able to handle terrorism.

Results like these in part explain why the Republicans stressed the military and terrorism at their recently completed convention in St. Paul, Minn., a convention which, surprising to some drew a larger telervision audience than the Democratic festivities in Denver the previous week.

At this week's St. Paul events Republicans were clearly trying to run up the score on the Democrats in the national security area with only about eight weeks to go.

These findings are interesting in light of all the attention in the left-wing blosphere and mainstream press to the controversy over Nouri al Maliki's statement in July presuming to endorse Obama's 16-month timeline for withdrawal.

The bottom line from Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner is that the Democrats' decades-long reputation as foreign policy wimps remains a huge liability this year, and it's clear that the public's not easily fooled by fancy speeches and world tours by a candidate who's been consistently wrong in foreign policy throughout the post-9/11 era.

Sarah Palin and the Alaska National Guard

While not earth-shattering, Saturday's Los Angeles Times piece on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's leadership of the state's National Guard contingent indicates that, indeed, commanding the units involves considerable responsibility, although not so much in foreign policy as some might think (or hope):

The Alaska National Guard is unusual in that its jobs include manning part of the U.S. missile defense system. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion works on interceptor missiles designed to shoot down intercontinental missiles.

Members of the Alaska National Guard also were deployed to Iraq, and Palin visited their unit in July 2007. The McCain campaign has pointed to that experience as an example of Palin's foreign policy background.

"She's been the commander of Alaska's National Guard, who's been deployed overseas," Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, said on CNN in one of several recent references to Palin's gubernatorial responsibility for the Guard. "That's foreign policy experience."

Since governors have no role in overseeing Guard members federalized for service in Iraq, military experts said that should not count as foreign policy experience.

National Guard officials said visits such as Palin's trip to Iraq may be important because state officials can lobby the federal government for better training and more equipment if they are needed. There is no indication that during her trip Palin found major problems with how the Alaska Guard was trained or equipped.

Closer to home, the bread-and-butter duties of most state National Guards are natural disasters. During Palin's 21 months in office, there has been one declared disaster: widespread flooding in June and July this year. Palin quickly signed a disaster declaration, officials said. The Guard's role was limited to providing two water tanks and 30,000 sandbags to local authorities.

The Alaska Air National Guard, with 1,946 service members, is involved in an exceptional number of search-and-rescue missions. Since Palin became governor in December 2006, the Air Guard has flown 521 missions, saving 200 lives and assisting with the rescue of 77 more people, said Kalei Brooks, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

"Our rescue squadron is the busiest in the nation," she said.

In recent years, the department has overseen a reorganization of the 1,900-member Army National Guard. Following a U.S. Army restructuring plan, officials have helped assign soldiers to new units.

But training requirements for Guard units are established not by governors, but by the Army, the Air Force and the National Guard Bureau.

"That requirement comes down from the United States Army and Air Force," Allen said. "But that training and that equipment become very important when they are needed within the states."

I wrote earlier on "Sarah Palin's National Security Credentials," and that essay's a bit more favorable to Palin's commander-in-chief role thanthe Times.

Note too, Senator Joseph Lieberman has been briefing Palin on national security, and with the Alaska Governor's sharp wit and obvious political instincts, I doubt she's going to have much difficulty handling her responsibilities, even if that means assuming the presidency in a national crisis.

The De-Linking of Andrew Sullivan

There's a big de-linking campaign afoot against well-known author and blogger Andrew Sullivan.

Sullivan's been leading the leftosphere's anti-Palin smear attacks, and Ace of Spades called for a de-linking program in a blistering post calling Sullivan a "taker of loads." That seemed a bit over the top, at least in tone, but I noticed that National Review's policy is to explicity eschew linking to Sullivan as well.

So, with Dean Barnett's essay tonight at the Weekly Standard, "Anatomy of a Smear," which doesn't even mention Sullivan by name, much less link to him, it's pretty clear that the right's had it with Sullivan's man-crush on Barack Obama:

Blogger Charlie Martin has helpfully compiled all of the smears that the left has hurled at Sarah Palin. 54 and counting!

Given that we’re more than halfway to the century mark in Palin smears, I think it’s time to take another brief look at the left’s method of smear dissemination. Yesterday on a blog hosted by the prestigious magazine the Atlantic, a post popped up at 11:49 a.m. with the breathless title, “Here We Go.” The post read in its entirety, “Todd Palin's former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Oh God.” The post linked to the Alaskan court system where you could see the motion if you cared to click through.

Although the author didn’t care to make his innuendo explicit, the insinuation was clear – the National Enquirer had previously reported on what it called “a rumor” that the former business partner in question had had an affair with Sarah Palin. The breathless title and the brevity of the post implied that the smoking gun for the affair laid in the court filings that the former business partner wished to conceal. Naturally, because the purported scoop had the imprimatur of the prestigious Atlantic, many other news sources picked it up in rapid order.

Quicker than you can say “conspiracy theory lunatic,” this particular lunatic theory jumped off the tracks. The Court denied the motion to conceal the papers, allowing the curious to sniff through them. Shock of shocks, Sarah Palin’s name wasn’t even mentioned in the filings. Nor was there anything regarding an affair with her. In this particular wild goose chase, the goose flew free.

Thus, the method of the smear mechanism reveals itself – print a lot of speculative crap, all while maintaining a malign indifference as to whether or not you can prove said speculative crap. Actually nailing down a story before running it? That’s so 20th century, at least in the virtual pages of the Atlantic. Doing actual reporting to confirm life-damaging rumors before circulating them? Such quotidian tasks are obviously beneath an Atlantic blogger’s pay grade.

There's more at the link.

It turns out that the information on Palin's business partner's motion to seal his divorce proceedings was first posted at Sullivan's page, so it's not as if Sullivan's just sending earlier allegations viral.

Ace of Spades suggests not to link to Sullivan when rebutting his demonizing dementia: "quote and critique with attribution. But don't link."

Actually, I've never "de-linked" anyone. In fact, I normally link like crazy to focus attention on the nihilist left's many blogs of hate. But I'm generally a low-traffic blogger (although technically no longer a member of the "9th tier"), although my page's been getting more attention, so I can see the practical logic in denying Sullivan attention and hits.

There's is "a politics of linking" on the web, of course, so considering Sullivan's campaign of innuendos and smears, I thought I just pass along this information in furtherance of the de-linking of Andrew Sullivan.