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Now! All New!! One Third the Campaigners

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The McCain campaign, noting that by adding a celebrity to their ticket they can actually fill rallies, has announced McCain and Palin will continue to campaign together after she returns from trying to cover up her dirt in Alaska.

The McCain campaign is "very seriously considering" having McCain and Palin campaign together more often than not in the next two months, a senior campaign aide said, adding it could be the most a presidential and vice presidential candidate campaign in tandem in recent history.

The aide said the two have developed a strong chemistry together and will likely utilize it through joint rallies. He likened it to the chemistry Bill Clinton and Al Gore had in 1992, suggesting it was instinctive.

"Sometimes these vice presidential selections, the pairings, work in a magical way," the aide told reporters on the Palin campaign plane, on condition of anonymity.

Though, really, it’s not so much "chemistry" or "magic." It’s necessity. You can’t promise concert-goers Carrie Underwood and then deliver Lawrence Welk–which is what the McCain campaign will be doing until they get their hot celebrity back on the trail. 

In fact, McCain couldn’t even get through his first campaign rally after Palin left, though that appears to have been Democrats capitalizing on really bad advance work from the McCain team.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain cut short his first public appearance without running-mate Sarah Palin after chanting supporters of Democratic rival Barack Obama interrupted his speech.

After lunching with a roundtable of women at Philadelphia’s Down Home Diner, McCain shook hands with supporters and strode up to a podium to deliver a statement. But as he spoke, chants of "Obama, Obama, Obama" filled the room.

Reporters craned forward trying to hear the Arizona senator. Unfortunately for McCain — and possibly overlooked by aides who planned the event — a section of the diner opened up to a market where a crowd had gathered behind a cordon.

A large contingent of Obama supporters showed up, mixed with some who had bumper stickers reading "Democrats for McCain".

[snip]

His words were barely audible. [my emphasis]

Frankly, this state of affairs has a lot of risk for McCain. He is already depending on her to bring out the crowds–which suggests a real dependency which kind of weakens the whole war hero image.

But I’m most interested in what McCain’s reliance on Palin will do for his ability to campaign. Read more →

As the Lies Pile Up, McCain’s Former Fans Increasingly Repulsed by the Cynicism

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Tweety counts seven times that she has repeated her Bridge to Nowhere line. Meanwhile, as of 2:30 PM, ThinkProgress is up to 27 different uses of this line (including Palin’s 8th use of it today).

Meanwhile, one by one, the weight of this evidence has demonstrated to McCain’s former fans what a dishonorable, cynical creature John McCain has become. There was Mike Murphy, caught on live mike, admitting that the selection of Sarah Palin was cynical and gimmicky. And Joe Klein, labeling McCain’s pro-predator attack on Obama as  "one of the sleaziest ads I’ve ever seen in presidential politics." Even Mark Halperin called last nights piggy lipstick stunt the lowpoint of this campaign. 

Sully is just the latest of former McCain fans to grow utterly disgusted with this new cynical creature.

For me, this surreal moment – like the entire surrealism of the past ten days – is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It’s about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?

So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil.

[snip]

McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain – no one else – has proved it. 

These former fans may well be the biggest threat to McCain’s campaign. There’s nothing like a lover scorned and no one to better describe the profound depths of McCain’s cynicism than to have his former boosters describe their newfound revulsion. 

If You Had Any Doubts the “Attacks” on Palin Were Manufactured Bullshit …

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Then observe this chronology.

Early today, John Fund wrote a WSJ op-ed claiming the DNC had "airdropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers into Anchorage" to do oppo research. The DNC responded that this was a "flat-out absolute fabrication." Nevertheless, purportedly in response to this secret mini-army of oppo researchers, McCain’s campaign introduced a "Palin truth squad," featuring a mini-army of B-League Republican women to protect their precious Sarah Palin from evil falsehoods.

Problem is, the very first "falsehood" they tried to "rebut" is not, in fact, a falsehood at all. 

All: Please join us at 7:00pm ET for a conference call with Gov. Jane Swift, Chair of the Palin Truth Squad, to discuss Barack Obama’s "lipstick on a pig" comments today in Lebanon, VA. 

Rather, it is a completely manufactured smear, the McCain campaign claiming that when Barack Obama said of John McCain’s claim to be a maverick that  "you can’t put lipstick on a pig:"

Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin’s new "change" mantra.

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It’s still a pig."

"You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change.  It’s still gonna stink."

Of which the McCain campaign’s new "truth squad" claimed Obama was calling Sarah Palin, self-described pitbull in lipstick, a pig.

Christy’s got a run-down of how frequently people like Barack Obama and John McCain use this term–McCain even used it of Hillary Clinton’s health care plan (I understand Hillary’s been known to wear lipstick, too).

And though he propagates the suggestion that listeners might tie Obama’s comment to Palin, Jake Tapper has an otherwise damning descripton of former MA Governor Jane Swift’s pathetic attempt to spin this as an attack on Palin.

 And interestingly, the Truth Squad call was full of half-truths and statements that weren’t true at all.

Speaking on behalf of the McCain campaign, former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift tonight flatly stated that Obama had called Palin a pig.

"[T]he formation of the Palin Truth Squad couldn’t have happened too soon, as we saw when Sen. Obama in Lebanon, Va., this evening uttered what I can only deem to be disgraceful comments comparing our vice presidential nominee Gov. Palin to a pig," Swift said.

"Sen. Obama owes Gov. Palin an apology," she said.

Read more →

Nar.Ra.Tive

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It’s a tough concept, I know, one that Marc Ambinder either can’t–or won’t–understand. But let’s see if you all, in the comments, can help Ambinder out.

What’s the difference between this:

technically true, but functionally false

And this:

repeated, blatant lies

Or this: 

A serial liar

Or this:

A lying liar

Or this:

Completely divorced from reality

Go ahead–explain the difference to Ambinder!

Because Ambinder is cross that Matt Yglesias pointed out that he, Ambinder, has a role in whether people understand that Sarah Palin and John McCain made a claim that was "technically true, but functionally false" or whether they know that McCain has rolled out an entire campaign strategy built on repeated and shameless lies. It’s all just that "a small but significant fraction of the electorate seems astonishingly inured to misleading charges and negative attacks," according to Ambinder, it has nothing to do with the flaccidity of the press, because, after all, "the press has pointed out the Bridge to Nowhere exagerration ever since it was uncovered." No word on whether he finds McCain and Palin’s related claim that Palin–whose own projects McCain once singled out on his objectionable pork lists, whose own state still leads the country in per capita earmarks–is a great opponent of earmarks is just "technically true but functionally false, or whether it’s a cynical lie. No word on whether Palin’s clear fondness for the pork she claims to oppose undercuts the spin that she’s a maverick. No word on when the McCain campaign’s repeated insistence on the Bridge to Nowhere myth–or for that matter, its repeated, documented lies about Obama’s tax plan–becomes a story.

Because at some point, McCain’s cynical strategy to lie his way to victory threatens the entire principle of the objective press. If McCain can tell lies so brazen they’d make even Dick Cheney blush, and if the press does no more than simply correct them, once, quietly, politely, euphemistically, without noting that he and Palin repeat them in spite of all objective evidence, then the whole principle of objective truth has been replaced by the rule that whatever assertion gets repeated the most persistently will become "truth."

Journalists often say their job is to tell the truth. But Marc Ambinder, at least, doesn’t seem phased that Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt have declared open season (no doubt aerial hunting season) on that very principle.

Read more →

Rick Davis and AT&T Shacking Up

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Boy, I thought it’d be hard to imagine an administration cozier with AT&T than George Bush’s–particularly since Bush replaced both Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett with AT&T lobbyist Ed Gillespie. But apparently, Rick Davis’ lobbying firm has been shacking up with AT&T:

So just how close are the ties between the McCain camp and AT&T? Well, AT&T shares a luxury skybox with Davis, Manafort Inc. at Nationals Stadium, which opened earlier this year and is home to the city’s baseball team. I say it “appears” because two sources, including one person who has been in the skybox, told me about the AT&T/Davis, Manafort luxury suite, but none of the relevant parties will comment on the matter. AT&T’s Washington lobbying office has not returned phone calls about the suite, nor has Davis, Manafort. Repeated attempts to seek comment from the McCain campaign have also been unsuccessful. Chartese Burnett, a spokeswoman for the Nationals, said the team does not disclose the holders of the luxury suites because of “privacy concerns.” But she did tell me that there are 66 suites at the stadium, which rent for between $160,000 and $400,000 per year.

There’d be nothing illegal about a shared arrangement. It would simply reflect the seamless web that exists between McCain and the lobbyists and special interests groups that he likes to criticize while out on the trail campaigning as a “maverick” and “change agent.” I just hope they get better iPhone service than I do.

 Now, for the record, Rick Davis thinks it’s "chasing ghosts" to go after the McCain team’s intimacy with big lobbyists.

WALLACE: Well, as a matter of personal privilege, I’m going to give you the opportunity to respond to David Axelrod, who said, you know, for all this talk about wait till we come in and shake the lobbyists, but the campaign team of McCain is filled with lobbyists or, in your case, former lobbyists. How do you respond?

DAVIS: Oh, I think that, you know, it’s just more of the same from David Axelrod. I mean, they’ve been running against ghosts of the past all along. And I think it just shows that they don’t really have anything to talk about.

If they want to run against Rick Davis or our campaign staff, let them. I think it’s hilarious. I think it’s a wonderful distraction from the real issues that we’re trying to debate.

Read more →

Rather than Vetting Palin, McCain Will Orchestrate a Cover-Up of Her Abuse of Power

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"I make [decisions] as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can. Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint." — John McCain

It’s bad enough that a presidential ticket claiming to run on reform is now orchestrating a cover-up of an apparent abuse of power. What’s really stunning is that they’re conducting this cover-up in lieu of actually vetting Sarah Palin.

The Cover-Up

As you’ve no doubt seen, Isikoff and Hosenball report that the McCain campaign is attempting to turn the bipartisan investigation into TrooperGate into a whitewash.

Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin’s firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called "October surprise" that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.

In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska’s bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called "troopergate" investigation.

[snip]

Coghill, who told NEWSWEEK that he has the backing of Republican Speaker of the House John Harris in his effort to remove French, suggested Friday that the investigation into Palin’s firing of Monegan should be shut down entirely. "If this has been botched up the way it has, there’s a question as to whether it should continue," Coghill told NEWSWEEK. 

[snip]

Coghill told NEWSWEEK that he decided to write his letter to strip French of his position on his own-without any coaxing by McCain campaign officials.

But a top McCain campaign official acknowledged that the GOP lawyer had given the campaign a "heads up" about his letter and that the McCain campaign approved of the effort to remove French.

"An investigation that was supposed to be non-partisan has become a political circus and has gotten out of control," said Taylor Griffin, a top communications aide dispatched from McCain campaign headquarters to Alaska this week to monitor the investigation and related matters.

And, as I pointed out the other day, since Palin got named the VP candidate, seven people have not so mysteriously changed their minds about cooperating with the investigation; there will be a vote among the Republican-dominated committee conducting the investigation on Tuesday to decide whether or not to subpoena these seven witnesses.

Read more →

The Gray Lady’s Lizard-Brain Logic

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lime-green-cottage-cheese.jpg

Here.

Fact One: After McCain appeared before a lime jello and cottage cheese background in June, Steve Schmidt swore that he would never let the campaign embarrass John McCain like that again.

Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain and a veteran of President Bush’s 2004 campaign, could barely hide his fury in the coming days, as he announced — to anyone who would listen — that he personally would make certain the McCain campaign would never again embarrass Mr. McCain.

“Fun Steve is dead,” Mr. Schmidt said.

Fact Two: After the lime jello cottage cheese incident, McCain had Evil Steve Schmidt take over the campaign.

Mr. Schmidt traveled with Mr. McCain for the first part of the year. But Mr. McCain sent him back to the headquarters in Crystal City, Va., after Republican complaints about Mr. McCain’s struggling campaign, epitomized by that Green Wall episode.

Mr. Schmidt gave the war room a more central place in Mr. McCain’s campaign, streamlining its decision making so only a few key aides decide what is worthy of response and, more important in Mr. Schmidt’s view, what presents an opportunity to attack Mr. Obama as elite, out of touch and lacking substance.

Fact Three: Thursday night, John McCain was once again embarrassed by being placed in front of a green backdrop–made even worse because it was an image of Walter Reed Middle School that should have been an image of Walter Reed hospital.

Three months after Mr. Schmidt’s “Fun Steve is dead” declaration, there was Mr. McCain giving his acceptance speech at the convention on Thursday night. His backdrop? A shimmering screen of green, until it was switched over to a more dignified blue.

Conclusion: AdNags and Jim Rutenberg conclude that this represents great improvement and the sign of a masterfully competent campaign, all thanks to Schmidt.

In the three months since that night in June, the McCain organization has become a campaign transformed: an elbows-out, risk-taking, disciplined machine that was on display last week at the convention that nominated Mr. McCain. And the catalyst for the change has largely been Mr. Schmidt, a 37-year-old veteran of the winning 2002 Congressional and 2004 presidential campaigns, where he worked closely with Karl Rove, then President Bush’s senior strategist.

John Bush’s Son’s Bank Just Failed

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200px-silverado.thumbnail.jpg

The FDIC just declared Silver State Bank in Nevada a failure (h/t this DKos diary).

From February to July, Andrew McCain, son of Presidential candidate John Bush, served on the Audit Committee of Silver State. Under Andrew McCain’s guidance, the bank lost $73 million. Now, along with serving as foster parents for troubled siblings Fannie and Freddie, you and I are going to have to insure the savings of Silver State’s depositors.

No wonder Tom Ridge can’t tell the Bushes and McCains apart.

Did Three Million People Not Turn Off Their TV Quickly Enough?

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We’ve already discussed the surprising (to me) news that McCain out-drew Obama for their acceptance speeches: McCain pulled 38.9 million viewers to Obama’s 38.4 million.

I was half-joking earlier when I said I thought it was because those people who had been watching Eli beat the ‘Skins simply didn’t turn off their TV quickly enough. NBC went immediately to the convention from the game, with no post-game analysis or commercials. But there seems to be some merit to that notion.

NBC got 13.6 million viewers for football.  CBS got 6.5 million for Big Brother 10 in the 8-9 hour, and then 7.3 for CSI in the 9-10 hour.

So at 10:00, when the speech began, 13.6 people were watching NBC (probably fewer, I guess, since it wasn’t a terrific game), and 7.3 were watching CBS.

NBC had 8 million watch the Convention, to CBS’ 5 million. I happen to prefer NBC’s political coverage to CBS’–but not 37% better, especially not if I’ve had a couple of beers. I would imagine a goodly chunk of those 3 million MORE people who viewed the Convention on NBC simply didn’t change the channel. And given the way NBC moved into the Convention, I’m not entirely convinced those 3 million people stayed.

Not that it matters. I didn’t watch the whole speech, but I agree with the Twitter reported at Marc Ambinder’s site (no longer there) that says Obama aides were hoping a lot of people had stayed over from NFL. It wasn’t a great speech, so the big viewership numbers don’t necessarily help McCain.

“Uneaten potato chips, rigatoni, and a McCain cake”

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Gosh. MI. OH. Aren’t those the two swing states on which McCain’s entire campaign depends?

If so, it bodes poorly for his campaign that his campaign threw parties last night for supporters to hear his speech … and nobody came.

Apparently, in Canton OH, former Hillary supporter Ernie Talbert got stuck with an uneaten John McCain cake after everyone left the party he hosted long before McCain spoke.

The McCain campaign had issued a list of a dozen convention-watching parties for the media to attend across Ohio. The only one in Stark County was at the Canton home of McCain supporter Ernie Talbert, 50, a Speedway cashier who had supported Hillary Clinton in the Ohio primary. When McCain’s speech started, only he, his son and the media were at the party, as the few visitors who had shown up had left. However, the director of McCain’s local campaign later appeared.

Talbert said he had been told by the campaign that at least 20 people would show to watch McCain’s speech on his small television set. Instead he was left with uneaten potato chips, rigatoni and a McCain cake.

"I put all this stuff out and nobody shows up," he said. "I"m not real happy about that."

And in Farmington Hills, MI–the local office of the two real estate investors that John McCain seems more concerned about than all the people who’ve lost their houses in MI– the Republicans did little better.

Michigan Republicans tried to organize parties to watch John McCain’s speech but at least the two the Free Press visited Thursday turned out to be pretty intimate affairs.

McCain’s many fans probably loved his speech to the Republican National Convention, but they did so in some place other than the Farmington Hills McCain headquarters, where the crowd at a "house party" to watch the speech dwindled to two volunteers and a handful of staffers too busy to watch TV by the time he got under way just after 10 p.m.

Mind you, I’m hearing there’s a special focus on MI’s Oakland County this year, which is MI’s fastest growing county and very much a swing county. If McCain doesn’t win MI, he probably doesn’t win the election. And if he doesn’t win Oakland, he’s not going to win MI.

It may be that everyone went home, with the intent to watch football, only to watch Kwame say his farewells.  Read more →