The Myths of Barack Obama

The presidential campaign is entering the hot summer months and things are about to get good. Most people think Barack Obama is sitting pretty with up to a 15% lead, depending on the poll. I live in New York City and from here, it feels like it’s a one candidate race. I saw someone in the East Village yesterday wearing a shirt that said, “McCain Who?”

Now it’s true that whether or not you like Obama, agree with Obama, or trust Obama, he’s the one with all the momentum. The whole damn media has a collective erection for the guy right now … including Arianna Huffington and Markos Moulitsas (of Daily Kos), neither of whom have a penis.

But this is all good news for John McCain and the Straight Talk Express. The main reason is that McCain is best when he’s playing the underdog. This is when his true personality shines through: a sharp, witty man – the kind who you’d follow into battle. This is a man that you want leading the troops in a nasty prison camp and this is a man who you want picking up the phone at 3 a.m. when Iran’s development of nuclear weapons comes to pass.

But more than anything, I hope he can be the type of candidate that’s able to make the argument that he can lead on the critical issues facing the country. If he can’t, it’s no one’s fault but his own – Obama has some huge holes in his glossy sheen and a candidate who can’t exploit them isn’t ready for the Oval Office.

Beginning today and running through the election, I am going to list the arguments that expose these holes. Below is a list of a couple of key myths about the inimitable Barack Obama that McCain must exploit. More will follow, including discussions about taxes, foreign policy, health care, and other relevant items presented over the next few months:

Myth 1:
Barack Obama is a post-partisan politician

Truth:
Obama has consistently toed the Democratic party line in his few short years in the Senate. From judges to medicare to immigration to the Iraq War, the Illinois Senator has been a strident party loyalist. Not one major piece of legislation has his name on it; not one tough battle has he fought in the senate; not one stand has he made against his party; not one politically unpopular decision has he made. This is in sharp contrast to Senator McCain, who has proven to be THE post-partisan candidate on judge appointments, campaign finance, immigration, taxes (though i especially hate this one), and more. This country needs a man who makes decisions based on what he thinks is right and not what is political expedient.

Myth 2:
Barack Obama may be inexperienced, but he has good judgment

Truth:

Obama’s big claim to fame is that he may not have any of the necessary experience (either political, business, executive, etc.) to run the nation, but, unlike Bush, Clinton, McCain, and everyone else in Congress at the time, he was against the war from the start. This has provided the platform from which he can state that experience is less important than good judgment. It’s the basis (besides the fact that he’s extremely well spoken) of his entire candidacy.

But here’s the thing: if, in retrospect, you want to criticize the war, the intelligence, or the execution of war/post war strategy there is room for valid dissent. But, in March of 2003, given the uncertainty of American security, given our failure to connect the dots to 9/11, and given the intelligence that the entire globe supported, how could anyone NOT have supported the Iraq War effort? Imagine if Obama was president at the time. Imagine if the world’s intelligence was correct. Imagine if a dirty bomb or any other WMDs found their way into the hands of the very same people that had the audacity to fly airplanes into buildings. Imagine if all of this happened and our president, in a post-9/11 world, did nothing about it. In this scenario, our president would deserve to be put on trial as an accessory to war crimes.

More to come...

Vice, Comedy, and 9/11

Check out this "comedic" 9/11 video from VBS.tv, the online broadcast network brought to you by the ultra hip folks at Vice Magazine. They're really pushing the edge at Vice these days with jokes about herpes right next to good ol' "if we don't do 'x,' the terrorists win" repartee. Yep, real cutting edge.

The true crime about this video isn't just that it makes light of the hellish murder of almost 3,000 innocent Americans. The true crime is worse: it's just not that funny. If you're going to joke about September 11th, you better make it funny or shut the f*ck up. A bunch of spoiled, hipster cynics made this video and I wonder if they'd feel as tickled about it if they lost loved ones when the buildings came crashing down.

This sentiment reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry's dentist friend converts to Judaism, which Jerry suspects is a ploy to tell Jewish jokes with immunity. Jerry goes to the dentist's former priest:

Jerry: I wanted to talk to you about Dr. Whatley. I have a suspicion that he's converted to Judaism just for the jokes.

Father: And this offends you as a Jewish person.

Jerry: No, it offends me as a comedian.

Technorati Claim (Readers Ignore)

Technorati Profile

Nefarious Hillary calls for assassination of Barack Obama?

A new low this week: The media is actually raising the specter that Hillary Clinton might actually “be hoping” for the assassination of Barack Obama. Every paper, site, or station that even showed this clip without immediately and truthfully considering its intent should be ashamed to think themselves journalists. What ever happened to context? Are we so wrapped up in our daily lives, so unable to hear a dissenting opinion, so angry about the state of our country that we can’t stop for a second to consider that nothing means what it means unless understood in context? The hegemony of the sound bite has rendered us subject to a lifetime of game show politics and media consumption.

Let’s take the comment for what it was: Part of a historical consideration on the appropriateness of a primary candidate to stay in the race beyond a certain point. The key idea she was trying to make is that June has been a point at which past candidates have still been in the race. The reference to her husband and then to Bobby Kennedy was part of a study in the month of June, NOT, as some may believe, in sticking around in a race “cause you just never know who might get whacked…wink…wink.”

Look, I ply my trade in the cut-throat world of big New York advertising, and understand the power of words. It was dumb to reference an assassination in an environment that has been unnecessarily charged with racial tones (many spun from the Hillary camp itself), but let’s not believe that Mrs. Clinton is dumb enough to think:

1) She could convince people to support her to stay in the race because the black guy could get whacked.
2) She wouldn’t get called back to the nomination anyway were something terrible to happen to Obama after a Hillary concession.

Sure, her best bet at this point is a cataclysmic event (e.g. the revelation of an Obama love affair with Ayman al-Zawahiri), but please save your brain cells for thoughts larger than the idea that she is hoping for the death of a United States Senator.

What it sounds like to walk down the street in the East Village these days

McCain can't out-Obama Obama

John McCain lately seems to be making a concerted effort to distance himself from President Bush. In light of Bush's record low approval ratings, he’s right to do so. But he's talking like a liberal and angling the wrong way if he wants the upper hand in a tough battle with Barack Obama. McCain cannot out-Obama Obama. If he's going to go maverick, he needs to propose big, bold, inherently conservative ideas for the country. Calling for a timetable on the war and a cap and trade approach to carbon emissions are sickle and hammer politics.

McCain’s only chance this fall, going up against the charm, smarts, and eloquence of Obama, is to continue his no BS approach to foreign policy and conjure the brightest of our American ideals with stark domestic ideas. Veering left, besides being wrong-headed, will lose center/center-right voters and gain nothing in return.

Here’s what McCain needs to propose on these two specific issues:

The War on Islamic Terror
Don’t listen to the wikimedia narrative that wants us to believe there’s no hope and that the U.S. is weaker than ever. Petraeus has whipped the insurgency like Teddy Roosevelt did the Dakota Badlands. Violence has spiked downward and the Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish factions have all bought into democracy and power sharing. I’m not naïve enough to say it’s not messy, but our boys are spanking Al Qaeda and the Maliki government is taking on fellow Shia in Basra and Sadr City.

For the first time, we can look to the future and glimpse the face of victory. The surge has worked, and it was McCain who’d been advocating it the entire time. This gives Johnny Mac an incredible point of leverage. He can both distance himself from Bush AND take credit for crucial military foresight.

As for Iran, McCain must lay out a plan that threatens force first and diplomacy second. The carrot only works when the stick is big and scary. Obama’s proposition to sit down first is insane. In fact, there’s a narrative thread throughout Obama’s life that shows his willingness to befriend radical, anti-American (not to be mistaken for those who are constructively critical) individuals and this is quite unsettling.

Reagan didn’t sit down with Gorbachev until Gorby was scared. The next president must put the fear of god into our enemies before considering any public conversation. We need to lay out a foreign policy that claims loudly that Iran cannot obtain nuclear weapons. The military option shouldn’t just be “on the table,” it should be the table. If the left thinks we’re weak now, wait until we’re cow towing to a nuclear Iran.

Environment
U.S. carbon emissions grew by only 6.6 percent between 1997 and 2004, compared with 18 percent for the world and 21 percent for the nations that signed the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gasses.

I’m not suggesting that we needn’t focus on climate change, but I am suggesting that we focus on it intelligently. A huge government command-and-control operation like cap and trade is more sickle and hammer politics. McCain needs to get off this pony immediately. We’re all foolish if we think big businesses won’t make a fortune gaming this rigged-up market scenario. It’s an opaque system that will create an entire industry (both government and private) around regulating and exploiting the rules.

Instead, let’s combine smart government policy with the true power of free markets. Simply, McCain should advance a program that swaps a carbon tax for either an income, corporate, or social security/medicare tax cut (or some amalgamation of them all). If we really want to encourage non-carbon based energy via government policy, at least the implementation of a tax is both transparent and obvious.

Also, the cost of cutting CO2 is too pricey right now. More research and greater incentives for renewables are the only honest solution. An interesting idea comes from Bjorn Lomborg, former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen, and suggests we can achieve our green energy goals by:

spending dramatically more researching and developing low-carbon energy. Ideally, every nation should commit to spending 0.05 percent of its gross domestic production exploring non-carbon-emitting energy technologies — be they wind, wave, or solar power — or capturing CO2 emissions from power plants. This spending could add up to about $25 billion a year, but it would still be seven times cheaper than the Kyoto protocol, yet increase global research and development tenfold. All nations would be involved, but the richer ones would pay the larger share.

The GOP is suffering a cataclysmic loss of direction right now and is bereft of big ideas that will bring about real change. A tax swap and big incentives for renewable energy ventures are sound policy. Borrowing bad liberal notions and repackaging them as “maverick” is a recipe for a November Democratic sweep.

Big Money Will Be Spent on Advertising in Lead-Up to Pennsylvania Vote

Breaking Records
Eight weeks ago, the presidential primaries were in Iowa. Six weeks from now, the next big state, Pennsylvania, will vote. In the longest primary season ever, it’s not surprising that we’re also seeing record amounts of money being spent on advertising. The Democratic race, especially, is making local media markets very happy. Thus far, the campaign has exceeded $210 million in broadcast, not including cable.

Not to be outdone, Pennsylvania will welcome the more than $40 million that is estimated for the weeks leading up to the vote. This dynamic level of media spending is driven by two key points:

1)Hillary Clinton is leading by double digits in most polls and needs to protect her #1 spot.
2)Senator Obama raised $55 million in February alone (vs. $35 million for Senator Clinton), giving him the ammunition to chip away at her lead.

For Clinton, the Keystone state is crucial. She needs to maintain momentum, especially after her minor setback in Mississippi. With PA Governor Rendell in her corner, the campaign believes that it can carry the state and move on to the next big day (North Carolina and Indiana) with the wind at her back (sorry Guam). It’s the boxer’s strategy: you can get knocked down a few times in the early rounds, but a strong finish will sway the judges’ final tally.

For Obama, he needs to take the next big piece of real estate on the map and show that he can carry a big general-election swing state. The Obama crew knows that the more time people spend with him on the campaign trail, the more people like him. So he’ll be traveling around the state kissing babies and spending his shekels on a record-breaking ad blitz. If Senator Obama can take PA and then North Carolina, he should have the delegates and the velocity to send Clinton home.

So what type of ads will we see?
For Hillary, I hope she continues the ad hominem attacks. The more beat up the winning Democrat, the better for John McCain. But if I were her campaign adviser, I’d still urge her to hit him hard on the issues, but tactfully. She should applaud him for bringing a level of energy to the political process that is sorely needed, but vociferously challenge him on his record. I'd attack his very foundation as an aisle crosser and a political transcendent. In his short time as senator, the Illinois senator has exclusively voted the party line and has never stood up and put his neck out when it mattered. Are these the qualities we want in our next president? She needs to show Democrats that the answer is “no.”

Barack's people will urge him to stay above the fray and act presidential in his advertising. In other words, vanilla. But it’s a long time between now and Pennsylvania and Hillary will use as much of her war chest as possible to undermine him. I can only hope that he is lured into a ticky-tack mud wrestling match while John McCain is refueling and raising money. If I were advising Obama, however, I'd tell him that he needs to articulate his vision into a tangible platform that moves beyond the soaring rhetoric. The doublespeak of his message is that while he speaks the word, "hope," he paints a desperate and victimized picture of the American people. Real change doesn't come from the government, it comes from the people. He hasn't yet shown how "change" means anything more than government bureaucracy. If he cannot give substance to his message and depth to his vision he will become an easy target as people tire of his empty oratory.