Pardon Me
- Posted by ryan on August 18th, 2008 filed in Policy/Politics
But I just need to talk about the election for a moment. The campaign has been infuriating. The Republican Party is sick to its core–really, disturbingly sick. The media is as stupid and incompetent as ever. These guys consider themselves professionals. Some of them appear to take their work seriously. And yet someone setting out to deliberately obscure the truth would have a hard time presenting as distorted a picture of reality as emerges from the MSM.
But, dude, this is no surprise, and I can’t understand why any Obama supporter would panic at this point. I didn’t vote for the guy because I thought he would breeze into office. I voted for him in no small part because he impressed me as by far the most competent administrator in the primaries. And this view has been vindicated, in my opinion. He’s a good candidate, with good ideas and a lot of money, but he’s also a very good executive running a very tight ship.
If Obama loses this, everyone will say the Dems should have nominated someone else. No way. The fire would have been as hot or hotter for anyone else, and they’d have fallen apart, over-responding and getting lost in the back and forth. If you have any faith at all in the American people, then relax, Obama is going to win this. If you don’t, then you should already be relaxed, because it should always have been clear that the dirtier guy would win.
If you’re panicking, you’re paying too much attention to the noise. The dynamics have not changed in the least.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
The only thing I liked about Clinton versus Obama was the she was guaranteed to run a non-wussy general election campaign, and would do anything to win. I still have doubts about Obama. Where are his negative ads during the Olympics?
August 18th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
YES! Thanks for that. Hearing everyone freak out about the small stuff makes me start to feel anxious, even though I think he’s following the right path. I think progressives are just so sore after having lost to Bush twice that we want to overreact to everything.
If you haven’t see, Yglesias has some analysis on Daily Tracking polls that back you up:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/08/the_three_day_itch.php
And DCuist, as NBC said:
“But make no mistake, Obama’s running plenty of negative TV ads, particularly in the industrial Midwestern states. In fact, one of Obama’s biggest candidate strengths — which doesn’t get the attention it deserves — is that he plays political hardball as well as his opponents; he just sometimes does it under the radar.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0808/Obama_Fix_the_economy.html?showall
August 18th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Obama is a pretty cool customer. But there is a point where there’s so much shit thrown at the wall that something is sticking. I think that is what Rove is hoping for. I’ll be more worried if this keeps happening after the convention when surrogates can go to town on McCain.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
He many be running negative ads in the midwest, but why not in DC? Northern Virginia is a key area for him.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:50 am
If you have any faith at all in the American people…
We’re hosed.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Isn’t paying attention to noise the definition of the Internet?