Abu Hatem أبو حاتم

From the neoconservative nutjobs at the Weekly Standard:

In a new post, Smith reports that, according to Buchanan’s sister, Palin’s only contact with Buchanan was at a fundraiser for an Alaskan politician–not for Buchanan:

I also spoke to Bay Buchanan, Pat’s sister, this morning. She also said her only knowledge of Palin’s contact with Buchanan was at the event in the ’90s, which she described as a fundraiser for Alaska Republican Jerry Ward. Ward couldn’t immediately be reached.

Hmm… we’ll see what Pat says today on MSNBC.

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And so the lynching begins:

1. Palin Could Hurt McCain With Jewish Community: Palin supported Buchanan in 1996
2. Palin’s Israel/Florida problem
3. Jedi Report: “As a Jew, anyone who supports Buchanan disqualified for President”
4. Palin on Israel
5. Jewish Journal: Palin supported Buchanan who supports Hitler, many Jews may switch their pick
6. Would Palin still carry a pitchfork for Pat?
7. Palin’s Buchanan problem

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David Frum, a Canadian American and former Bush speechwriter most popular for the coining of this short phrase, “We cannot wait until the smoking gun comes in the form of a mushroom cloud,” and calling Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Libya the “axis of evil,” does not like the Palin pick.  At his National Review blog he says “The longer I think about it, the less well this selection sits with me.”  And in a column at the Canadian National Post Frum goes all out against Palin saying that the GOP will now concentrate more on abortion than on foreign policy (more proof the current GOP doesn’t care about pro-life issues?):

She has zero foreign policy experience, and no record on national security issues…

Should John McCain lose in November, Sarah Palin has just pole-vaulted into front-runner status for 2012. Should Mr. McCain win, her grip on the next Republican nomination will become a lock.

So this is the future of the Republican party you are looking at: a future in which national security has bumped down the list of priorities behind abortion politics, gender politics, and energy politics. Ms. Palin is a bold pick, and probably a shrewd one. It’s not nearly so clear that she is a responsible pick, or a wise one.

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I personally thought it was brilliant, Obama went head-on with McCain and unlike Kerry didn’t shy away from his positions or excessively flip-flop.  Obama, to put it simply, was brave.  He wasn’t afraid of McCain, he hit him head on so much so that McCain’s people didn’t know how to respond.  Yet I did not like the Greek columns and 80,000 people, like Berlin it established the whole “cult of personality” image.  Rhetorical orators usually can easily build a cult following and support.  Woe to those who actually believed his call for statism and distrust of the market which is so easy to accomplish when people are disaffected (80% believe we are on the wrong track).  I hear FDR’s horrendous New Deal all over again.Buchanan thought he beat Kennedy last night on MSNBC.  This is how you know it must have been a good speech, if Pat Buchanan, the most right-wing guy on TV, is praising it: 

 “I stand with Obama! It was a genuinely outstanding speech, it was magnificent. I saw Cuomo’s speech, I saw Kennedy in ‘80, I even saw Douglas MacArthur, I saw MLK; this is the greatest convention speech and probably the most important because unlike Cuomo and the others, this was an acceptance speech, this came out of the heart of America, and he went right at the heart of America. This wasn’t a liberal speech at all. This is a deeply, deeply centrist speech. It had wit, it had humor, and when he used the needle on McCain, he stuck it into McCain and it was funny. It was Kennedy’s speech in ‘80. I laughed with Kennedy when he was needling Ronald Reagan.”

Here are Buchanan’s comments on video: 

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then you know she’s not that bad.  Krauthammer, author of the 2004 speech/book Democratic Realism which supports invading preemptive war against undemocratic nations to pacify the world in a liberal order, and a central media and intellectual supporter of the Iraq war, calls the Palin pick “suicidal” because of her lack of foreign policy “experience” and “readiness.”

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Judy Woodruff of PBS’ Newshour interviewed three Alaskans familiar with Palin today and they all agreed in describing her as moderate, with problems with “super conservatives.”  She also apparently used the budget surplus to fund subsidies to buy gasoline, definitely not fiscally conservative.  Indeed, NYTimes’ David Brooks called Palin “not wed to Reagan” and said she was “progressive on gay and lesbian issues” and noted his high praise for her preoccupation with global warming.

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Some thoughts:

• She’s better for the GOP than a socially liberal, fiscally liberal, foreign policy militant democratic imperialist like Joe Lieberman.
• She’s better than a former socially liberal, economically moderate, foreign policy militant like Mitt Romney.
• I know she is supposed to be a “Buchananite” but I don’t see what Pat Buchanan sees in her.
• Her contention that John McCain is the best solution to the republican party shows how “traditional” she is.
• I know she is his VP, but any true traditionalist conservative does not endorse McCain.
• She praised her son’s army service.  I am very pro-defense well.  However, being pro-defense doesn’t mean being pro-offense, and that is what our army is being used on today.
• She truly is pro-life it appears, and she is pro-family and opposes same sex marriage.  I don’t know if her strong anti-abortion stance will truly win her over with Hillary voters.  It doesn’t win over pro-lifers like me because I can’t be pro-life and vote for John McCain who doesn’t respect the sanctity of life in Iraq.
• She’s been governor for 1 year and 8 months.  Before that she was a mayor for a very short period and actually put “City Council” and “PVA” on her resume in her speech today.  That wins over people like me who hate people with “experience” in Washington - but the McCain camp now can’t keep pulling the experience card on Obama - and Obama is going to fight back when they attack him on foreign policy experience.  Obama’s campaign’s argument will sound something like this: McCain said that his VP was going to be primarily someone who was qualified to be President - Sarah Palin has less experience both in government and in foreign policy than I do - thus I have sufficient experience to be commander in chief.
• Palin’s emphasis on her ability to be a “reformer” and not be “bound to the GOP” kills two birds with one stone.  To Christian conservatives and others on the socially conservative Right she is arguing that she is not bound to the GOP’s corruption and loss of principle concerning the original Reaganite message.  To average Americans watching at home including Hillary voters and independents it is saying “Although John McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time - I am a maverick and an independent and not bound by my party.”  Yet this is a fundamental contradiction - she can’t be all things to all people - and one wonders what she truly is?
• Chuck Todd on MSNBC said that Joe Biden will not be able to pounce on her now during the VP debates, thus McCain has effectively neutralized everything good about Biden.  If Biden gangs up on her during the VP debate it will appear like he is bullying since Palin is a woman.

In all, I have to agree with David Beito the Independent Institute’s the Beacon blog on this one:

Truth in adversting.  I despise nearly everything McCain stands for and hope he loses.  Having said that, unless the media finds skeletons in her closet, the  Palin pick is a very smart move on his part.  It reinforces his conservative base and helps him with women and independent voters.    He might just win this?! A depressing thought.

Obama’s choice of Biden, by contrast, was completely uninspired.   Biden. as the ultimate insider, only serves to  undermine Obama’s “change” message.

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Dick Morris, former Clinton adviser and a Republican, wrote last week that Obama’s snub of Hillary would be deadly if McCain picked a woman.  McCain’s pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin - an actual conservative unlike himself - as his running mate (and Pat Buchanan’s favorite pick as she once worked on his presidential campaign - he has called her a “Buchananite” before) is going to help him out a lot.

This is very unfortunate for people like me who are more anti-McCain than anti-Obama.  Sarah Pallin was a much smarter pick than Joe Biden.  She is a governor, a new face, and will take away some Hillary votes from Obama - especially hurting Obama in Ohio and the heartland.

Obama is going to have to paint Pallin as an extremist and Biden is going to have to beat her in the VP debates if he wants to counter this one.

McCain is up 1.4 points on the prediction markets after this pick.  Too early for national polls, but national polls don’t tell us anything.

I don’t know enough about Sarah Pallin right now to form a political judgment about her.

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For those unfamiliar in the ways of American elections there are three time-tested ways to know who is currently winning:

•  Prediction markets in swing states: specifically Rasmussen and Intrade which are the most reliable.  Prediction markets are more reliable than polls according to the vast majority of analysts.
• The Rasmussen balance of power barometer which combines both prediction markets and the latest polls - check out each swing state.
• Fivethirtyeight.com - which is in conjunction with Rasmussen - check out each swing state.
• RealClearPolitics does a fairly accurate average of polls in swing states, check those out too.
• Use Allan Abramowitz’s election barometer based on Allan Lichman’s Keys to the White House.  This formula only failed at one election which was 1968.  It computes who is most likely to win the election by looking at the GDP growth rate, the president’s approval rating, and the amount of years one party has been in power.  EB = NAR + (5*GDP) - 25.

What NOT to look at: national polls, they just don’t matter what so ever. If you monitor the Intrade prediction markets you find that Obama’s odds are extremely high.  August, despite McCain’s strong jabs, has been his best month so far - with a high of 62.5% and a low of 52.5% (prediction markets and not polls).  If we compare this to McCain’s August market we find McCain generally rising, which is good as August has been his best month yet of campaigning, yet McCain’s low is a 35% and his high is a 40%.  Prediction markets are volatile however, so any of this could change soon:  Thus, as of today, we have Obama winning with a 59.1 - 41.2 difference at the current moment on the prediction markets.If we look at the election barometer - EB = NAR + (5*GDP) - 25, then we have a electoral barometer reading of EB = -37 + (5*3.3) -25 or EB = -45.5 or slightly better odds for the Democrats than every year since 1984 and almost approaching the electoral barometer reading of 1980 or -66 which actually was the electoral barometer rating in the early summer.  If GDP growth dips any in the next two months, Obama’s chances will be higher. Rassmussen’s Balance of Power based in prediction markets and polls says Obama is leading 193-183 in the electoral college.Basically, Obama is winning at the moment but it is still close.  Colorado is going to be a very important state, and so is Nevada, because as I have written previously, Obama can lose the entire heartland (except Pennsylvania and Michigan where he is already very likely to win) yet win Nevada and Colorado and still win if we use the 2004 Kerry-Bush map.Here is the current statistics on Nevada and Colorado:Nevada:Tossup.  McCain leads 45-42 in latest Rasmussen poll, while poll average (Fivethirtyeight.com) is 44-44.  Yet on the prediction markets McCain leads 61-45.Colorado:Toss-up but leans Democratic, latest Rasmussen poll 47-45 for McCain, average of recent polls is 44-46 for McCain, while predictions markets go 59.9-43 for Obama.Its a tight race, we should check next month to see where Obama and McCain’s numbers go after both conventions and VPs are named.  The race also gets a lot more heated up after Labor Day, thus late September should tell us where things are going more clearly.

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Obama’s choice of Biden as his running mate is probably based upon his desire to strengthen perceived weaknesses on the foreign policy and experience fronts.  Nevertheless, Biden and his foot-in-mouth syndrome is a horrible choice.  Not only does Biden have an extensive history of gaffes - he is little known in the U.S. despite his over 30-year record in the Senate.

Obama has two major hurdles that he must overcome to win this election, and Biden has not helped on either of them:

1. Winning over the Reagan democrats in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri, West Virginia, and Virginia.
2. Winning back Hillary supporters who still, en masse, have not come on board for Obama.

Obama looks as if he is going to most likely win in Pennsylvania and Michigan.  He is almost certainly going to lose Indiana, and West Virginia while Virginia and Ohio are toss-ups.  Biden does not help Obama in either Virginia or Ohio.  An unknown Irish Catholic northerner, like John Kerry, does not stand a chance in the heartland.

Kerry lost Virginia by 8 points and Ohio by 2 points.  His victories in Michigan and Pennsylvania were slim - by 4 and 2 points respectively.  Missouri was lost by 7 points.  And Indiana was a huge loss for Kerry by 20 points.

Evan Bayh would have helped Obama keep Indiana close, thus diverting some of McCain’s resources, and would have helped in Ohio.  Hillary Clinton would have re-united the party and given him those 18 million votes.  Bill Richardson would have given him a clear strategy through the midwest and with hispanic voters giving him a Nevada-Colorado-New Mexico road to victory.  Chuck Hagel would have put many republicans on board and helped Obama in the heartland.

By chosing Biden, Obama has ensured that he has to work doubly hard to encourage Reagan democrats in the heartland to vote for him.  Obama cannot rely upon a percieved upset in Virginia.  If Obama does in fact lose Ohio, which is very probable being that he lost to Hillary Clinton there by about 9 points and is currently losing in the latest Rasmussen polls by 5, then he will be in deep trouble.

Of course there is a way for Obama to win without Ohio, and with his massive fundraising appeal and the great dissatisfaction with Bush it seems almost self-evident that Obama is going to win the election (see Prof. Allan Lichtman’s formula for presidential elections for more information).  Obama could win instead through a midwest strategy of Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, along with Iowa and New Hampshire.  All of the aforementioned states have been swing states for the past several elections (unlike Virginia and other far reach Obama targets such as Georgia).

If Obama does lose Ohio, and the map stays the way it is, then Colorado would become a must win for Obama.  The following four combinations give Obama victory without the Reagan democrats in such a scenario  (from 270towin.com):

1. CO + IA + NM + NV
2. CO + IA + NV + NH
3. CO + IA + NM + NH
4. CO + NM + NV + NH

If we take out Nevada which leans McCain then Obama would only have route (3) to win the presidency.  And if McCain picks Romney as his running mate this entire strategy will be destroyed with Romney’s strong mormon support in Nevada, Colorado, and even New Mexico to a lesser extent.  If McCain wants to win he should pick Romney, and Obama should have picked someone who would have helped with the Reagan democrats (Bayh, Clinton, Webb, etc.) or someone who could have helped with the midwest (Richardson), but not a Joe Biden who is a horrible pick.

This may be the day that Obama blew his overwhelming odds and lost the election.

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