After beating that kid with the stage dad from hell by 12 million votes with 97.5 million votes cast in the "American Idol" final, David Cook has surely secured his place as McCain's long-awaited running mate, right?
Belly up to the Arizona barbecue...
So which calamities should Hillary Clinton use in her next commercial, now that she's won Pennsylvania? Some suggestions:
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A black-skinned man raised by a white family, Barack Obama has had a view of both sides of the racial divide unlike any other presidential candidate in history.
Holy cow. The man's mother is white. It's not like he was a black child dropped on the doorstep of a white family.
Of course, the media coverage of Obama's speech today has been more fawning than ever. Comparing it to JFK's "don't hate me 'cause I'm Catholic" speech. Saying he aimed to bridge the racial divide when he was actually just dipping into his oratorical skills to try to get himself off the hook over Paster Wright. And, notably, defending his association with Wright as a key tie to the black community -- thus essentially enforcing a racial divide instead of MLK's dream of one colorblind community hand-in-hand.
Might
he say a word or two about the pleased comments about his potential
presidency that were found on a laptop of the Colombian terror group
FARC? You know, the nuggets buried at the bottom of the AP's story on the contents of the seized laptop:
"Writing two days before his death, (FARC commander Raul) Reyes tells his comrades that 'the gringos,' working through Ecuador's government, are interested 'in talking to us on various issues.'
'They say the new president of their country will be (Barack) Obama,' he writes, saying Obama rejects both the Bush administration's free trade agreement with Colombia and the current military aid program."
Surely a notorious killer, kidnapper, and drug trafficker isn't an ideal endorsement. Two days after Reyes' death, before the laptop discovery was released, Obama released a short, general statement against the threats of war in South America, saying diplomacy through "international actors" (Danny Glover?? Sean Penn??) should be used to defuse the situation. Obama's previously signaled his opposition to free trade with Colombia, but what about the U.S. aid agreement by which President Alvaro Uribe has been able to battle the traffickers and the FARC (which still holds three American hostages), thus making the cities there livable again? I'd love to hear Obama's opinions in light of the Reyes mail...
So the other day I touched on McCain's need to win the moderates to win the presidency, but Mac's appearance to the Council for National Policy prompted me to expand upon these thoughts in my Los Angeles Daily News column today:
"Hey Sen. McCain, wanna know how you can win in November?
Let's go back to Friday and the Council for National Policy, where you met behind closed doors with - and I say this as a lifelong Republican - some of the right-wingerest of right-wingers in a pre-election kiss-up. The super-secret CNP, founded by Tim LaHaye as a forum for select conservatives, reportedly includes members such as James Dobson, Bob Jones III and Amway co-founder Richard DeVos.
'I don't think he came close to saying something to excite conservatives sitting on the sidelines waiting to hear something that would get them on his team,' Richard Viguerie, a longtime business associate of Sun Myung Moon, was prominently featured saying in The Washington Times, Moon's baby. 'Everything he said was rehash of what he has said before.'
Viguerie, according to the Times, echoed a sentiment of other CNP members: 'He didn't assure us he would bring conservatives into his White House or administration.' Viguerie was also upset that McCain wasn't more candid about his personal - that's the keyword, folks - faith.
McCain, don't worry about exciting the Christian Right. They'll be 'on your team' at a place called the ballot box when they're wretching at the thought of a Democrat-controlled White House. Yeah, even as they run to the next secret-handshake CNP meeting to gloat about their alleged 'protest vote.'
Everything you said was a rehash? Cool, Mac, because you shouldn't be changing your message right now to please the right. No assurances of CNP-acceptable righties in the White House? No promises needed.
Let them rant. Let them complain. Keep shaking off anti-Catholic televangelist John Hagee. You've got work to do. It's called 'being yourself.'
Because that, my friend, is the only way you'll win the election come November.
You are one of the few Republicans, in this day and age and after eight years of Bush's divisive presidency, who has the ability to handily lay claim to the middle. You need the ever-growing middle, moderate sea of voters to win the White House. You don't need to do anything that will get you painted as a panderer to the far right. The middle's reaction to that would be a sort of synchronized electoral 'ick.'..."
I'll be on The Martha Zoller Show at 8:20 a.m. Pacific time/11:20 a.m. Eastern this morning to talk about the presidential campaign here on out, specifically my hombre McCain. Listen live here!
Here's a little advice for McCain which won't appeal to some conservatives, but is necessary to win in November: Don't change. Be Mr. Maverick. No pandering to groups or people with whom you've never aligned before just to make CPAC happy.
Because the November win and the White House remaining in GOP control hinges on the middle. That big mass of moderates that seems to grow with every election, that group that stays in the polls' "undecided" column right up until Election Day. Buoyed by her wins, Hillary will now go after Obama at the kneecaps and their respective agendas won't long be shrouded in identity politics or feel-good, happy happy rallies. The left will be struggling to find its core, the left will be exposed, and the middle will be for the taking.
McCain will pick a more dyed-in-the-wool conservative VP. The angry Anybody But McCainers have already used up their 15 minutes of fame and their calls to boycott the polls or vote for the Dem to teach the GOP a lesson will be regarded as more than silly by the voters in just a few months. Mac is back, and the more important thing he can do right now is not change. Heck, he should emphasize his compromise record. Stress that the real change is reaching across the aisle once in a while to get things done in D.C.
Be yourself, Mac, be yourself. Seize the middle!!
Today, please re-book me on all radio shows where angry-right hosts unleashed on me over McCain some weeks ago, so I can now gloat.
Thanks!!
Needless to say, when I let a colleague read the lede of my Pajamas Media column today while still writing it, he was like, "I know where you're going with this!" Read on:
"I once read a passage by a Catholic priest explaining how people get hooked into new religious movements: First, the would-be church member was brought into a welcoming environment with upbeat music and palpable excitement. The person would accept their new faith easily as the flock of church loyalists seemed to provide sunny hope and instant friendship, filling some sort of void.
As time goes by and life’s normal ups and downs hit, then comes disillusionment when the member realizes that their faith is based on that emotional high, a high they’re not able to sustain 24-7 or while away from the group.
After disillusionment and the breakup, the onetime convert is back to square one.
As we’ve watched support for Barack Obama evolve from an ambitious challenge of Hillary Clinton to messianic mania, we’ve seen his followers increasingly less concerned with talking points on foreign policy, etc., than his ability to whip a crowd into a feel-good frenzy. We have voters inspired by the tone in which Obama speaks, how his skin color in the White House would make history, and how Michelle Obama thinks the emotional tidal wave is a step forward for America: 'For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.'
Yet for emotion, on the left or right, to be the deciding factor in such a key election puts the United States in a very precarious spot.
In last week’s Wall Street Journal, Stephen Hayes opined that Republicans busy criticizing the Obama campaign for leaning on hopeful rhetoric need to remember that back in the day Ronald Reagan was criticized for being too reliant on uplifting speeches.
'The assumption behind much of this criticism is that because Mr. Obama gives a good speech he cannot do substance,' Hayes wrote. 'This is wrong. Mr. Obama has done well in most of the Democratic debates because he has consistently shown himself able to think on his feet.'
Actually, he’s done well because Clinton consistently gets nailed with the hard questions first. Then, as he did with the question on Dmitry Medvedev in last week’s Ohio MSNBC debate, he can mold his answer off hers (though skipping that apparently cumbersome pronunciation of his name). But the supposition that this makes Obama’s rhetoric passable to run the White House is off-base. ..."
Tired
of your typical, snorefest political endorsement? Try the king of "Cat
Scratch Fever" on for size. He penned an op-ed for the Waco Tribune-Herald under the classic byline "Ted Nugent, Texas Wildman":
"...Even with a win in the Buckeye state, a loss in Texas should seal Clinton's fate. Good.
She strikes me as a power-hungry person who would sell her soul to become president. I wouldn't doubt it if she had her sights on the presidency 30 or more years ago. Anyone that drunk on presidential power is cause for concern.
Beneath her forced smiles, fake tears, smirks and impossible 'feel good' promises, Clinton comes across as a mean-spirited, narcissistic, vindictive person who is cut from the same cloth as Leona Helmsley, the notorious billionaire Queen of Mean — infamous for saying that only the little people pay taxes. The vibe I get from Clinton: Cross my path at your own peril.
...Do your duty on Tuesday and blow Clinton's presidential candle out before we get more smoke in our eyes and a nagging gag develops."
It seems like just yesterday that I accompanied a music-critic friend to a Ted Nugent show, raccoon tail pinned to his tush, shooting a drop-down cutout of Saddam with a bow and arrow and singing a song called "Kiss My Ass" written specifically for Boxer, Feinstein, etc. ...
A
suggestion for John McCain: J.C. Watts. Four-term former congressman
from Oklahoma; once the fourth-highest ranking member of the House as
chairman of the House Republican Conference. Former quarterback,
Southern Baptist youth minister, businessman, author of the book "What
Color is a Conservative," pundit, great orator.
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Change is good
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