Rasmussen’s email this morning links out to this…

Monday, September 15, 2008

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters say John McCain is prepared right now to be president, and 50% say the same thing about Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden. Forty-four percent (44%) say the man at the top of Biden’s ticket, Barack Obama, is ready, but 45% say he isn’t.

Just 26% say McCain is not ready, and 34% feel that way about Biden, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Over half of voters (52%) say McCain’s running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, is not prepared to be president, but 33% disagree (crosstabs available for Premium Members).

Among voters not affiliated with either major political party, 71% say McCain is prepared for the Presidency while just 35% say the same about Obama.

While hammering McCain for being a politician and Palin for being unprepared make good copy and excite the base (including the base working in big media companies) it doesn’t reassure the typical voter that Obama is ready for the Big Comfy Chair.

Obama needs to get back on message and talk about why people should vote for him, not why they shouldn’t vote for his opponent. If he doesn’t so that, he’ll both risk losing and in losing widen the political divisions that may lead to a Cold Civil War (a post I’m working on in my spare time).

Go watch this video and cheer up.

Sorry to have been so uninvolved in the conversation – been working on a server upgrade (we also host Patterico, his traffic has gotten kinda big, and our configuration wasn’t working out), and thinking about revisions to Winds to present to Joe (who still, after all, owns the joint). I’m thinking of upgrading to MT 4.2, which – among other thinly-tested features, offers the ability to have multiple authors with their own blogs, and then a common presentation of the latest posts from all of them.

Users can create (or, ultimately, import from Facebook or other sites) a profile, and see in one place all the comments or blog posts they have made.

The idea might be that there would be an armedliberal.windsofchange.net, joekatzman.windsofchange.net, metrico.windsofchange.net etc. – and each of them would feed www.windsofchange.net.

It implies a few things – that we come up with some definition of what the site is ‘about’ and some core topics we want to encourage people to participate in.

So – let’s trigger a bit of a discussion in comments – does this sound like an interesting upgrade, and what features would you like to see on the site? Let’s hold off on the topics discussion for a little bit.

So, as things tend to do, I sat down to make notes for a post, did a little surfing, and found that matters are more complex than I’d started out believing.

I started to write about the problem posed by an outsider – like Sarah Palin – who has political skills but much less policy knowledge. How do we know when too little policy knowledge is a problem? What’s the boundary, in other words, or is she Jesse Ventura?One of Bill Clinton’s great features was that he combined great political skills and deep policy knowledge – he could both talk about the history of an issue and rally people to act on it at a higher level than most politicians. What he was deficient in, to some extent, was judgment.

Because what we want from our political leaders is a combination of things – the political skill to rally people to join them in solving a problem and to build the alliances needed to Get Things Done – that’s the core job; the policy skill to understand the mechanics of issues and how best to exercise their political skills; and, finally, the judgment needed to decide on what policies to further and what politics to engage in.

I started to write about that, and about the legitimate concern that Palin may not be well-developed enough on the policy front to comfortably sit in the big chair in the Oval Office. I’ll come back and write about that some more (along with all the other things in the queue).

But in surfing around this morning, I found the same Newsbusters post that Glen Wishard linked to in the comments below, and fell into my usual high dudgeon about crappy, stupidly biased media. The parts they cut out are in bold.

GIBSON: Let me ask you about some specific national security situations.

PALIN: Sure.

GIBSON: Let’s start, because we are near Russia, let’s start with Russia and Georgia.

The administration has said we’ve got to maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia. Do you believe the United States should try to restore Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia?

PALIN: First off, we’re going to continue good relations with Saakashvili there. I was able to speak with him the other day and giving him my commitment, as John McCain’s running mate, that we will be committed to Georgia. And we’ve got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable and we have to keep…

GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.

PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there. I think it was unfortunate. That manifestation that we saw with that invasion of Georgia shows us some steps backwards that Russia has recently taken away from the race toward a more democratic nation with democratic ideals. That’s why we have to keep an eye on Russia.

And, Charlie, you’re in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors.We need to have a good relationship with them. They’re very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they’re doing in Georgia?

PALIN: Well, I’m giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

You know, it sure seems like the interview was edited to make Palin look far less thoughtful and knowledgeable than she really was.

I’m tossing an email over to ABC News, asking “what the hell?“

Charles Krauthammer composed the term ‘The Bush Doctrine’. He’s good friends with ‘The Bush Doctrine’. And he says that:

Informed her? Rubbish.

The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.

There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration — and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.

…and it was linked by Sully, of all people! He had a moment of lucidity…is there hope? Go over to Ted’s Place, and read this.

I believe if the Presidential election were held today that the Republican ticket would win. THAT is stunning. How could that be you ask? How could the Democratic ticket have snatched defeat from the jaws of apparent victory?

I think the Democrats have done very poor marketing and positioning of late of their ticket. They had better change before it is too late if they want to win. Think of this take as purely an exercise in marketing not as my personal political agenda as I do not have one here.

The media and the Democratic marketing machine have positioned Obama as the “establishment”; as the clear winner; and as a “media darling.” The Democratic Convention – I believe – backfired as it was more a coronation than a political rally and convention. Obama is coming off as a defender of the Presidential position and McCain as the attacker and agent of change. Wow. Think of that dipsy-doodle move? I believe America embraces underdogs and outsiders. Overreacting to Obama’s lack of experience and trying to make him the “new establishment” was a bad move. Consumers sniff out inauthenticity a mile away. They liked and respected the old Obama. They don’t recognize the new and improved Obama and he is being packaged as just another politician. The angrier he gets, the worse he does in the polls. Obama should use niceness as his competitive weapon.

That’s in close concert with what I wrote below (probably why I think it’s so smart):

He needs to stop with the public knifefighting. While I don’t doubt that he’s good in a room, the public collapse of his “hope” rhetoric onto his “lipstick” rhetoric is something he won’t be able to survive.

Look. Startups are always valued on hope. Established companies are always valued on history. As soon as Barack acts like an established politician and talks like an established politician, he’s going to get valued like an established politician, and he’s not going to like that.

Ted goes on:

Obama should NOT attack. He shouldn’t respond daily to every tit for tat. He should soar above the noise. He should create a manifesto of change and communicate it at every opportunity. He should belittle the conversation not the people talking. He should focus on what he means by his change and he should get himself repositioned as a national healer, as a centrist and as someone who can reach across the aisle and create a national mandate to make the country great again. He needs to be a man with a plan and not be seen as a man who is being handled by experts and a political party.

He should NOT be seen as bedfellows with the national media. It is truly stunning to me as an observer to watch how the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot since the European tour for Obama. I don’t think the campaign has hit on its “Change: I am an outsider and not your normal politician” theme since that trip which made him look like he was already the President and was running for re-election. As he became the “incumbent” with the media, McCain became the outsider and the agent of change and our country wants change. McCain’s choice of Palin on the ticket was brilliant and the media thought it was dumb. The mainstream media is out of touch with America. It is mostly always wrong.

This turnaround in the polls is stunning. This election could become a case history in just bad positioning and marketing by a major political party.

Hard for me to say it any better…go read the whole thing.

So fellow turncoat Democrat (hey, we just don’t believe in deceptive memes, bubba) Kaus points me to author Ron Rosenbaum’s piece over at Pajamas, where he actually gives some damn good advice to Obama (not as good as mine, I’ll argue). But then Rosenbaum goes on to slag Starbucks in the post just below.Now, I’ve never drunk a cup of coffee in – well, a long time. I’d sip them when I was younger and dating and dates would suggest that the only reason why I didn’t like coffee was because I hadn’t tasted theirs – which always seemed like an invitation to an early breakfast, if you know what I mean.

Coffee sucks. Fully. Mark Helprin got it right in his great book ‘Memoirs From An Ant-Proof Case‘.

But, strangely, Starbucks does not suck.

What, you might ask, does a non-coffee-drinker see in Starbucks? And I’ll tell you. Go to the counter and order this: Nonfat cocoa, no vanilla, no whip. Just that: pure, hot, almost bitter chocolate. Damn, it’s good. As far as I’m concerned the markets are investing hundreds of millions and people are drinking mediocre coffee just so I can get my hot chocolate.

And I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Here’s Politico today:

Polls showing John McCain tied or even ahead of Barack Obama are stirring angst and second-guessing among some of the Democratic Party’s most experienced operatives, who worry that Obama squandered opportunities over the summer and may still be underestimating his challenges this fall.

“It’s more than an increased anxiety,” said Doug Schoen, who worked as one of Bill Clinton’s lead pollsters during his 1996 reelection and has worked for both Democrats and independents in recent years. “It’s a palpable frustration. Deep-seated unease in the sense that the message has gotten away from them.”

What’s the problem?

Forgetting the lessons of 1992: One of the certainties of American politics is that it is hard for Democrats to win presidential elections without a deep connection to Main Street values and economics. That would seem doubly true for Obama, given the unstated but undeniable barrier his race presents in certain areas of the country. And few nominees have ever had such an inviting target as the economic record of the Bush administration … from a ballooning federal budget deficit to higher unemployment rates to a mortgage crisis that could be the most menacing fiscal threat in decades.

and

Yet still, the Obama campaign seems to be struggling to find a consistent, cohesive economic message. One can understand why aides would not want to muddy his mantra of change and his image as a post-partisan, revolutionary figure. But blue-collar voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan likely won’t vote for Obama because of some meta-narrative or a series of fabulous speeches.

“The [Obama] campaign is beginning to look like other campaigns,” said a former top strategist for past Democratic presidential campaigns, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Obama is struggling with working-class whites just like John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Michael Dukakis did, and Walter Mondale. He’s struggling with voters in the border-state South. And he’s struggling with an enormous wind at his back, a hatred for George Bush and a mainstream media that is little short of a chorus for his campaign.”

Clinton, of course, was the only one of these Democrats to actually win the struggle. As he could tell Obama, voters want to know how their lives would be bettered by an Obama presidency in very specific terms. This connection (along with independent Ross Perot) is what powered his upset run against George H.W. Bush in 1992.

I’ll follow up with a longer post tonight – I want to go back and poke the Netroots in the eye; their notion that there’s a vast, untapped well of new voters who a leftwing insurgent candidacy could bring to the polls isn’t working out so well, is it?

Obama needs to do three things right now:

He needs to clarify people’s understanding of him. The reality is that he went to a radical black church; he can’t wish those facts away. The reality is that he got his career started in association with a bunch of unrepentant former radicals; he can’t give a speech and have those facts vanish. The reality is that he’s a young man who has had less experience than we are used to in our Presidents; he can’t make that go away either. And yes, the reality is that he’s black and some people are going to be uncomfortable voting for him because of that. Can’t make that vanish either.

But he can take those facts and use his vision and speaking ability to weave them into a picture of himself that people will understand and be comfortable with. He hasn’t done it – he hasn’t squared the circle of his beliefs and his history. I believe he can, and while it’s late I don’t believe it’s too late.

He needs to let people know what’s in it for them. He’s got a lot of position papers out there, but he ought to get four or five lower and middle class families and bring them around the country with him and tell us, exactly, what his policies will mean for them. Make the white papers concrete.

And if he can’t do that – can’t draw the line from his policy papers into real changes in people’s lives – he needs new policy papers.

He needs to stop with the public knifefighting. While I don’t doubt that he’s good in a room, the public collapse of his “hope” rhetoric onto his “lipstick” rhetoric is something he won’t be able to survive.

Look. Startups are always valued on hope. Established companies are always valued on history. As soon as Barack acts like an established politician and talks like an established politician, he’s going to get valued like an established politician, and he’s not going to like that.

We’re seeing him get tested, and we’ll know in a month what he’s really all about. I supported the candidate of hope and inclusiveness, and I believe lots of people like me want the same thing. If this becomes an election about toughness, well…

An oped by Dr. Kent Sepkowitz in the – I’m shocked – NYT:

SPEEDING is the cause of 30 percent of all traffic deaths in the United States — about 13,000 people a year. By comparison, alcohol is blamed 39 percent of the time, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But unlike drinking, which requires the police, breathalyzers and coercion to improve drivers’ behavior, there’s a simple way to prevent speeding: quit building cars that can exceed the speed limit.

Most cars can travel over 100 miles an hour – an illegal speed in every state. Our continued, deliberate production of potentially law-breaking devices has no real precedent. We regulate all sorts of items to decrease danger to the public, from baby cribs to bicycle helmets. Yet we continue to produce fast cars despite the lives lost, the tens of billions spent treating accident victims, and a good deal of gasoline wasted. (Speeding, after all, substantially reduces fuel efficiency due to the sheering force of wind.)

Gosh, there’s so much to deal with here.

I really have two issues with this; the first is that I’ve come to believe that freedom means the freedom for other people to do things you find wasteful, annoying, even somewhat disgusting. Yes, there are limits to freedom, and yes, the government has rights to some level of control. But this pushes a little past it and moves directly to the far horizon.

Otherwise it doesn’t matter much. Yes, we’d be better off if driving was safer, and yes, speeding contributes to the risk of driving. But the steps we’d have to take to keep the risk of speeding vanishingly small would be so intrusive that we might as well live in England (about which more in a moment). But to be honest, if we banned call phones and additionally required intrusive vehicle inspections like the TUV in Germany (and had German driving license requirements), we’d probably have a bigger impact on road hazards.

There’s a second issue as well. The playground equipment next to our house (we’re across from a wonderful park) was recently ‘upgraded’, and the new stuff – well, it’d be hard for an infant to hurt themselves on it. And so my son doesn’t use it – it’s boring. And what I worry about isn’t that he’s more sedentary (he’s taken to climbing the trees in the park, meaning that I keep mineral spirits and tweezers handy); it’s that he’s losing the opportunity to gain judgment.

We’re raising a generation of people who have no clue about how to take care of themselves. They are the couch potatoes of Wall.E (annoying music) brought to flesh.

There’s no way that’s a good thing. And if it means that my odds of dying are somewhat higher when I’m headed out in my Civic Hybrid, so be it.

This kind of intrusiveness is coming to a kind of crescendo in the UK, where antiterrorist laws are being twisted so they can be used against … wait for it … people who throw away too much trash, or make noise and annoy their neighbors.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph found that three quarters of local authorities have used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 over the past year.

The Act gives councils the right to place residents and businesses under surveillance, trace telephone and email accounts and even send staff on undercover missions.

…

Councils are using the Act to tackle dog fouling, the unauthorised sale of pizzas and the abuse of the blue badge scheme for disabled drivers.

Among 115 councils that responded to a Freedom of Information request, 89 admitted that they had instigated investigations under the Act. The 82 councils that provided figures said that they authorised or carried out a total of 867 RIPA investigations during the year to August

Of course, the agencies should be trusted with those powers…

Sir Jeremy Beecham, the acting chairman of the Local Government Association, which represents councils, said last night: “Councils are tuned into people’s fears about the potential overzealous use of these crime- fighting powers. They know that they’re only to be used to tackle residents’ complaints about serious offences, like when benefit cheats are robbing hard-working taxpayers or fly-by-night traders are ripping off vulnerable pensioners.”

He added: “Councils do not use these powers to mount fishing expeditions. First and foremost it is about protecting the public, not intruding on privacy. Crime-busting powers are targeted at suspected criminals and used only when absolutely necessary.”

That kind of thinking, to me, is the all-too-logical extension of Dr. Sepkowitz’s thinking.

I have two immediate responses…

Here’s one:

What is it?
2009 Cadillac CTS-V

What’s special about it?
What’s special about it?! Well, how about 550 horsepower? That’s pretty special, wouldn’t you say?

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention for the last 10 minutes or so to the horsepower war raging among carmakers, this 550 hp means the 2009 Cadillac CTS-V’s supercharged 6.2-liter V8 makes 43 hp more than the 6.2-liter V8 of the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, 50 hp more than the 5.0-liter V10 of the BMW M5, 130 hp more than the 4.2-liter V8 of the Audi RS4 and a whopping 134 hp more than the 5.0-liter V8 of the Lexus IS-F.

And here’s the other:

Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.