1) From Rasmussen Reports, “The Daily Presidential Tracking Poll” by Scott Rasmussen Over the weekend, I was having an impromptu conversation with the McCain campaign’s deputy director of online communications. During our chat, I predicted, “Your guy will be within two points of Obama in the Rasmussen tracking poll by the end of the week.” I mention this anecdote not merely to highlight the tantalizing list of glittering political all-stars that I habitually hobnob with, but also to illustrate how the fact that Obama was damaging his campaign narrative with his serial flip-flops was easily foreseeable. Lo and behold, in today’s Rasmussen tracking poll, McCain has pulled to within two points. Obviously this has nothing to do with anything the McCain campaign has done. In spite of the McCainiacs’ best efforts, balanced-budget-mania has yet to sweep the nation. And the candidate’s over-the-top disparaging of social security hasn’t served as a bracing helping of straight talk that has energized his campaign. In order to preserve whatever dwindling chances I have of someday getting a seat on the Straight Talk Express, I will only mention in passing this week’s cloddish efforts of campaign surrogates Carly Fiorina and Phil Gramm. A few days ago, we discussed how this campaign will boil down to Obama vs. Not Obama. Not Obama had a very good week. 2) From Real Clear Politics, “What’s Wrong With Senator Obama” by Bob Beckel. Beckel’s article takes a sympathetic look at his 14 year-old son’s plight. In short, the lad has stopped swooning:
Does Obama really sound different or are people just hearing him differently? The uplift he provided earlier in the campaign season was so bracing precisely because it was new. But as Achilles discovered with his shield, nothing can stay new forever. We conservatives began months ago to mock Obama for labeling every issue that wasn’t to his liking a “distraction.” All he wanted to talk about was Hope/Change. But the problem with politics is that you have to make all sorts of Hobson’s choices that will escape the Hope/Change paradigm. For instance, do you beat back the environmentalists and make them accept common sense policies, or do you tell the rest of the country to lump it and enjoy its $4/gallon gas? On another level, do you talk common sense about Iraq and enrage the left or do you remain committed to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory? In other words, politics has to be conducted on a lower plane than the one Obama comfortably operates on. 3) From the Washington Post, “Donors Asked to Give For Two” by Matthew Mosk Forget about the unforgivable cheesiness of Barack Obama raising money for Hillary Clinton while he has his own pressing matters to tend to. (Is this indicative of the way he’ll stand up for American interests as president?) More interesting are the dark hints being proffered by Obama command central regarding the status of the campaign’s once historic fundraising:
The three months in question are March, April and May. So what will June’s numbers look like? Sean Oxendine, one of the wiz kids at Next Right, notices a pattern:
Since Bob Beckel’s son and I have already made the point about the declining enthusiasm of the Obama minions and I hate to beat a dead horse, I’ll instead take note of a different phenomenon. Remember a few months ago when Obama and his champions (especially in the lefty blogopshere) crowed about how they and Obama had figured out how to turn the internet into an ATM? What’s happened since then? Did they misplace the recipe to the secret sauce? It was obvious at the time that Obama’s internet fundraising, much like Ron Paul’s, had nothing to do with the campaign’s facility with the intertubes. Those who thought otherwise probably believe that the trees push the wind. Both candidates’ fundraising successes can be attributed to having captured lightning in a bottle. Of course, the relevant political consultants will promise that they can do the trick again on demand. And candidates will hire them based on that pledge. But there is no formula to such things. Howard Dean had similar successes in 2004. Joe Trippi, the purported architect of those successes, had no luck recreating them for John Edwards’s campaign this time around. 4) From ConserativeHQ.com, “Conservatives Deeply Depressed Over McCain Campaign” by Richard Viguerie. Back in the day, Richard Viguerie earned quite a name for himself by inventing the mail (or something like that, anyway). Now, having modernized with the times, he scampers around the internet sending out a seemingly endless supply of emails lamenting everyone else’s lack of conservative bona fides. John McCain is currently Viguerie’s Public Enemy #1:
Let’s put aside the intellectual incoherence for a moment. On second thought, let’s not. In Viguerie’s telling, John McCain never has been and never will be a conservative. And yet if McCain surrounded himself with conservatives during the campaign, Viguerie would feel much more enthusiastic about things. Talk about a cheap date! Me, I take the opposite tack. I realize that McCain has several policy inclinations that are markedly different from my own. But he did win the nomination. And he is much better than the other guy, the one who responds to Iran testing missiles that could destroy Israel by lamenting America’s provocations. So I will vote for McCain, and do so relatively enthusiastically. And I don’t want McCain to try to disingenuously purchase my undiluted enthusiasm. If he offered a massive tax cut package like Bob Dole did in 1996, I would have the exact same reaction I did to Dole’s pledge – I wouldn’t believe it. In other words, McCain should throw me under the bus. Doing so has worked for him so far. And he should run in the middle where he’s happy and where the swing votes fortuitously lie. 5) From the Iowahawk.com, “The Q is for Quality” by Ayman al Zawihiri Consultant-speak meets Al Qaeda, and the result is comic genius.
Read the whole thing.
