AugustKid's Blog

Who John McCain Fights For...

2008-09-05T16:33:46Z

During his acceptance speech last night, John McCain talked a lot about fighting for regular Americans. Remember this:

“I fight for Americans. I fight for you. I fight for Bill and Sue Nebe from Farmington Hills, Michigan, who lost their real estate investments in the bad housing market. Bill got a temporary job after he was out of work for seven months. Sue works three jobs to help pay the bills.”
Wait a second: "real estate investments"? Like, plural? Like, more people who own multiple homes?

McCain got me so emotional talking about Bill and Sue Nebe I looked them up on , and I am relieved to let you know they're still probably doing alright in their remaining home. The neighborhood is going to hell, though...

So you have no time to vet either your VP, your enormous backdrop, or your token ordinary Americans. How maverick...

Why It's a Decent Pick

2008-08-29T15:41:51Z

Forgive me if I'm not gleefully giggling right now. This makes a lot of sense for McCain:

(1) It won't undercut his critique of Obama as inexperienced. If the punditry takes this line of attack - which it will - it has a real potential of backfiring, as it will only reinforce the whole theme that two years of national experience does not prepare you to be Commander-in-Chief. That's not a theme Obama wants to emphasize. In picking Biden, Obama has already picked a VP that (at least superficially) embodies many of his main critiques of his opponent. This weakens his ability to play the card on McCain.

(2) McCain is making a major play for undecided women (which is the ONLY way he can pull off an upset here), and this is a smart gamble. If nothing else, it will mean two more months of hearing about Obama's "women problem" and PUMAs, whether that has any relation to reality or not. Again, not the best narrative for Obama.

(3) Placates the base without the (well-hashed over) liabilities of the other major VP contenders. Of course she brings here own - corruption scandals, the prospect of a disasterous debate with Biden, etc. - but at least in the short-run it seems good.

(4) McCain now has the sexy-librarian-fetishists on lock. Key demographic.

Why Palin's a Decent Pick

2008-08-29T15:21:11Z

Forgive me if I'm not gleefully giggling right now. This makes a lot of sense for McCain:

(1) It won't undercut his critique of Obama as inexperienced. If the punditry takes this line of attack - which it will - it has a real potential of backfiring, as it will only reinforce the whole theme that two years of national experience does not prepare you to be Commander-in-Chief. That's not a theme Obama wants to emphasize. And in picking Biden, Obama has already picked a VP that (at least superficially) embodies many of his main critiques of his opponent. This weakens his ability to play the card on McCain.

(2) McCain is making a major play for undecided women (which is the ONLY way he can pull off an upset here), and this is a smart gamble. If nothing else, it will mean two more months of hearing about Obama's "women problem" and PUMAs, whether that has any relation to reality or not. Again, not the best narrative for Obama.

(3) Placates the base without the (well-hashed over) liabilities of the other major VP contenders. Of course Palin brings here own - corruption scandals, the prospect of a disasterous debate with Biden, etc. - but at least in the short-run it seems good.

(4) McCain now has the sexy-librarian-fetishists on lock. Key demographic.

Why Palin's a Good Pick

2008-08-29T15:19:22Z

Forgive me if I'm not gleefully giggling right now. This makes a lot of sense for McCain:

(1) It won't undercut his critique of Obama as inexperienced. If the punditry takes this line of attack - which it will - it has a real potential of backfiring, as it will only reinforce the whole theme that two years of national experience does not prepare you to be Commander-in-Chief. That's not a theme Obama wants to emphasize.
(1a) In picking Biden, Obama has already picked a VP that (at least superficially) embodies many of his main critiques of his opponent. This weakens his ability to play the card on McCain.

(2) McCain is making a major play for undecided women (which is the ONLY way he can pull off an upset here), and this is a smart gamble. If nothing else, it will mean two more months of hearing about Obama's "women problem" and PUMAs, whether that has any relation to reality or not. Again, not the best narrative for Obama.

(3) Placates the base without the (well-hashed over) liabilities of the other major VP contenders. Of course she brings here own - corruption scandals, the prospect of a disasterous debate with Biden, etc. - but atleast in the short-run it seems good.

(4) McCain now has the sexy-librarian-fetishists on lock. Key demographic.

compliment count?

2008-08-21T19:10:10Z

I have a brief suggestion for the Obama folks.

The McCain campaign has now made clear that ANYTHING Obama says will be met with, "John McCain was a POW." Implicit in this is the accusation that Obama is disregarding or denigrating McCain's service, which is something I suspect they will start arguing explicitly very soon.

I would like to see Obama say, "I have publicly commended McCain's service 316 times in the last three months." I am sure there is either videotape or audiotape of every public appearance Obama has made since he launched this campaign, and the exact figure would not be hard to find.

If nothing else, it would help make clear how absurd this has all become.

Guns, Democrats, and My Hometown (one last time)

2008-08-04T17:05:13Z

(First off, apologies for the multiple posting attempts. This is my first time posting here, and I needed some help to figure this out!)

You know how lousy it feels to be sold down the river by congressional Democrats who you thought had your back? Now imagine there was nothing you could do about it.

On Thursday, about 50 House Democrats introduced H.R. 6691 to repeal DC's rules requiring registration of handguns and prohibiting bringing in guns from neighboring Virginia or Maryland. Why are they all so keen on rewriting my hometown's gun laws? Because, according to The Hill, the NRA has been going around threatening Blue Dog Democrats that they'll be stripped of their "A-plus" rating if they don't come aboard.

But surely the House leadership won't be bullied into bringing such a bill to the floor! Err. Again, via the Hill: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she personally opposes a bill loosening the District of Columbia's gun laws, but that does not mean she will block it from coming to the floor. 'I want to see the particulars,' Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday. 'Then we'll see what comes to the floor or doesn't come to the floor.'"

I know most of you know this already, but DC's 588,000 residents - compare to Wyoming's 515,000 - have no voting rights in either the House or the Senate. DC's population is majority African-American and overwhelmingly Democratic, so although we pay taxes and die in wars, we're not getting two Senators any time soon. (Can you imagine that, by the way? Instead of only three black Senators since Reconstruction, we would likely have two black Senators every term out of DC. Any I'm not going to lie, we'd probably be so pissed at the rest of you we'd elect Marion Barry to both of them.)

Instead, we get people like Reps. Travis Childers (D-Miss.), Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), and Don Cazayoux (D-La.), the three lead sponsors on H.R. 6691, sitting down with the NRA to write our city's gun laws! With all do respect, DC is not Lawrence County, PA, it's not St. Helena Parish, LA, and it's definitely not Tupelo, MS. I'd like those Representatives to come live a week in Trinidad - a neighborhood in NE where things have gotten so rough our cops' best idea for keeping the peace is military-style checkpoints - and see if they still feel the same way about gun control. But until they really come out and see what it's like, rewriting our laws to score points with the NRA is just wrong.

Guns, Democrats, and My Hometown (trying again)

2008-08-04T16:06:21Z

You know how lousy is feels to be sold down the river by congressional Democrats who you thought had your back? Now imagine there was nothing you could do about it.

Guns, Democrats, and My Hometown

2008-08-04T15:45:03Z

You know how lousy is feels to be sold down the river by congressional Democrats who you thought had your back? Now imagine there was nothing you could do about it.

Getting Started...

2008-07-29T20:40:21Z

Testing this guy out...