Having said that, there is certainly negotiation and making-nice to be done with the Democrats; Obama can't just send in the enforcer to try to push them around. That was a lot of the problem that Carter had. He came in all outsider-ish, and thought he could get more out of the Democrat-controlled Congress than they were willing to give. Emanuel sounds like a total asshole, but he's an *insider* asshole.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannyn-moore/stolen-election-in-alaska_b_141704.html

The point was often (and correctly) made in the last couple of months that Palin is not qualified (by background, temperament or any other measure) to be a good VP, let alone President. However, for the purposes of McCain and the Republicans, she had to be picked at this moment.

Her image is that of a "maverick" reformer, cleaning out corruption even within her own Party. As we've seen, though, the only reason that image was even possible was because she's only had a couple of years to get her hooks into the State of Alaska. Look at the crimes and near-crimes that have come out even for the short time she's been in public office. Give her even another two years, and what else would she have been up to? As you all know, she's no reformer, merely an opportunist with superiors who were careless enough to leave her an opening.

And so, in the interest of using Palin as an apparent reformer and "fresh face", McCain and the RNC have given her a national base. Be vigilant.

Immediately after the election the various players (e.g. primary candidates, and politicians from other regions who stumped for candidates) stop by to thank supporters for all their hard work, and to make sure that those supporters think well of them -- particularly outside the context of the reason they were here before. In about a year, give or take, exploratory committees will begin to be at least informally starting.

And, here's the big one: getting shot down and captured. Because, here's the thing: the rest of his squad broke off and didn't fly so low because there was too much getting shot at them. He had to be the hotshot maverick, and got his ass shot down. And as long as we're on the topic of POW service, could we have McCain distinguish himself from his fellow 500 prisoners, the ones who didn't break.

Oh, he's been tested all right. And has failed those tests.

But, Obama is winning, so there's no need to go that low. Well, except here in the blogosphere, where we can openly recognize that the "honorable straight shooter" image is just that: an image, carefully crafted, and that he never was the man he's always been presented as.

I watched it with my wife and 11 year old daughter, even though we're all committed Democrats anyway. We all liked it, and thought it was very well done. My daughter said, "That will get people to vote for him."

We'd previously seen most of the parts that were culled from existing material, since we're pretty engaged -- and are bombarded by ads (we're in NH).

My wife doesn't care too much for the sort of human interest segments he included, but I thought they were an important part of the "reassuring" part of the message he putting out. What I was particularly struck by in those was the way he narrated from off screen. I can't recall ever seeing something like that. The offscreen narrator is always a supporting role to what's on screen. In politics, especially, when the principal politician speaks, he's on camera. Obama, in fact, has such a direct-to-the-camera delivery that it was very striking to make the *story* he was presenting be the focus like that. That's confidence. That's an amazing way to encourage the viewer to identify with the ordinary people and their stories and *through* those stories to Obama. And, to reinforce it, he elsewhere in the piece emphasizes that *everybody* has a story.

We did, admittedly, tape Daisies to watch another time. That's a fun way to watch someone awkwardly and briefly bring the dead to life, as compared to watching McCain make futile attempts to awkwardly revive his dead campaign. Sorry John. It would take more than a touch, and would need to last more than a minute.

Part of her core take on the whole Wright business is that she's glad *her* sermons weren't taped so that someone could extract a 15 second sound bite as an attack. She knows, from hearing him and from being a minister, that anyone can sound bad if somebody pulls out a "bad" quote.

I think a terrific ad would be some warmer, more inclusive Wright soundbite that makes clear to the religious right wing that there'd be good reason for a reasonable Christian to sit in the pews of a church where Wright was the minister.

Comeback 2: Anyway, I wouldn't have tried to push him down and take his sandwich if he had given it to me at town hall meetings in the first place.

Some of it is for the down-ticket races, of course. Even those, though, tie it back to the Presidential race, clearly seeing the value of Obama's coat tails, and strength of the the anti-Bush, anti-Republican firestorm.