Posts from — September 2008

Nate Silver breaks down some of the post-debate polls:

[The CNN post-debate poll] had Obama winning overall by a margin of 51-38. The poll suggests that Obama is opening up a gap on connectedness, while closing a gap on readiness. Specifically, by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was “more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you”.

and at the end of the post:

The CBS poll of undecideds has more confirmatory detail. Obama went from a +18 on “understanding your needs and problems” before the debate to a +56 (!) afterward. And he went from a -9 on “prepared to be president” to a +21.

These are the things that debate watchers like me and Peyton (and lots of pundits) aren’t really picking up on. We’re watching the debate itself, but there’s an entirely different game being played here.

This CollegeHumor video is hilarious.

“An Alaskan hockey mom becomes Vice President in the wackiest family comedy of the year!”

I was thinking earlier about whether or not this and Letterman saying that Palin was “circling the block in the white minivan” were sexist. I don’t think they are. She described herself as a hockey mom, and promoted it at the convention, and they’re portraying her as such.

More substantive Palin posts coming… there’s so much material!

If I had to declare a “winner” of the debate tonight, I’d pick John McCain. He managed to distance himself from most of the Republican brand and make some clear arguments. He debated better than Barack Obama. I’ve never seen a debate in which I thought Obama performed really well, but he has improved. He answers were forceful, mostly direct, and far less professorial than previous debates. While I think McCain did better, I don’t think he did better in any way that makes a difference. McCain needed a big moment, I think, or he needed Obama to appear unpresidential, and I didn’t see either, so while I give McCain a slight win, the more important win with respect to the election goes to Obama, as the game hasn’t changed and he’s still ahead. Most of the early polls I’ve seen have shown independents more impressed by Obama’s performance than McCain’s (538 has a bunch of the polls in their post-mortem).

Michael Graham put it best:

“Obama win because he didn’t lose. Sen. McCain was better, but not by enough.”

It really bothers me that a lot of the post-debate analysis brought up Obama’s agreement with McCain on many issues as some sort of rhetorical weakness. I want a leader who can talk about the things he and his opponents agree on, plus I think it helps more clearly highlight the areas of difference between the candidates. I guess it’s inevitable that it’ll be used in an ad by McCain, but I don’t see it tying into some narrative at this point.

McCain needs to stop using the lines about Miss Congeniality and Bear DNA.

McCain’s condescension didn’t really bother me that much. I noticed there was a different style of the speakers, as Obama was a bit more conversational, but I didn’t notice that McCain wasn’t looking at Obama at all (as many did). Peyton left a comment on this blog after the debate:

[...] I saw it with a group of people, and many of the females in the group thought McCain’s tone was condescending and a turn off. To be fair, those females were also Obama supporters to begin with. I do wonder though how this debate will play with the electorate, if at all, and if there may be differences in how that tone is perceived across genders. [...]

The group I saw it with was predominantly women and all Obama supporters, and many of them expressed the same reaction. They perceived McCain’s words, tone and body language to be condescending and mean-spirited. I didn’t feel the same way during the debate, and Peyton’s experience makes me wonder if there’s a significant difference in perception between the sexes. I’d be curious to see any post-debate polling on this…

Palin’s interview with Katie Couric was terrible:

It seemed like she tried to dodge every question. I guess this is why they won’t let her have a press conference.

There had been warnings that people underestimated Palin at their own peril and that she was a quick study, but I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest she has been anything but estimated.

I have a new phone number (now using GrandCentral, so I hope it won’t change again for a long time).

My new number is my old number minus 3,496,217.

So, according to David Letterman, John McCain canceled going on his show at the last minute, saying he needed to get to Washington to, you know, fix America, leaving Letterman with a bunch of dead time and a bad taste in his mouth.

.. then he finds out that McCain didn’t go to DC, he was being interviewed by Katie Couric. Whoops!

For some reason I’m starting to feel bad for the McCain campaign tonight… don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll pass.

In case you missed it… this one’s for the West Wing fans:
Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet

Obama reminds me of Bartlet a bit, in that they’re both smart and a bit professorial and get painted as elitists for it.

Discussion of intelligent presidents always reminds me of one of my favorite Onion articles: Bush Regales Dinner Guests With Impromptu Oratory On Virgil’s Minor Works. The article is funnier than the title (unlike many Onion articles).

If you’re as confused as I was about what’s going on with the economy, take a few minutes and read this explanation. It’s much easier to understand than anything else I’ve read.

A couple of quotes that stood out… when describing the gravity of the situation, the author points out:

When was the last time you heard of the U.S. government identifying a problem, developing a multi-hundred-billion-dollar program and announcing it within about 48 hours?

That’d be funnier if it weren’t terrifying.

And, regarding remedies:

The ultimate resolution assures that prior investors in these financial institutions and their executives bear very large financial penalties. Irresponsible homeowners should as well.

I hope that’s the case, but I’m not terribly confident about it.

Will all this talk of billions and trillions of dollars going around, it’s important to have some numbers to put it in perspective, as I really had no concept of what those numbers equated to.

The federal budget is about 3 trillion dollars.
The GDP is over 13 trillion dollars.
The national debt is 9.7 trillion dollars.

So, yeah, a $500B to $1T bailout would be huge, even by government standards.

As I’ve said before, in an unrelated context, “NOT GOOD”.

One of the most insightful parts of The Daily Show from last week:

This Wario Land ad on YouTube is really clever… definitely worth watching, though I have no interest in the game.