Fantastic news. I heard this on the radio, driving in to work. The Washington Post has the story on the front page of the Metro section:
Maryland will scrap its $65 million electronic system and go back to paper ballots in time for the 2010 midterm elections -- and will still be paying for the abandoned system until 2014. In Virginia, localities are moving to paper after the General Assembly voted last year to phase out electronic voting machines as they wear out.
It was just a few years ago that electronic voting machines were heralded as a computerized panacea to the hanging chad, a state-of-the-art system immune to the kinds of hijinks and confusion that some say make paper ballots vulnerable. But now, after concern that the electronic voting machines could crash or be hacked, the two states are swinging away from the systems, saying paper ballots filled out by hand are more reliable, especially in a recount.
Now, of course, every voting place should have one electronic voting station for voters with special needs, but I am very pleased at the move back to paper ballots. They're intuitive; they're reliable; and I can trust my ballot - I'm not left wondering which way a computer program thinks I voted.
Of course, some argue that paper ballots are outdated and that such a move represents a lurch back to the 19th Century.
But the move has perplexed some experts who say that after using the electronic touch screens for several elections now, voters have gotten used to them. People use touch-screen machines for many things, such as ordering at McDonald's and taking money out of the bank, and should, advocates say, be able to vote on them.
And what do you get from McDonald's or Wachovia that you don't get with electronic voting machines? A piece of paper confirming your transaction. You know you ordered a Big Mac, but how do you know that's what's being made for you? There's a paper trail. Also, if you have a problem with your Value Meal price or need to ask a question about a banking fee, you have a restaurant manager or bank teller that can call up your order on a computer and make it right. There's a reason for that: buying a cheeseburger is not as important as voting. As sensitive and critical as voting is in our country, why wouldn't we want a system that values accuracy and integrity over technological glitz?
On its surface this ad is pretty good. No dialogue, no narration, just McCain's own words used against him and a reminder of his joke of a VP pick - an embarrassing example of his bad judgment.
Below its surface, though, it's even better than you first thought (even if it's just from a political ad-making standpoint).
Now, I've seen a lot of discussion on other sites about this ad. In today's Washington Post, Howard Kurtz even has a blurb on A3 about it. The consensus seems to be that it's a great ad: simple, damaging, aggressive, and with a little levity/terror at the end with Palin's wink. It concretely defines McCain as weak on the economy and it highlights his thin bench...
Wait... what was that last part?
Here's where we get into what you missed on first viewing. To illustrate my point, begin by asking yourself this: What is the biggest fear about Sarah Palin?
That McCain will die in office and she will be our (gulp) president.
So. Watch the ad again and listen closely to the soundtrack. With no dialogue or narration to cloud your ears and the words on screen to distract your attention, a new side of the ad emerges.
Hear that? The steady bass thump behind the strings? Like the lub-dub of a heartbeat? The subtle rhythm-keeping clicking? Like the ticking of a clock? The message below the surface, in the periphery of viewer's attention, is a dramatic reinforcement: that if John McCain dies, Winky McMooseburger is the new Commander-in-Chief. This ad isn't just a commentary on economic policy and who is prepared to lead us out of a recession. This ad has now evolved into something even more clever. It asks an even more fundamental question, past McCain's judgment: "President Palin?"
As we begin the ad, the heartbeat and ticking clock keep a steady cadence. They continue through McCain's lonely quotes, ostensibly focusing us on his economic inexpertise. (McCain seems to be solemnly looking at the quotes, too - or are his eyes closed? Is he embarrassed? Or are his closed eyes foreshadowing something else?). The heartbeat and ticking pump through 2005. They patter on through 2007. But there's a change near the end. Listen closer. At the text of "Vice President", the heartbeat skips just slightly, but then quickly resumes its normal rhythm. In the next shot, however, the heartbeat becomes momentarily distressed, irregularly accented and stopped for a panicked, uncomfortable moment when Palin appears on screen, thoughtlessly running her mouth with a rehearsed wink. The moment is accompanied by a discordant, lower guitar note (unheard until this moment) that transitions into the end of the ad.
In sum, clever sleight of hand has turned this ad on economic trust into one that is more striking, more damaging, and posing a scenario more disastrous in its consequences than what lies on the ad's surface.
In today's Washington Post, a piece by Dana Milbank entitled He May Be Right, We May Be Crazy. If you like political humor and the Piano Man, you'll love this. I did.
No doubt you're familiar with John McCain's loud and persistent opposition to earmarks and "wasteful spending".
John McCain, 1st presidential debate, September 26, 2008:
"...[s]pending can be brought under control because I have fought against excessive spending my entire career. And I've got plans to reduce and eliminate unnecessary and wasteful spending."
John McCain, campaign ad "Outrageous", November 20, 2007 (you know, the ad that puts forward the Bridge to Nowhere as its first example of "outrageous", "unbelievable" spending):
"I'll stop wasteful spending by Congress and restore Americans' trust in their government."
The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
[snip]
Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74
[snip]
Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree
[snip]
The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August
Tifanie White, who reportedly has done makeup for the shows "So You Think You Can Dance" and "American Idol," was paid a total of $8,672.55 in September by the McCain-Palin campaign, according to the campaign's latest monthly financial report filed this week with the Federal Election Commission. She was paid $5,583.43 the previous month, records show.
In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006.
..."The numbers are astonishing," said McCain, an Arizona Republican....
On the heels of my entry yesterday about "real America", "pro-Americans", etc, Jon Stewart doesn't seem too psyched about the implication of "fake Americans" like him (and me). What ensued was a trifecta of bits examining the McCain campaign's argument:
In the wake of the Colin Powell endorsement (and, as a side note, that of Philadelphia talk radio personality Michael Smerconish) - when it rains, it pours.
Ken Adelman is a lifelong conservative Republican. Campaigned for Goldwater, was hired by Rumsfeld at the Office of Economic Opportunity under Nixon, was assistant to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld under Ford, served as Reagan’s director of arms control, and joined the Defense Policy Board for Rumsfeld’s second go-round at the Pentagon, in 2001. Adelman’s friendship with Rumsfeld, Cheney, and their wives goes back to the sixties, and he introduced Cheney to Paul Wolfowitz at a Washington brunch the day Reagan was sworn in.
In recent years, Adelman and his friends Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz fell out over his criticisms of the botching of the Iraq War. Still, he remains a bona-fide hawk (“not really a neo-con but a con-con”) who has never supported a Democrat for President in his life. Two weeks from now that’s going to change: Ken Adelman intends to vote for Barack Obama. He can hardly believe it himself.
In Mr. Adelman's own words:
When the economic crisis broke, I found John McCain bouncing all over the place. In those first few crisis days, he was impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird. Having worked with Ronald Reagan for seven years, and been with him in his critical three summits with Gorbachev, I’ve concluded that that’s no way a president can act under pressure.
[snip]
Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office—I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency. But that selection contradicted McCain’s main two, and best two, themes for his campaign—Country First, and experience counts. Neither can he credibly claim, post-Palin pick.
Wheeling, West Virginia, located in the northern panhandle of the state, 11 miles west of Pittsburgh, was the site where nearly 59 years ago a first-term senator from Wisconsin purportedly launched arguably the most shameful - and shameless - fear campaign in American history. At the heart of the machinations were Joseph McCarthy's baseless and unsubstantiated accusations of communist sympathies among certain Americans. Depending upon whichever label Senator McCarthy assigned to you, you were either one of the good, real, pro-America Americans or a godless, pinko commie. Over the next few years, Joseph McCarthy's deplorable, self-interested machinations would inflame national paranoia, exacerbate political divisions, and ruin lives.
Throughout the aftermath of 9/11, the Iraq War, and the 2004 election, a similar gauntlet was thrown down by the Republican party. The simplistic, accusatory, and ignorant question of "Why do you hate America?" became so pervasive that it evolved into a mockery of itself, becoming a reactionary, sarcastic semi-punchline. Again, though, Americans found themselves demarcated as either Pro-America or Anti-America, depending upon whether or not they supported the "right" policies.
Now, I know that you're already connecting the dots in your head between past and present, and so I want to take the opportunity to stress one important point - I am not comparing the man John McCain to the man Joe McCarthy. That's the kind of character assassination increasingly worthy of McCain's campaign. What is fair, however, is to discuss the deeds and rhetoric of the two, and to draw parallels where warranted. Here, we find an undeniable similarity between the tactics employed by the McCain campaign (and its Republican supporters) and those brandished by McCarthy and the Bush Administration. And while by my own standards, "McCainthyism" may be perceived as just the kind of name-calling I deplore, I am unapologetic in taking two similar series of behaviors and branding them a reified "ism".
Tell me how Sarah Palin saying this is fundamentally different from the rhetoric employed in McCarthy's witch hunt:
"We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation,"
Or this more localized gem from McCain campaign senior adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer:
On MSNBC this morning, McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer asserted that “real Virginia” does not include Northern Virginia:
I certainly agree that Northern Virginia has gone more Democratic. … But the rest of the state — real Virginia if you will — I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message.
MSNBC host Kevin Corke gave Pfotenhauer a chance to revise her answer, telling her: “Nancy, I’m going to give you a chance to climb back off that ledge — Did you say ‘real Virginia’?”
But Pfotenhauer didn’t budge, and instead dug a deeper hole.
Real Virginia, I take to be, this part of the state that’s more Southern in nature, if you will.
Corke ended the segment noting that Pfotenhauer was appearing via satellite from Northern Virginia. “Nancy Pfotenhauer, senior policy adviser for the McCain campaign, joining us from Arlington, not really Virginia.” “Alright, I’m just gonna let ya– you’ll wear that one,” Corke responded.
Got that? Sarah Palin will tell you whether you're a "real American" or "pro-America" just as Pfotenhauer will decide who's a "real Virginian" or not. (Presumably, those Virginia residents and soldiers who perished in the Pentagon on 9/11 weren't "real Virginians" according to the McCain campaign).
This isn't a question of who likes pancakes and who likes waffles. This is an attempt to directly label entire groups of people as "good" and "evil" (e.g. "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists"). Couple these examples with the smearing of Obama as "palling around with terrorists", Michelle Bachmann's crusade against and proposed investigation into "anti-American" members of Congress, and the McCain campaign's labeling of Obama as "socialist", and the climate being created by this campaign - with John McCain's approval - is disgustingly resonant of the Senate's bygone blight from Wisconsin. "Are you going to support "the Mav'rick" or the terrorist, socialist, anti-American Other?"
Again, it makes me shudder to compare anyone's actions or words to those of such a reprehensible fear mongerer - not because it's inaccurate (it's not), but because it has become necessary. Once again, a national platform is being used to openly divide our citizenry along unnecessary and hateful lines. If John McCain wants to avoid the comparison, he should rebuke and cease these horrid tactics. With two weeks left in this election, I'm not holding my breath.
Obama cool and presidential ... again. Collected while discussing issues; unflappable on Ayers and the sideshow, speaking directly to the television audience on important matters.
McCain unhinged at times. Rambling, inconsistent. What's the word I'm looking for... ERRATIC. Angry, snarky, snorty, condescending, obsessed with Joe the Plumber. And JITTERY! wtf was that? Talking too fast, blinking, blinking, blinking.... like he was strung out on Mc(co)Cain(e).
I guess this is what happens when you become more and more reluctant to talk about your time as a POW - all that self-repression eventually comes out at random prisoners... times! times! random times!:
This will be brief: No "game changer" for McCain. Obama: polished, empathetic, highly credible. But the highlight I took away? "That one." My eyes got as big as saucers when McCain called Obama "that one". On the heels of spending an entire debate refusing to look at Senator Obama, Senator McCain found a way to emphasize his contempt for his opponent. He's fast become a nasty, peevish, rude little man.
And, as further example of McCain's disdain, while making rounds through the post-debate crowd, McCain rejects Obama's extended hand:
The truth is Palin is a very able debater, as she has demonstrated in past elections. While she may not have a great command of the facts (to put it nicely), when she is prepared, she is the master of the non-answer. Look for her to come to tomorrow's debate with a high energy level, a sickeningly sappy, can-do demeanor right out of Disney central casting, glittering generalities, subtle, pithy insults, and lots and lots of bullshit.
I'd say I nailed that pretty well, thanks.
1. Palin is a pull-string doll. She sounded like she was speed reading a book report.
2. Between her thoughtlessly-connected talking points, she took a few moments to be a caricature of herself. There's folksy and then there's Mickey Mouse. "Gosh, golly, gee howdy willikers, Joe! You betcha folks ain't buyin' my dadgum flibbidy jibbit moose shucks. My stars!" Overkill. She was a cartoon; a self-parodying candidate.
3. Biden made a connection with the audience, avoided engaging Palin, and demonstrated a calm and engaging command of the facts.
4. I nearly cried when Joe Biden talked about being a single dad and life's challenges. There was no slick veneer. There was no facade to dig under. That was Joe Biden. Period. That's the kind of thing people remember. It's real sweet that you gave a shout out to an elementary school, Sarah, but you were cutesy and gimmicky. Joe Biden was the one who showed us he really understands.
5. Sarah responded with a cold, deflated answer about McCain's mavericky-ness.
6. Sarah flat-out said she wasn't going to answer questions she didn't like - and she kept her word. True to form, she non-answered most of the questions posed and flat-out ignored others.
7. One thing she was very clear about: Palin wants more power as vice president.
8. Joe effectively kept his focus on McCain, tied him to Bush, spoke in plain English, and came off as the trustworthy statesman he is.
In all seriousness, though, as much of a blithering idiot Sarah Palin appears to be, I feel surprisingly conflicted about the VP debate. And I acknowledge it's for the most unlikely and seemingly ridiculous reason: it's too good to be true. There's a tiny person in my head, way in the back, wringing his hands, unblinking, staring into the distance, rocking back and forth on a short stool, paranoid and muttering to himself. "What if she's sandbagging? What if, in the greatest, most deceptive long con in American political history, the McCain campaign got her to play dumb from her inception? They knew they'd be in for a tough, tough race. What if she's been deliberately spouting the lines of a bumbling airhead to Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, and in the greatest ambush we've ever witnessed will wow us all with her grasp of facts and figures in the debate?"
Now, I know that's garbage. But I also know that the bar has been set so low for Palin's performance that unless she collapses in a weeping heap behind her podium, pounding the floor and cursing the Lord, she can't do worse than a "draw".
The truth is Palin is a very able debater, as she has demonstrated in past elections. While she may not have a great command of the facts (to put it nicely), when she is prepared, she is the master of the non-answer. Look for her to come to tomorrow's debate with a high energy level, a sickeningly sappy, can-do demeanor right out of Disney central casting, glittering generalities, subtle, pithy insults, and lots and lots of bullshit. In other words, she will have all the tools she needs to endear herself once again to the American public. Whether she pulls it off - leaving the media fawning over her canned answers and her folksy, just-like-me delivery - is another question. Just be aware: she's done it before.
(Full disclosure, chips on the table: I believe she will fail. There will be spin on both sides, and the consensus will be that she didn't LOSE lose. However, the damage is done. Enough of the people to whom she appealed at the time of her announcement as VP candidate have enough serious doubt about her that she will not recover all of their trust. The debate will be a footnote in the campaign, doing nothing to fundamentally alter the state of the race.)
