Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Tom Brokaw
I cannot stand Tom Brokaw. His voice doesn't sound natural. I always wonder whether that's his conversational voice. The inflection and the cadence are so contrived like a prerecorded message. His lips are pulled and tight when he talks and he seems to be breathing through his mouth, if at all. He also looks to be in pain or suffering from a chronic stiff neck which makes my own neck hurt. I try to avoid watching his news program but tonight there is no escape from him.
The Presidential Debate
This was Obama's night. He hit all the right notes and he connected with a message that went right to the heart of American voters struggling to hear a strong, reassuring voice in the worst period of wealth destruction in history since the Great Depression. Obama was comfortable and confident and delivered a clear message that also came across as sincere and heartfelt.
I expected McCain to excel in the townhall format of the debate; but he didn't connect with me tonight. He spent too much time attacking Obama and for the most part, the attack simply wasn't effective and didn't have the right timing. He attacked when he shouldn't have and didn't when he should have.
McCain has a lot of things going against him. He is up against an adversarial media that is increasingly indistinguishable from the Obama campaign and he is way down in the polls. The media has been an effective PR arm of the Obama campaign in spreading and explaining Obama's policies. Tonight was a critical opportunity for McCain to sell what the media won't sell for him; but tonight he failed to sell his policies himself. He spent too much time repeating platitude after platitude and so little time getting down to the details. And even here, McCain is simply not as good as Obama. Obama delivered his platitudes with an earthiness and warmth that I would have thought McCain would have more of. Instead, McCain delivered his prepared lines with a mechanical precision and robotic coldness, and with a repetitiveness that announced each time during his talk that he was entering "prepared-lines territory".
Tonight was a moment for reaching out to uncommited voters. Card-carrying Democrats and Republicans have already committed to their presidential candidate long before they knew who that would be. McCain needed to make his case to uncommitted independents. But tonight, Obama made the better sales pitch. He learned from the last debate and came prepared this time with the rebuttals he should have brought at the first debate; and he introduced new attacks that added to his growing ammunition against McCain.
Tonight is a big disappointment for team McCain. I can't see why Obama's lead shouldn't grow after tonight's victory. The Republicans need to do a better job of selling their agenda. Selling them to the voters would be much easier than selling them to Democrats. If they can't even carry out an effective sales pitch to independents, they'll never going to win over Democrats and an unfriendly media.
I expected McCain to excel in the townhall format of the debate; but he didn't connect with me tonight. He spent too much time attacking Obama and for the most part, the attack simply wasn't effective and didn't have the right timing. He attacked when he shouldn't have and didn't when he should have.
McCain has a lot of things going against him. He is up against an adversarial media that is increasingly indistinguishable from the Obama campaign and he is way down in the polls. The media has been an effective PR arm of the Obama campaign in spreading and explaining Obama's policies. Tonight was a critical opportunity for McCain to sell what the media won't sell for him; but tonight he failed to sell his policies himself. He spent too much time repeating platitude after platitude and so little time getting down to the details. And even here, McCain is simply not as good as Obama. Obama delivered his platitudes with an earthiness and warmth that I would have thought McCain would have more of. Instead, McCain delivered his prepared lines with a mechanical precision and robotic coldness, and with a repetitiveness that announced each time during his talk that he was entering "prepared-lines territory".
Tonight was a moment for reaching out to uncommited voters. Card-carrying Democrats and Republicans have already committed to their presidential candidate long before they knew who that would be. McCain needed to make his case to uncommitted independents. But tonight, Obama made the better sales pitch. He learned from the last debate and came prepared this time with the rebuttals he should have brought at the first debate; and he introduced new attacks that added to his growing ammunition against McCain.
Tonight is a big disappointment for team McCain. I can't see why Obama's lead shouldn't grow after tonight's victory. The Republicans need to do a better job of selling their agenda. Selling them to the voters would be much easier than selling them to Democrats. If they can't even carry out an effective sales pitch to independents, they'll never going to win over Democrats and an unfriendly media.
Monday, October 6, 2008
The Interpretation of Dreams
I had the weirdest dream last night. I dreamt that I was dating Congressman Barney Frank -
nothing weird about that in and of itself except that Barney Frank reminds me a lot of his excellency, Dominar Rigel XVI from the sci-fi tv series Farscape .
Could I be harboring some unconscious sexual attraction to power? Powerful old men? Powerful alien puppets?
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The Polls and I
Hmmm...Palin is leading in the polls at Drudge as well as Anne Althouse's.
Biden is a gaffe master but I thought he was more on point than Palin. I thought Palin was evasive for the most part and she drifted from being warm and natural to being rehearsed and robotic. I really like Palin and I thought she injected dynamism and energy into the sedentary McCain campaign. I was really hoping she would do well in the debate but I thought Biden won the debate.
Well, for what it's worth, I thought McCain had a slight win over Obama last week. Oh well...
Biden is a gaffe master but I thought he was more on point than Palin. I thought Palin was evasive for the most part and she drifted from being warm and natural to being rehearsed and robotic. I really like Palin and I thought she injected dynamism and energy into the sedentary McCain campaign. I was really hoping she would do well in the debate but I thought Biden won the debate.
Well, for what it's worth, I thought McCain had a slight win over Obama last week. Oh well...
The Vice Presidential Debate
McCain is going to go down a couple more points in next week's polls following Sarah Palin's disastrous performance in the one and only vp debate in this election. This was a major miss of opportunity to sell the Republican platform and to firmly establish Palin's executive credentials to the millions of independents who still do not know her.
The mainstream media has shown an unfair and unprecedented interest in Palin with smear after smear coming out of newsrooms and editiorial desks - from supposed illicit love affairs, to rape-kit profiteering - but all that was unnecessary for Sarah Palin herself effectively demonstrated tonight why she isn't ready yet to be vice president. In a dramatic turnaround from her electrifying convention speech, which in itself was a dramatic turnaround for the lifeless McCain campaign, tonight's performance is a step back to zero for McCain and then 5 more steps back after that. Palin was not only dwarfed by Biden's mastery of policy details and ability to lock the focus on to the issues where team Obama already enjoys an advantage in voter confidence, Palin failed to intelligently explain McCain's economic and military strategies, let alone defend them. She came off as warm, friendly, reachable, and even intelligent but also most often unserious and offkey from the current gloom and doom on the proverbial Main Street. She simply missed the target and gave control of the narrative to Biden.
Palin is such an endearing figure, certainly with such great potential and gift to connect with the middle class. She may even deliver badly needed government reforms - but very little of that showed tonight just when team McCain is in dire need of a break from its freefall from all major polls.
At the Republican convention, Palin was an exciting alternative voice for women and filled a deep and unheard longing for classical feminism, but it looks like that longing will have to grow deeper and will have to remain unheard for now.
Palin has been unfairly treated by the media, but even a fair and balanced army of journalists could not save her from her inadequacy tonight. She simply is not ready or else she simply is the least effective in communicating her readiness. In time, she may grow into the oversized expectations of an entire generation of conservative women, but that time looks to be in the future than now.
The mainstream media has shown an unfair and unprecedented interest in Palin with smear after smear coming out of newsrooms and editiorial desks - from supposed illicit love affairs, to rape-kit profiteering - but all that was unnecessary for Sarah Palin herself effectively demonstrated tonight why she isn't ready yet to be vice president. In a dramatic turnaround from her electrifying convention speech, which in itself was a dramatic turnaround for the lifeless McCain campaign, tonight's performance is a step back to zero for McCain and then 5 more steps back after that. Palin was not only dwarfed by Biden's mastery of policy details and ability to lock the focus on to the issues where team Obama already enjoys an advantage in voter confidence, Palin failed to intelligently explain McCain's economic and military strategies, let alone defend them. She came off as warm, friendly, reachable, and even intelligent but also most often unserious and offkey from the current gloom and doom on the proverbial Main Street. She simply missed the target and gave control of the narrative to Biden.
Palin is such an endearing figure, certainly with such great potential and gift to connect with the middle class. She may even deliver badly needed government reforms - but very little of that showed tonight just when team McCain is in dire need of a break from its freefall from all major polls.
At the Republican convention, Palin was an exciting alternative voice for women and filled a deep and unheard longing for classical feminism, but it looks like that longing will have to grow deeper and will have to remain unheard for now.
Palin has been unfairly treated by the media, but even a fair and balanced army of journalists could not save her from her inadequacy tonight. She simply is not ready or else she simply is the least effective in communicating her readiness. In time, she may grow into the oversized expectations of an entire generation of conservative women, but that time looks to be in the future than now.
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