I’m not a politics junkie, really. I know that might be hard to believe based on some of my columns over the last year. You’d find support in your disbelief from my family members as they recount the agony I go through while running through the Sunday morning roundtable tortures.

This Sunday, much like last Sunday and the one before it, the buzz was about how John McCain has co-opted Barack Obama’s tentpole strategy of change. Some argue that he is only flipping his deck of cards around, that he utters change while he shuffles out constancy. Others are saying that he actually has presented change, but only one, yet that single one has all but assured him a close run to the White House - Sarah Palin. The other big topic for the talking heads was the collapse and eventual sale of Lehman Bros. Investments and the rapidly plummeting stock prices for Washington Mutual (WaMu) and other notable lenders.

It all started me to thinking about the notion of change beyond the rhetorical slings and arrows. What changes are we actually looking for in this country? Who among us are secure? Who are hanging in, and who have given up? Despite optimistic numbers all summer long, unemployment is at a five year record high, so pervasive that those once rose-tinted figures had to be retro-actively adjusted to gel with the facts. I posed the question to some of my fellow Popdose writers: how are you doing? We’re presenting the responses here as an invitation to you, the readers. Feel free to share your situation with us in the comments section.

A point worth mentioning: this article has been several months in the making and while individual circumstances may have changed from person to person, the viewpoints are still valid, the message still has merit and is presented in that respect.

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The current breathless “Sarah Palin Watch” going on in the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media is one of those political phenomena where the accuracy of her claims doesn’t really matter to those outside the chattering class. That’s because it’s not so much what she says as the image she projects. But that image has to project a certain something with keywords directed to the political base and swing voters (at this point in the game, swing voters are about 21% of the electorate and they have a high opinion of both McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden).

If you had a chance to see Palin’s big debut at the Republican convention, it’s clear she can throw a punch with a red meat speech written for her. However, one thing that’s not too clear (well, not to casual political watchers) is Palin’s inside-the-Beltway political tactics regarding allegations of abuse of power as governor of Alaksa. The so-called “Troopergate” scandal (can we get away from attaching “gate” to political scandals?), and her behind-the-scenes maneuverings to gum up the investigation give us a glimpse of what a McCain administration would be like if Sarah is part of the day-to-day business of governing in the White House. However, because Republicans are masters at changing the political narrative, we’ll have to wait to see how this plays out in the future. In the meantime, it’s an out-and-out hard sell for the hearts and minds of swing voters.

The latest polling indicates that 42% of the electorate are committed to Barack Obama, and 37% are committed to John McCain, so now you see what the game is: make sure your base of support is motivated to show up on voting day, and lure as many swing voters as you can. The 5% difference in committed votes between the candidates means they have to hustle and speak to those who are on the fence. What do the fence sitters want to hear the candidates talk about? The expression “It’s the economy, stupid” is pretty much front and center. Forget “Hockey mom,” or “Executive experience” for swing voters; candidates have to convince them that they can address their concerns.

What are swing voters concerned about? Pretty much the same thing as the majority of the electorate: (more…)

Well, the big night arrived, and the three of us gathered together to experience this historic moment in America the only way we knew how:  via the warm glow of our computers.  Welcome to the recap of the big finish for the Democratic National Committee Convention.  Jon, Dw, and I are ready to take you where you’ve probably already gone since, you know, the Convention was last night.  Okay, on with it!

Dick Durbin Introducing Obama’s Biographical Video

Ted: Are you watching Dick Durbin?
Dw: Yup.  I’m giving him a pass. He’ll start Jenny Craig tomorrow.
Jon: I wish he’d get it over with.  I didn’t tune in for pasty-face.
Ted: Dick Durbin looks like a guy who could own a motel on Interstate 80 … near North Platte, Nebraska.

The Biographical Video Starts

Jon: This profile video is a bit lackluster for my taste.  All these videos have to be compared to Bill in ‘92, and that video of teenage Bill with Jack Kennedy.  This video is a bit generic — apart from the personal details, the themes could be plugged right into Hillary or Biden’s intro video.
Ted: I have to admit that my mind is wandering as I watch this.
Dw: True story. After Obama’s speech in 2004, I told people he was going to be the nominee in the next election cycle. They told me I was nuts.
Ted: I remember his speech, and I too saw a winner.  But I kept it to myself.
Dw: Wise move. I should learn to shut my mouth more often. (more…)

Jon: What were your impressions of Ted & the Kennedys? He looked pretty good, considering.

Ted: He did a very good job. Kennedy finished probably his last political speech, and it was nice to hear and see him look so vibrant.

Jon: If, as you say, this was Ted’s last political speech, it was certainly high on emotion…if utterly devoid of substance. It was as though he were running purely on motor memory…how to give a rollicking speech full of Kennedy-esque rhetoric, without actually saying something. I found it interesting to hear him speak within 24 hours of reading news reports of Margaret Thatcher’s rapidly advancing dementia. An era is ending, a generation of leaders is falling by the wayside–and I don’t (merely) mean to be snarky when I note that John McCain is only four years younger than Ted, seven years younger than Thatcher. Chris Matthews put it succinctly: “We have watched a Kennedy grow old.”

Ted: He’s a guy who represents the last of the liberals who have attracted so much ire from the Right. Kennedy’s brand of liberalism (characterized by the term “Big Government”) is one that became increasingly marginalized by both the Right and the DLC since the ’80s. To end up on the stage talking about Obama — whom he supported in the primaries — was a nice passing of the torch to a candidate who’s not a Kennedy liberal or a Clinton/DLC type.

Jon: Interesting perspective you have–though I actually think Obama is more of a Kennedy liberal than he would want to admit to the nation in general.

Ted: I don’t really see the same kind of “Big Government” stuff coming from Obama, but…

Jon: It was fascinating watching the choreography of Ted Kennedy’s appearance play out. Beforehand, Caroline Kennedy, John Kerry and others claimed they didn’t know whether Ted would speak at all, and on MSNBC Olbermann and Matthews seemed not to know either. After allowing that suspense to build, only afterward did Olbermann, without a hint of apology or irony, begin his analysis with, “They told us that speech would be four minutes long”–making clear that they knew the speech would be happening all along. I wonder if Fox made the same effort to build suspense for an audience full of Kennedy-haters; heck, I wonder if Fox showed Ted’s speech without contemporaneous heckling from Hannity. Maybe a Fox viewer can let us know… (more…)

Jon Cummings: Welcome to the first installment in a Popdose political adventure that won’t require you (or us) to leave the computer! Here’s my little secret, Ted: A few months ago, on a whim, I applied to the DNC for a blogger credential that would allow me into the Colorado Convention Center. Would you believe the Democrats turned Popdose down? Fuckers. I blame Jeff, whom I identified as the bossman. Of course, the Dems invited me to come to Denver anyway and stake out a position among the thousands of other rejects in the “remote” blogging center. As if! Unless I can get face time with the chairman of the Mississippi delegation, why would I pay the jacked-up hotel rates when I can TiVo wall-to-wall coverage on CSpan?

Ted Asregadoo: When I found out that Joe Biden was asked to be vice president on the Democratic ticket, I was looking for jobs on the Internet. I’m one of the “real people” who’s been on the receiving end of our wonderful economic downturn. Yeah, I was laid off from my day job a couple of months ago. Fuckers. Why couldn’t our sales department do their job and sell our product? Why, oh, why couldn’t our potential clients ignore their declining receipts and just buy into what we were selling?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot how messed up the economy is. I almost forgot about the insane amounts of money we’re pumping into our two wars; wars in which thousands have died for … well, I think you’ve heard the talking points from the current administration. I almost forgot about the real estate bust. I almost forgot about the credit crisis. I almost forgot the high price of oil. I almost forgot how the culmination of these elements had the consequence of throwing a bunch of Americans into the realm of the unemployed. Like I said, I almost forgot. But there are too many powerful reminders to stave off the amnesia; too many stories of economic and political woe that can’t be ignored.

The reality is that I’m ready for an economy where the government doesn’t prime the pump with selective military contracts. I’m ready for a government where all the freedoms that nobody gives a shit about, until they give a shit about them, aren’t eroded. I’m ready for a government where xenophobia and bloodlust revenge for 9/11 aren’t the New World Order. I’m ready for a Democratic administration who is unafraid of standing to thwart these forces and not merely yelling “Stop,” but standing tall with conviction and understanding of who they are representing. (more…)

If you’ve watched the TV news carefully this week, you may have noticed that somewhere amidst the all-Russert-all-the-time lovefest there were other events taking place – some of which might have benefited from some Russertian analysis.

There are, of course, massive floods up and down the Mississippi River – a “500-year flood” that has taken out levees up and down the Iowa-Illinois border, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. The enormous damage to homes and lives has often taken a backseat to worries about the damage to the Midwest corn crop. (Less ethanol next winter! More food riots in Africa!)

There is the Bush-McCain pas de deux on oil drilling, with both men suddenly insisting that Congress open the waters off our shores to “exploration and exploitation” (as McCain put it) for the first time in 28 years. Failing to do so, one of them said (I can’t remember which – it’s hard to tell them apart), would doom our nation to many more years of gas prices like we’re seeing now ($4.63 at the local Chevron this afternoon).

And then there is the re-emergence of Rudy Giuliani to shore up McCain’s dipping foreign-policy numbers and to rationalize his slipping appreciation for American values. In the wake of last week’s Supreme Court decision restoring some measure of habeas corpus rights to Gitmo detainees – and with his 9/11 blinders enabling him to ignore the resurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan – Rudy trotted out an oldie but goodie, accusing Barack Obama of…wait for it…reverting to a “September 10 mindset” when it comes to applying the (god forbid) Constitution to our treatment of “enemy combatants.”

The media has treated these three developments separately, but to me they’re all part of the same story. Simply put, our nation’s disastrous energy policy is breaking us financially – and when it’s not busy doing that it’s getting us killed around the world, or avoiding the middleman and ravaging us at home via the type of extreme weather that just might portend a climate-change apocalypse. Out-of-control oil prices, Middle East instability and global warming are related problems that require a unified solution. It inevitably will be the task of the next president, even if it’s John McCain, to begin the long-delayed process of weaning this nation (and eventually the world) off of oil and other fossil fuels. (more…)

15. His trash-talking during high school basketball games inspired White Men Can’t Jump

14. Until 2004, his last name was X

13. His actual grandmother? Oprah

12. He’ll only put his hand on his heart at Sanford and Son conventions

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I’ve been reading The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 by Sean Wilentz, and it covers historical ground that most historians don’t want to touch for a good 30 years. Having spent a good deal of time with U.S. historians, the old adage that “history is argument without end” is fairly accurate when it comes to the interpretation of what constitutes historical fact. But historians like to wait for a good chunk of time to pass before digging into the archives of events. That’s why it’s surprising that a noted historian like Wilentz ends his study of the recent past by talking about the present. He may be premature, but Wilentz is ready to bookend “The Age of Reagan” with the end of the George W. Bush’s presidency rather than wait and see who becomes the next president. Just as New Deal liberalism had pretty much crumbled by the beginning of the 1970s, Wilentz thinks that Reagan Republicanism is now in its twilight. This bodes well for a resurgence of liberalism in the future, but it’s instructive to see how a revamped GOP was able become a dominant force in American politics from mid ’70s to the present.

Having a few large-scale events befall the GOP’s political opponents was extremely helpful in the rise of Reagan (i.e., Vietnam, civil rights movements, the counterculture, student protests, and urban riots). But it took a long-term palace revolt within the GOP during the ’60s and ’70s to slough off some of the Midwest and east coast Republicanism that kept the party center-right for a long time — far too long for those who were in love with Barry Goldwater’s ideology. In a way, Goldwater Republicans were cut from the same cloth as their New Left counterparts. The same “no compromise” attitude pervaded both camps, and while the New Left (a loose amalgamation of groups who could never really unite under a shared ideology) imploded by the beginning of the ’70s, “Phase II” of the countercultural revolution pushed forward until the mid ’70s (i.e., “Women’s Lib,” gay rights, the ecology movement, and sexual liberalization). Standing athwart history yelling “Stop!”* was the other counterculture: the New Right. Like I said, these two movements were cut from the same cloth, but while the New Left and its scions pointed out the injustices in the United States and sought to address them through protest, policy, and legislation, the New Right proclaimed their undying love for the United States while actively trying to destroy the very governmental institutions that helped to create the post WW II affluence they grew up in. In short, there was a tremendous amount of resentment in both camps, but the New Right used that resentment in a much more effective way — politically speaking, that is. (more…)

As the Democratic primary campaign slogs onward to Indiana and North Carolina this week, Hillary Clinton – despite her still-overwhelming deficits in votes, delegates and cash – is reveling in the one success she can truly claim: The bloom has been plucked off Barack Obama’s rose. Making Obama appear unelectable has been her strategy ever since he reeled off 11 straight victories in February, and it became clear that her only hope is to convince the superdelegates to overturn his certain pledged-delegate advantage. Obama’s life story and recent statements certainly have provided grist for the opposition-research mill; still, being forced to traverse his recent controversies under withering assault from a fellow Democrat, rather than in the partisan context of the general-election campaign, has at least partially drained the reservoir of goodwill Obama had established at the beginning of the year.

With gracious assists from the national media and Obama himself, Hillary has raised two key questions about Obama that voters weren’t asking themselves as they fawned over his January speeches: Who is this guy? and Can we trust him? Implicit in these questions is the assumption that voters already know everything they need to know about Hillary, and have already decided whether they trust her or not. (In this she is, however unintentionally, parroting George Bush’s 2004 line, “You may not always agree with me, but at least you know where I stand.”) She has effectively re-positioned Obama as The Unknown Quantity – or, as the survivors of Oceanic 815 would put it, as The Other.

The extent to which race in general, or the complicated nature of Obama’s heritage in particular, plays a role in this positioning is up for debate. But it’s clear that Obama, who so recently emerged as a vessel for so many Americans’ hopes to change the country, is now viewed with rising suspicion by citizens who feel they don’t know him and can’t trust him – at least not yet.

(It’s also clear, by the way, that Obama’s oft-proclaimed efforts to “turn the page on the battles of the ’60s” are doomed to failure, at least until November. His attempts to remain forward-looking have been skillfully undercut by the brouhahas over Rev. Wright, who reminds boomers and seniors of the radicalism that took over the Civil Rights movement in the late ’60s, and William Ayers, who has the potential to drag Vietnam-era debates into this election just as the Swift Boaters did in 2004.)

My brother-in-law is one of those Democratic-leaning boomers who now thinks he’ll vote for John McCain if Hillary isn’t the nominee. He couldn’t identify an issue on which Obama differs so much from Hillary that he can be dismissed on policy grounds; his distaste was more ephemeral. “I don’t think [Obama] believes half of what he’s saying, and I don’t think he’s very smart. All he can do is talk,” he told me over the weekend.

I told him what I tell every Democrat who questions Obama’s goodwill or character: Go read the books. Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope are available at your local bookstore or library; they’re also available on CD or cassette. Through them, Obama serves up more insight into his personal history and his political philosophy than any presidential candidate in generations. Rev. Wright is mentioned prominently — as is Obama’s personal rejection of Black Nationalism. So set aside what you think you know, I told my brother-in-law, and go find out what he really thinks. And then decide for yourself how you feel about him. (more…)

We’re at a point in the presidential election when reporters, news directors, anchors, and all the other media powers who help frame election issues are getting weary. Weary of the back and forth, the up and down, and the he said/she said of the Democratic race for the nomination. Feeling like there is very little to talk about, Old Media have, by and large, resorted to promoting the cheapest form of news programming, the Freak Show. If you’ve had a chance to read The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 by John Harris and Mark Halperin, you’ll know what I mean by Freak Show. However, you don’t even have to open Harris and Halperin’s book to know what it is. All you have to do is channel-surf between the three 24-hour cable news channels to see it for yourself. Every now and then there are actual debates over political issues. Nowadays, however, it’s an endless variation of the Freak Show — which elevates trivial political matters into the only issues that matter by shouting, gossip mongering, spewing half-truths and bald-faced lies with a blurring rapidity. Matt Drudge, 24-hour cable news, talk radio, and political blogs are purveyors of the Freak Show, and it would be easy to dismiss if the Freak Show’s formula for getting people to pay attention if it weren’t so effective. Old Media outlets are now eager to jump on the bandwagon. Why? Because if they can get ratings by serving up trash, then why not serve up a steaming pile of it and see if the piggies will come to feed.

The Freak Show is only part of the story, though. Another part is how our esteemed media (Old and New) quickly crown the new prince/President before people have had a chance to vote in the general election. If you’re in the media’s good graces, they will shower you with love — even if you’re routinely making gaffes and saying things that are patently false. Sure, political gaffes will make the news, but it will usually be relegated to middle of the newspaper, programmed deeply in a nightly newscast, or briefly mentioned as a headline news piece. Case in point: John McCain. Those in the press who travel with McCain generally like the guy. They like his humor, they like the fact that he invited the press corp to his house for a BBQ, they admire his bravery during the Vietnam war, and they the see him as our next president. When he makes a gaffe like the one below, it’s reported, and then quickly forgotten.

However, if you’re Howard Dean, an odd victory yell plays over and over for weeks - if not months: (more…)