Debates? Bring It!

Gavin Newsom did what people commonly expect someone behind in the polls in a campaign to do - challenge the front-runner to a series of debates. From his press release:

“Our state is in need of real reform—we have a broken system that must be fixed,” said Newsom. “And now that there are two candidates for governor, we owe the Democratic voters of California an opportunity to compare our visions and platforms side-by-side.”

Mayor Newsom faxed a letter to the Brown campaign with a list of suggested ground rules. The memo suggests 11 debates in total—one in each media market in California. Ten debates would focus on one specific issue each, while the final debate would be open to all relevant issues. Newsom for California also made the following format suggestions:

• 90 minutes in length
• Opening and closing statements
• Moderated, town hall-style debates with direct audience participation
• Segments with moderator questions, public questions, and candidate-to-candidate questions
• An opportunity for candidates to respond directly to any assertions made about their record

I'm sure the hard-bitten cynics in the dwindling press corps will see this as a transparent ploy for attention from a trailing candidate. Nevertheless, my immediate reaction was: "A series of debates. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Phil Angelides and Steve Westly held a series of joint appearances and debates in the 2006 primary, and while that primary was in no way a model, it did help to clarify the positions of the candidates on various issues. The same for the nearly endless series of debates around the 2008 Presidential primary. I wouldn't call them all helpful, depending on the peccadilloes of the moderators and the laziness of the questioning. But in a large state predicated on TV ads and soundbites, 90-minute forums can at least offer a glimpse into the thinking of Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown.

By contrast, our recent statewide gubernatorial elections have been characterized by almost no debates between the major candidates. In 2006, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Phil Angelides held only one debate. During the recall, Arnold deigned to attend one debate during the recall, despite the other candidates holding several, and he neglected to debate Gray Davis, who asked for debates in the final weeks. One could hardly sympathize with Davis, as he only held one debate with Bill Simon during their general election in 2002. As California's political media has shrunk, so have the opportunities for gubernatorial candidates to offer an unfiltered perspective on their plans for the state.

So while there are political reasons behind this, why not? I know I have some curiosity about how Brown and Newsom see their roles and what kind of leadership they can offer, and so should everyone. Fortunately, Brown has responded favorably if enigmatically to this request: "If Attorney General Brown decides to declare his candidacy for Governor, I'm sure he would support the notion of holding debates under terms to be mutually agreed upon by the candidates."

Irandecision '09

Iran may not have listened intently to the Obama Cairo speech. Because another political drama is playing out on their streets. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is up for re-election, and while he does not control the military arsenal or responsibility over much of the lawmaking in Iran - that's reserved for the Supreme Leader - the elections, which are more free than other parts of the Muslim world, represent a good way to sort of take the temperature of the Iranian people. And the results have been, to this point, quite remarkable:

I don't know whether you have been reading the various press accounts of the election campaign in Iran. I know that the candidates' list is fixed, but I can also see democratic spirit when it is bang in front of me. There appears to be a genuine fight for votes; and the images from the Mousavi rallies look more like Obama rallies than assemblies in a totalitarian state. Notice how young these people look, and how unafraid.

Now check out this video of a public clash between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi supporters in the streets of Tehran. It's vivid, electrifying stuff - not a sign of a brutal totalitarian regime. I know we have to be cautious and I know who holds the military power. But we should not be blind to change when it emerges. Ahmadinejad has discredited himself in the eyes of many Iranians. They are looking for change they can believe in. This is the target audience for Obama this Thursday. He needs to reach out to the democratic forces in that country and remind them that America is their ally.

Sullivan has some residual "Arab Spring" issues to deal with, but there's no question that the democratic impulse is robust in Iranian society right now. "Mousavi" is Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former Prime Minister and reformist candidate with the support of former reformist President Mohammed Khatami. Their debate the other night was pretty remarkable:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main rival in the June 12 election, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, held a remarkably frank debate Wednesday night that exposed deep differences among Iran's leaders and presented voters with two completely opposing views.

During the 90-minute debate, which was televised live, the candidates openly delved into topics in a way never seen in the Islamic republic, touching on foreign policy and corruption. In addition, Ahmadinejad raised questions about the academic credentials of Mousavi's wife, a former professor.

The candidates represent two factions in Iran's system of Shiite clerical government. In the debate, Ahmadinejad, in a beige suit and surrounded by stacks of papers, portrayed his opponent as a pawn of Iran's political elite, which he said was corrupt and weak in the face of Western pressure.

Mousavi, a painter and architect, said Ahmadinejad's controversial international and domestic policies were a danger to Iran's future. He accused the president of driving the country toward a "dictatorship" and acting as if he owned the truth. "You think you are higher than all," he told Ahmadinejad.

A large part of the debate centered on foreign policy. Mousavi said Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust had cost Iran much international standing. "Tell me, who are our friends in the region?" he asked the president. Mousavi said the country had became internationally isolated.

These are open debates that Iranians can access and engage with. It puts the lie to the conservative idea of Iran as a monolithic society of America-haters. And the results should be extremely interesting.

CA-04: Debate And D-Trip Drops An Ad

The 4th District had a debate as well last night, the fifth and final of the campaign, and it was spirited.

Every scathing remark and harsh charge that's gone back and forth in the congressional race between Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown got one more airing Tuesday night.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by the South Nevada County Chamber of Commerce south of Grass Valley, McClintock was painted as a do-nothing career politician and Brown as a tax-loving big-government advocate.

And there was also some talk about issues, mixed in with the shots, though sometimes each answer was equal parts both.

It was the usual nonsense: McClintock wants to drill here and drill now. McClintock wants no taxes and no government. McClintock wants to privatize Social Security (yes, even now). McClintock thinks Keebler elves can build the roads and bridges and a thimble-full of oil can power a Lexus. He's a magical thinker. But I have to say that this was my favorite part, and not just because McClintock doesn't know the meaning of the word "liquidity."

McClintock also roundly criticized the recently passed Wall Street bailout package, saying the better route was to put liquidity into the market.

Brown countered that he supported the plan because something needed to be done, then made reference to recent Federal Election Commission reports that showed McClintock's campaign in debt.

"You can't even run your own campaign on a balanced budget, so I don't trust you to run our nation's budget," Brown said.

Brown also hit McClintock over spending the past two years in Sacramento without getting one piece of legislation passed.

Brown took aim at McClintock's record as a state legislator, making reference to a recent Sacramento Bee story that reported McClintock had a perfect record of getting no legislation passed in the last two years.

"This is about actual results, and not talking about what you want to do unless you propose something else you can get passed," Brown said.

The debate is not going to have a major viewing audience. But the airwaves will, and the DCCC has just dropped a long-awaited ad in the district. It's good.



That's quite a lot for 30 seconds, but they pretty much cover California's Alan Keyes and make him out to be the punchline that he is.

The question is whether or not McClintock has 10 cents to respond to this.

CA-46: Debate Fireworks and Ratfuckers for Rohrabacher

So Debbie Cook and Dana Rohrabacher debated yesterday afternoon. I could write 1000 words about it, but I could also just provide you with this picture, which says it all:



As in, "I can't believe I actually have to run for my seat."

But if you want to know about the substance, Todd Beeton, who was there, has a writeup.

But even though crazy Dana is always likely to say some crazy shit, and he did, what I took away from the debate most of all was how unabashedly progressive Debbie Cook is and how lucky we would be to have her in Congress. This is a fairly red (albeit getting bluer every day) district, one where you might expect the Democratic challenger to moderate her views for the electorate. Nope, not Debbie. I'll write about the debate more later, hopefully with video, but here are just three of the issues where Debbie shined today:

• On global warming, Cook, who is an energy expert, in response to Rohrabacher's global warming denier nonsense, asserted "The debate is over. I can't get into a discussion over climate change, to me it's just a fact, we need to move on to solving our oil depletion problems."

• On Proposition 8: "I strongly oppose Proposition 8, I am in favor of full marriage equality."

• And on healthcare reform, Cook advocated for a single-payer Medicare for all model. "Health care is a right every American should enjoy."

Yes, Crazy Dana denied global warming. Again. Not sure if he attributed it to dinosaur flatulence this time. But here's the actual discussion:

Rohrabacher went on to accuse those "who claim that humankind is changing the climate," including Cook and his other opponents, of fear mongering.

"[They are] trying to stampede us into policies that will take us towards technologies that just deal with carbon dioxide and have nothing to do with personal health," Rohrabacher said.

Cook, who led Huntington Beach in joining the U.S. Mayor's Agreement on Global Warming, dismissed Rohrabacher's claims, stating that the scientific debate over climate change had ended.

"Debating climate change is just a distraction from the real work that we all need to do," Cook said. "Humans are overtaking the ability of the planet to sustain itself. Now, we need to move toward a green future because that's the only thing that can save us."

Apparently, Rohrabacher's plan was to relate everything back to illegal immigration and the Wall Street bailout package, which he would have replaced with capital gains tax cuts and more deregulation, so I'm not seeing Mr. Populism in there.

Cook stayed on message and did not take the bait. Here was her explanation.

After the debate, Cook explained why she refused to go after the incumbent.

"It's not my style," she said. "You don't want to make the same mistake that the Republicans have made with McCain in going negative, negative, negative. I think it's quite apparent that he's done nothing for this district in 20 years. And if people don't understand that, me telling them isn't going to change anything."

"He's an a**," Cook continued. "I can't respond to him. He's a liar."

Meanwhile, I noticed something very interesting in Rohrabacher's latest fundraising report:

Donald Segretti
self
09/27/2008
250.00
attorney

Yes, that Donald Segretti. The head of the "dirty tricks" division of the Nixon campaign, the guy who stole stationery from Ed Muskie and wrote all kinds of lies about possible Nixon opponents in 1972, alleging Scoop Jackson had an illegitimate child and Hubert Humphrey was guilty of sexual misconduct and Muskie had insulted Franch-Canadians. By the way, Segretti was a co-chair of John McCain's Presidential campaign in 2000. And he was Karl Rove's mentor in ratfucking.

Donald Segretti offered J. Timothy Gratz $100.00 per month, plus expenses, to co-ordinate these projects. Gratz agreed to work on the project and he was given an advance payment of $50.00. Gratz later told Anthony Ulasewicz that "although the whole incident seemed strange" he agreed to help "as most of the ideas he suggested seemed like they were worth doing anyway". However, Gratz claimed he told Karl Rove, Chairman of the College Republican National Committee, about this dirty tricks campaign. We now know that Rove himself was part of Segretti's campaign. In fact, he probably played a leading role in this dirty tricks operation. Rove had become friends with CIA asset, Robert F. Bennett in 1968. According to one report, Bennett became a "mentor of Rove's".

In 1970, Karl Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Illinois State Treasurer, and stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead. Rove then printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally.

Nice company that Rohrabacher attracts.

Donate to Debbie Cook: Having the money to get her message out is all that stands between her and victory.

Magnificent Bastard

Here's John McCain saying "BOORRRR-INGGGG" with his eyes over the deaths of Colombian labor leaders:



And here's him making air quotes to deride something so frivolous and mockable as women's health.



The reason John McCain is losing this race has something to do with the fundamentals, but also because he's simply an arrogant asshole. This is why independents are laughing in his face. He's inauthentic, hollow, callous, and believes he should have the Presidency handed to him by divine right. His delusions of grandeur aren't playing well.

He's also a liar, and so are his friends:

Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson attacked The Post's story as "wrong," saying, "Verizon received a request from Mrs. McCain, but declined. Subsequent to that, the Secret Service made a legitimate request for a temporary tower for its work and Verizon complied as is required by our contract with the agency."

However, interviews and public records filed in the development services offices of Yavapai County, Ariz., reveal a different timeline. Getting cell coverage was the culmination of an effort begun in early 2007 by Cindy McCain, when her staff first requested coverage through Verizon's Web site, according to the McCain campaign. After discussing the matter with the company, Mrs. McCain offered land for a permanent cell tower. She gave Verizon authorization to act on her behalf to seek permits from the county. Verizon hired contractors to draw up the plans and Cindy McCain signed a contract in May.

After a regulatory hurdle delayed installation of the permanent tower, Verizon received e-mails from the Secret Service asking about coverage in the area and asking for the process to be rushed. Verizon's contractor then petitioned for a cell site on wheels. It was installed in June.

Erratic. Dishonest. Dishonorable. Dismissive.

John McCain 2008.

Obama's Wind At His Back

The snap polls are coming in for Barack Obama in much the same numbers that they did in the first two debates. CNN has it 58-31 for Obama. CBS' poll is similar. That's because Obama came out, in the same way as the other debates, with the same even keel. And also, the fundamentals of the race have crashed on McCain and Republicans. All Obama has to say is that McCain supports the same policies as George Bush and everyone gets knocked over as if with a feather. McCain can make ideological arguments about big government and higher taxes and liberal ideas all he wants, but the public has thoroughly rejected them. Just completely. Obama's specifics are pretty cautious and circumscribed and nuanced and I don't agree with all of them. But he doesn't have the weight of party identification against him. Given the Bush/Republican known they are more than willing to grasp the unknown.

People know one thing that can't be dislodged from their minds - Republican governance has been a total failure. A 90-minute debate isn't going to change any of that.

And staying focused like a laser on the issues about which Americans clearly care the most helped as well. This is the anti-smear campaign no matter how much the fever swamps want it. The Ayers question in this debate - which I rightly called at Bob Schieffer's wet kiss to McCain - was a microcosm of the campaign. McCain wanted to simultaneously take the high road and the low road. He tried some ju-jitsu by forcing Obama to distance himself from John Lewis' remarks. No sale, Obama rightly brought up the impetus for the remarks - the hateful rhetoric coming from McCain/Palin rallies. Then McCain shifted into a backlash-type defense of his supporters. Obama flicked it off, and was finishing up the question, and McCain sensed he was losing his moment, and cut off Obama mid-sentence to get in his licks about Bill Ayers and ACORN, in kind of an erratic way. It was a meandering exchange, was highly negative and misleading, and it ended with Obama saying that making Bill Ayers the centerpiece of his campaign says a lot more about McCain than anyone else.

John McCain is a terrible candidate and that is the perfect example. But even if he was a stellar, superior candidate, I just don't think it would matter. People have rendered their verdict on conservatism.

...other fun facts:

McCain cares so much about regular Americans like Joe the Plumber that he mispronounced his last name.

The abortion question was seriously a mess for McCain, offending conservatives (no litmus test), liberals (the "pro-abortion" movement) and the truth (the nonsense about Obama's votes in the Illinois State Senate).

"Senator Government" was not a slip of the tongue.

McCain totally - totally - lied about his own health care plan, and Obama's. His claim that the average health care plan costs $5,800 and he would give a $5,000 health care tax credit is true - but the $5,800 is for INDIVIDUALS and his $5,000 is for A WHOLE FAMILY. Just one example.

Obama was excellent on trade, IMO.

UPDATE:

The Debate Begins - Semi-Liveblog

OK, I'm sorta following the CNN.com stream. So far, my thoughts are this:

McCain: Obama, you want to hurt Joe the Plumber. You're robbing a white man!

Obama: I'm going to stick to my proposals and gently bat away McCain's ramblings. And I like Joe the Plumber.

Joe the Plumber is the most damn important guy in the history of the world.

Obama: But Warren Buffett...

McCain: Joe the Plumber. Plumber!!!!!one!

God, this election is stupid.

...OK, this is being played out on the terrain of taxes, which is kind of silly at this time of crisis. And here comes the neo-Hooverism from Bob Schieffer, with a focus on the deficit. Will Obama call him out?

...well, he's pushing back, sort of... he does say that public investment will be a savings in the future. And he does say that there's a time for fiscal responsibility, AFTER this economic crisis. I generally agree. You can be fiscally responsible and smart - in good times. In bad times like this you simply have to use the federal government to provide stimulus, since monetary policy is currently useless.

This allows McCain to go into his across-the-board spending freeze and porkbusting nonsense. Obama goes back to earmarks acocunting for 1/2 of 1% of the federal budget. And he talks about Bush ballooning the deficit.

The focus on balancing the budget is absolutely annoying.

McCain: "I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." That was a very good moment for him. I don't think it'll be enough, but it was a solid moment.

Obama on the tax increases for $42,000: "Even Fox News disputes that, and that's unusual for them to dispute a charge at me." Then he goes back to telling McCain if he mistakes McCain for Bush it's because they're the same on economic policy. McCain responds with a bunch of stuff that has virtually nothing to do with economic policy.

...here it comes, Schieffer gives McCain the Ayers opening, like a good little soldier. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. McCain starts with how everything could have changed if they only went out on town hall meetings. Now he says that Obama must repudiate the remarks about John Lewis. Now Obama is the dirty negative campaigner ("More money on negative ads than any campaign in history" -yeah, more money on ads.)

Obama's response - "We expect campaigns to be tough." Mentions the CBS poll. "100% of your ads have been negative." McCain meekly denies it. "I don't mind being attacked for the next 3 weeks. But what the American people deserve is not four more years of the same economic policies." It's the usual "Let's get back to the issues" high road. "Politics as usual is not solving the big problems in America."

McCain goes the "stop lying about my record" route. Worked well for Bob Dole. And Joe the Plumber is back!

...McCain is really a pathetic human being. He's trying to play backlash politics by saying that Obama mentioning that McCain's rallies have featured people yelling "Terrorist" and "Kill him" is an attack on his supporters. It's absolutely absurd and beneath any sentient human being. McCain's trying to wiggle away from the environment he created at those rallies.

Then, he jumps in during Obama's colloquy, right in the middle of a sentence, to bring up Bill Ayers and ACORN, who are "destroying the fabric of democracy." Conservatives everywhere just had an orgasm. Obama returns with his prepared remarks demurring the Ayers thing and ACORN. But the way in which McCain brought it up is what's significant. He jumped in because he thought he was going to get away from the question before name-checking ACORN and Ayers. He had to bring it into the dirt. What a sad display.

...The Biden-Palin question was absurd and boring.

...McCain corrects Schieffer on climate change for absolutely no reason. In his response, McCain apparently thinks that cars run on nuclear power.

...Obama explains what free trade actually means. That populism is going to be off the charts. He's been pushed into this position on trade, but he's absolutely right. Education and training for workers, like McCain says, is a total dodge. His answer is a complete mess.

OK, I'm going to drive home and listen to the rest of this on the radio.

Hey Schieffer, Incorporate Some Breaking News

Waiting on the debate, which I think has about a 50/50 chance of turning into a smear factory. But if it does, it would be nice if Bob Schieffer could work it around to one of today's top stories and see what the Maverick would have to say in his defense:

Early in 2007, just as her husband launched his presidential bid, Cindy McCain decided to resolve an old problem -- the lack of cellular telephone coverage on her remote 15-acre ranch near Sedona, nestled deep in a tree-lined canyon called Hidden Valley.

By the time Sen. John McCain's presidential bid was in full swing this summer, the ranch had wireless coverage from the two cellular companies most often used by campaign staff -- Verizon Wireless and AT&T.

Verizon delivered a portable tower know as a "cell site on wheels" -- free of charge -- to Cindy McCain's property in June in response to an online request from Cindy McCain's staff early last year. Such devices are usually reserved for restoring service when cell coverage is knocked out during emergencies, such as hurricanes.

In July, AT&T followed suit, wheeling in a portable tower for free to match Verizon's offer. "This is an unusual situation," said AT&T spokeswoman Claudia B. Jones. "You can't have a presidential nominee in an area where there is not cell coverage."

If you think this sounds perfectly reasonable, consider that Ted Stevens is facing jail time for pretty much exactly the same thing. Oh, and the McCain campaign's spin is that the Secret Service made him do it - which the Secret Service denies.

"The Washington Post story regarding Verizon providing a cell tower to the McCain Ranch is wrong," (Verizon PR guy) Thonis said. "Verizon received a request from Mrs. McCain, but declined.

"Subsequent to that, the Secret Service made a legitimate request for a temporary tower for its work and Verizon complied as is required by our contract with the agency. The Secret Service request, made on May 28, specifically said it needed the service urgently and requested that Verizon 'explore every possible means of providing an alternative cellular or data communications source in the referenced area and provide any short term implementation of any type as a solution in the interim."

But James Grimaldi, the Post reporter who broke the story, has the Secret Service saying they did not formally request the tower.

Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren told the paper: "This was something that was being addressed before we were out there."

Just the Verizon flack's protestations are revealing. They confirm that Cindy McCain asked for a cell phone tower for her personal use - and pretty much only the McCain family's use, as there are few other homes in the area. They confirm that the request was in well before McCain took the nomination.

McCain, of course, regulates these phone companies as part of his day job, and mixes with their lobbyists on his campaign staff.

Ethics lawyers said Cindy McCain's dealings with the wireless companies stand out because Sen. John McCain is a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission and the telecommunications industry. He has been a leading advocate for industry-backed legislation, fighting regulations and taxes on telecommunications services. (he was a past chair of the Commerce Committee, too -ed.)

McCain and his campaign have close ties to Verizon and AT&T. Five campaign officials, including campaign manager Rick Davis, have worked as lobbyists for Verizon. Former McCain staffer Robert Fisher is an in-house lobbyist for Verizon and is volunteering for the campaign. Fisher, Verizon chief executive Ivan Seidenberg and company lobbyists have raised more than $1.3 million for McCain's presidential campaign and Verizon employees are among the top 20 corporate donors over McCain's political career, giving more than $155,000 to his campaigns.

McCain's Senate chief of staff Mark Buse, senior strategist Charles R. Black Jr., and several other campaign staffers have registered as AT&T lobbyists in the past. AT&T Executive Vice President Timothy McKone and AT&T lobbyists have raised more than $2.3 million for McCain. AT&T employees have donated more than $325,000 to McCain campaigns, putting the company in the No. 3 spot for career donations to McCain, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

I don't know, rather than Bill Ayers, that might be something the public would like to know, Mr. Schieffer.

Or, you could mention the international terrorists tied to John McCain, otherwise known as "anti-Castro Cubans".

Ayers And The Debate

I think people are misreading this. John McCain did NOT vow to raise Ayers in the debate. Listen to the audio. He passive-aggressively leaned on Bob Schieffer to bring it up. He feigns astonishment at Obama saying that he wasn't man enough to talk about McCain to his face, and explains that "it wasn't a topic" that came up in the Brokaw debate. Then he says that "I think that guarantees it will be a topic" tonight.

If McCain answers a health care question with "Bill Ayers bombed the Pentagon," he loses. But if Schieffer raises it, he isn't dinged for bringing it up. They want Schieffer to raise it, and considering Bob's brother is the current US Ambassador to Japan, I think they may get their wish.

McCain wants to take the high road and the low road at the same time. He will not bring up Bill Ayers unprompted. He will wait for the question to be fed to him by Bob Schieffer. And Schieffer is subtly giving away his punch.

The veteran "Face the Nation" host won't telegraph what he will ask. But he said he will be seeking more details about their potential presidencies than have been evident so far.

I say he goes for it.

Schieffer, you recall, is the guy who couldn't fathom how being shot down in a plane over Vietnam wasn't a qualification for the Presidency. If there's anyone who's willing to save McCain's honor, it's Schieffer.

Campaign Update: CA-03, CA-04, CA-11, CA-45, CA-46

A lot to cover today.

General: I suspended the monthly ratings because it was ridiculously time-consuming and better to get the information out more timely, but in case you're wondering, here is my impression of the top targets in California for the Congressional races as we stand with 22 days out.

1) CA-04: Lean Dem. Charlie Brown has been ahead in multiple polls and actually has a ground game, unlike Tom McClintock.
2) CA-03: Tilt Repub. Bill Durston's poll showing the race as a dead heat raised a lot of eyebrows. Unfortunately people discovered this race too late, but by Election Day I'll bet that the registration numbers are virtually tied and there will not be an immediate call. The smart money for progressives wanting to impact a race should go to Dr. Durston against Dan Lungren.
3) CA-46: Tilt Repub. Debbie Cook is replicating the Loretta Sanchez strategy of ground mobilization that she used to defeat B-1 Bob Dornan. We'll see if she can pull it off against Crazy Dana Rohrabacher.
4) CA-26: Tilt Repub. Russ Warner has been doing a decent enough job and there's a bit of outside support, but David Dreier has a wall of money.
5) CA-45: Lean Repub. This race has also been under the radar, but the district is either #1 or #2 in the COUNTRY for foreclosures, and affordable housing expert Julie Bornstein can stand to benefit from movement toward Democratic solutions on the economy in her race against Mary Bono Mack.
6) CA-50: Lean Repub. This is the permanent tease district in California, and despite Nick Leibham's efforts to shake up the race, I'm not seeing Brian Bilbray taken down right now, especially because he's likely to whip up populist support in his base with his vote against the bailout.
7) CA-52: Likely Repub. It was always going to be an uphill battle for Mike Lumpkin in his race against Duncan Hunter's son running for Duncan Hunter's old seat. I'd like to see better signs here, but I'm coming up empty.

I rate everything else as Safe Republican at the moment. I'll do a legislative targeting in the next campaign update. Now, to the news:

• CA-03: Faced with a tie race, Dan Lungren's campaign has decided that the smart thing to do is name calling.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Dan Lungren's (R-Gold River) congressional campaign said Bill Durston was mischaracterizing Lungren's absence from a candidate forum last weekend.

On top of that, he referred to Durston, a Democrat from Gold River, as a "knucklehead."

They actually don't believe Durston's viable. Hilariously, Lungren gave out a bunch of tickets to a Bonnie Raitt concert in the district, and during the show Raitt endorsed Durston and urged people to vote.

This would be such a delicious upset, and the contours of it remind me exactly of Carol Shea-Porter's improbable victory in New Hampshire in 2006.

• CA-04: The competitors actually showed up at a 4th District debate last week, and Charlie Brown got off a great line:

In the heavily Republican district, where he narrowly lost to Doolittle two years ago, Brown faced an audience question over whether he would "stand up to Nancy Pelosi" and her "liberal positions." [...]

While Brown said he disagreed with the Democratic house speaker from San Francisco on rights of gun owners, McClintock went after him.

"This issue of marching in lockstep with her on every major issue in the campaign speaks to the fact that she has targeted your congressional district as one of those seats they want to cement a permanent Democratic majority," McClintock said. "And I think they're counting on your vote, Charlie."

Brown, a district resident in Roseville, answered back with a poke at McClintock for running in a district 400 miles north of his Senate seat in Thousand Oaks.

"Tom, if you want to run against Nancy Pelosi (in San Francisco)," Brown said, "that district is actually closer than this one to your home."

• CA-45: Julie Bornstein, on the other hand, debated an empty chair recently in Rancho Mirage. Mary Bono Mack has refused any effort to get her to debate Bornstein. Perhaps she's busy with her husband in Florida.

Bornstein came prepared. When she was given the opportunity to address the absentee incumbent in her closing remarks, Bornstein came out firing.

"This is a job interview," she said, asking Bono Mack, "How is it that you feel that you do not need to meet with your constituents?"

"There is no sense of entitlement here," Bornstein told voters, "that somehow your vote is already predetermined, that you owe it to a party or a person. One of the first lessons I learned when I became a working person is that you have to show up. You have to be here. And my question to my opponent is, where are you?"

They tracked Bono Mack down at a party during the forum. Bornstein, who this weekend welcomed Barbara Boxer in for a fundraiser, parried a Republican attempt to protest that event in much the same way, by saying that she "welcomed debate." Often these debate-baiting tactics aren't that successful, but I don't think this is a good year to be an absentee incumbent.

• CA-11: Another duo got together for a little chat this weekend, Dean Andal and Jerry McNerney. There's some interesting stuff in there - Andal apparently thinks it's "immoral" to support a safe and responsible withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But what's more interesting is that Andal finally, two weeks after the bailout, came up with an opinion on it. He was opposed, in case you were wondering. Talk about political cowardice, waiting that long to express an opinion.

• CA-46: Debbie Cook has a new ad.



I have to say that I kind of like it. The "asteroids" thing is kind of tacked on, but the rest of it is sufficiently hard-hitting and affixes Dana Rohrabacher to the problems created by 8 long years of Republican failure. The Cook campaign has Jim Dean from DFA coming into the district for a fundraising breakfast and precinct walk this Sunday. More information here.

Immolation

There's a story out today that the Presidential campaign has somehow "shifted back" to the economy because John McCain didn't run out last night and tell Barack Obama to his face that he was a Muslim terrorist. And the Politico got these very nice little quotes from McCain staffers that "proved" this.

After days of attempts to persuade voters that Obama’s ties to ‘60s radical Bill Ayers are a crucial character issue, McCain didn’t mention Ayers’ name during the 90 minutes of Tuesday’s forum. His top aides suggested afterward that, going forward, the candidate wouldn’t focus on the former domestic terrorist nor invoke the name of Obama’s controversial pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Nicolle Wallace, a top McCain adviser, hinted McCain would not bring it up. “If asked about it, of course [he’ll talk about Ayers],” she said.

McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt all but said the controversial pastor remained off-limits.

“What Sen. McCain has said is that it’s not an issue he intends to talk about in the race,” said the aide, though he did note that Obama himself had called Wright 'fair game.'

But Schmidt did say without prompting: “You’ve not seen Sen. McCain advertise on [Wright]."

Apparently, the institutional memory of the Washington press corps has been erased. These things aren't meant to be frontal assaults - George H.W. Bush only brought up Willie Horton in a debate in 1988 after Dukakis approached the subject first. These things happen in the background, over email, through whisper campaigns, and once they're in the ether they don't need to be hyped again and again. It's "out there."

But McCain's campaign isn't as deft as those in the past, for a particular reason which I'll get to in a moment. As for the idea that the McCain campaign's given up on the character attacks, um, no:

ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, John M. Murtagh made the following statement on Barack Obama's relationship with William Ayers:

"When I was 9 years-old the Weather Underground, the terrorist group founded by Barack Obama's friend William Ayers, firebombed my house. Barack Obama has dismissed concerns about his relationship with Ayers by noting that he was only a child when Ayers was planting bombs at the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. But Ayers has never apologized for his crimes, he has reveled in them, expressing regret only for the fact that he didn't do more [...]

"Barack Obama may have been a child when William Ayers was plotting attacks against U.S. targets -- but I was one of those targets. Barack Obama's friend tried to kill my family."

John McCain has a problem. He isn't trusted by the base and so he must appeal to their darkest instincts, but every time he does so he turns off independents. Indeed, during the debate, every time he launched an attack, such as they were, the dials plummeted. But without his base he's sunk and he has no ground game, so attack he must. That's why Sarah Palin is taking the Agnew role and whipping crowds into a frenzy (and Joe Biden is right to call her on it), but McCain is backing away and hedging. That's why his campaign is taking tentative steps in the water with the Ayers and Rezko and Wright stuff but never full steps. They know they must take the campaign into the gutter, but every time they do they destroy this carefully cultivated "honorable" brand, which was never true in reality, but also the only way he could ever win in a down Republican year.

The further problem is that the tentative steps are ugly enough to provoke anger and distaste. And of course, these are ill-suited times for the Republican playbook of smear and fear. Heck, even the racists are undecided.

An Obama supporter, who canvassed for the candidate in the working-class, white Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown recently, sends over an account that, in various forms, I've heard a lot in recent weeks.

"What's crazy is this," he writes. "I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are f***ing undecided. They would call him a n----r and mention how they don't know what to do because of the economy."

I'm from Philly and I know Fishtown, and that rings very, very true.

The end result is that you get this lurching, haphazard, erratic campaign. Last night we saw the "compassionate conservative" asking for the government to buy out struggling mortgages (an idea that is far less than meets the eye - he would buy homes at full face value instead of what they're actually worth - a huge payoff to the banks). In the same breath, by the way, he calls for a spending freeze on all but the most vital programs. And by this morning, there are Ayers attacks and new ads calling Obama "secretive". There's no rhyme or reason to any of it because of the enormous self-generated bind, having to please the wingnuts and simultaneously cut them off, having to strike a populist tone and simultaneously please his corporate paymasters and lobbyist staff, having to play to win while every attack hurts his own image.

McCain is running a self-negating campaign.

Media Follies

Sarah Palin took questions from the traveling press corps for the first time today, and they decided to ask her if she's going to show up on Saturday Night Live. Hard-hitting!

Ruth Marcus doesn't know anything about health care.

CNN proudly boasted that they wouldn't be heading into the spin room because there's no value in it. Bold! Then they asked their twelve pundits, including Republican and Democratic operatives, to give their obvious opinions.

That "town hall" was a nightmare.

The media is claiming that the Palin rape kit story has been debunked. It hasn't.

And about 20 others, but I'll save them for tomorrow.

Debate Recap

...he actually says "my friends".

Rerun

Big ups to Tom Brokaw for structuring the debate in the same order, with practically the exact same questions, as the first debate a week and a half ago. Thanks for spending 90 minutes providing the same information that Jim Lehrer did. Great work, Tom.

The only things that stood out to me, that weren't practically the same canned responses as last time, were these:

• Obama called health care a right and not a commodity, and brought a moral dimension to the issue that calms my nerves about him on the topic.

• Darfur got mentioned, which was a new one.

• McCain basically called for a version of a new HOLC, with the government stepping in to buy up failing mortgages and work them out with struggling homeowners. This is completely at odds with his record, and I'd like to see him explain it to fiscal conservatives. Also, why now and not during the bailout negotiations?

• Fountains of conventional wisdom like Brokaw still think there's a problem with entitlements completely out of proportion to the actual problem. Social Security is not in crisis and Medicare's crisis has directly to do with skyrocketing health care costs and should not be viewed in a vacuum.

• Obama's line on why insurance markets should be deregulated because the credit card industry moved all their businesses to low-regulation states like Delaware was... you know, interesting, considering his Vice Presidential nominee.

• Both candidates are out to lunch on Afghanistan and were totally non-responsive on the plain fact that our presence there has become toxic.

• Obama's ending included the line "This country gave me a chance." I thought it was good framing.

No changes in the polls from this, as very little new things were revealed.

Debate Thread

Apparently the rules of this debate are for crap. This is a "town hall" in the George W. Bush sense of the word - the questions were given to Tom Brokaw, he selected the ones he likes, and the audience members get no follow-ups (but Brokaw might, although by the rules he's not supposed to). The idea that this is an unfiltered exchange between the candidates and the people is ridiculous.

The Commission on Presidential Debates should be dissolved. The debates this cycle have been the worst I've ever seen, and the word "debate" shouldn't even be used - they're dueling press releases where nobody engages with the other's arguments. In fact, by trying to do that a bit Obama was HARMED in the last debate because he played too often on McCain's turf after McCain completely reframed the question. In other words, having an actual debate is completely unadvisable.

So, you know, watch!

Actually, She Was Terrible

The more that you delve into Sarah Palin's Thursday night performance in the debate, the worse it appears, because lots of her statements were outright lies. She stated that John McCain favors bankruptcy judges restructuring the principles homeowners allow on their mortgages - not so. She stated that public schools need additional funding and teachers need to be paid more - that's not the McCain position. She said that she favored divestment from Sudan while Governor of Alaska - sadly, no (apologies to Sadly, No).

"The [Palin] administration killed our bill," said Alaska state representative Les Gara, D-Anchorage. Gara and state Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, co-sponsored a resolution early this year to force the Alaska Permanent Fund  a $40 billion investment fund, a portion of whose dividends are distributed annually to state residents  to divest millions of dollars in holdings tied to the Sudanese government.

In Thursday's debate, Palin said she had advocated the state divest from Sudan. "When I and others in the legislature found out that we had some millions of dollars [of Permanent Fund investments] in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars," Palin said.

But a search of news clips and transcripts from the time do not turn up an instance in which Palin mentioned the Sudanese crisis or concerns about Alaska's investments tied to the ruling regime. Moreover, Palin's administration openly opposed the bill, and stated its opposition in a public hearing on the measure.

"The legislation is well-intended, and the desire to make a difference is noble, but mixing moral and political agendas at the expense of our citizens' financial security is not a good combination," testified Brian Andrews, Palin's deputy revenue commissioner, before a hearing on the Gara-Lynn Sudan divestment bill in February. Minutes from the meeting are posted online by the legislature.

Not to mention the answer about how as Vice President she will seek additional authority from the legislative and judicial branches, which is honestly frightening. We already know that Palin is perfectly willing and able to abuse her authority - the machinations to shut down the Troopergate investigation are a perfect example. This is a dangerous person to put into power. The fact that the emergency appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court warns that "the plaintiffs and Alaskans will suffer irreparable harm" if the Branchflower report is released as scheduled on October 10, which is the exact language used in Bush v. Gore, gives you a clue.

All the more reason to work harder and make sure she comes nowhere near Washington.

In Ten Years, This Will Still Be The Creepiest Commentary In Political History

Rich Lowry loses it on his laptop.

A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It's one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O'Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

Get a room, Rich.

Is this the guy who watches porn and thinks the actresses are looking at him, too?

(FWIW I had other things going on, but I didn't notice the winking at all. If you wanted to know what I did notice, audio of my radio appearance is here.)

Note To Cokie

If you don't know what you're talking about, don't open your mouth. Or in your case, don't open your mouth. Because the "don't know what you're talking about" thing is self-evident.

During coverage of the October 2 vice-presidential debate on PBS' Charlie Rose, Rose asked, "Did either of them make any mistakes that you noticed?" National Public Radio senior news analyst Cokie Roberts responded that Sen. Joe Biden "talked about the Bosniaks." Roberts later said: "[I]f [Gov. Sarah Palin] had said 'Bosniak,' everybody would be making a big deal of it, you know." In fact, Biden correctly referred to certain residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Bosniaks. According to the U.S. State Department, as of 2002, the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina consisted of the following ethnic groups: "Bosniak 48.3%, Serb 34.0%, Croat 15.4%, others 2.3%."

Way to go, Cokie, putting yourself in the illustrious company of The Corner, RedState and Powerline. Your family must be so proud.

Word Salad

I may have overestimated the ability of the public and the media to be wowed by Sarah Palin simply because she didn't go on stage and gnaw on the podium. Politico is pretty tough.

On at least ten occasions, Palin gave answers that were nonspecific, completely generic, pivoted away from the question at hand, or simply ignored it: on global warming, an Iraq exit strategy, Iran and Pakistan, Iranian diplomacy, Israel-Palestine (and a follow-up), the nuclear trigger, interventionism, Cheney's vice presidency and her own greatest weakness.

She was definitely nonresponsive and on message. Even when that message was confusing.

Palin's final quote was from Ronald Reagan, warning that without vigilance, "you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."

In fact, Reagan was not warning about a general lack of vigilance about freedom, he was warning what would happen if Medicare was enacted.

And because she was spending so much time staying on script and basically defending her own intellect, Biden could shoot the gap with strong moments like this.



Ultimately, that debate isn't moving numbers. Both sides liked what they saw. But it is significant that Palin treated it like a student taking a test, while Biden treated it like a surrogate making an argument.

She also lied a lot.

...oh that's fucking funny.

Gen. Scott McClellan

I don't really care much about misspeaking the name of a random general here and there. So Sarah Palin calling the NATO Commander in Afghanistan David McKiernan "General McClellan" on a couple occasions doesn't bug me. What bugs me is that she completely misstated McKiernan's opinion of the war in Afghanistan and whether or not you can use surge tactics in that theater, which was big news as it broke TODAY. I even wrote about it.

“Afghanistan is not Iraq,” said Gen. David McKiernan, who led ground forces during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and took over four months ago as head of the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan.

During a news conference yesterday, McKiernan described Afghanistan as “a far more complex environment than I ever found in Iraq.” The country's mountainous terrain and rural population, its poverty and illiteracy, its 400 major tribal networks and history of civil war all make for unique challenges, he said.

“The word I don't use for Afghanistan is 'surge,' ” McKiernan emphasized, saying that what is required instead is a “sustained commitment” to a counterinsurgency effort that could last many more years and would ultimately require a political, not military, solution.

That is the diametric opposite of what not only Palin, but McCAIN has been saying throughout this campaign. The "surge to Afghanistan" nonsense has been discredited by the general on the ground. And Palin outright lied about it tonight.