Jon Henke thinks it’s time for the Right to throw out the lunatics:

In the 1960’s, William F. Buckley denounced the John Birch Society leadership for being “so far removed from common sense” and later said “We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner.”

The Birthers are the Birchers of our time, and WorldNetDaily is their pamphlet.  The Right has mostly ignored these embarrassing people and organizations, but some people and organizations inexplicably choose to support WND through advertising and email list rental or other collaboration.

Several of us — notably Melissa Clouthier, Doug Mataconis, and Matt Sheffield — bandied this about on Twitter yesterday.  And while I’m still inclined to agree with Jon that the Republican Party and organized conservative movement should distance itself from the yahoos, I’m not sure how much energy it’s worth.  Aren’t we better off, as Melissa suggests, in focusing “on a positive message all can unite around?”

Casting out the infidels will likely not have much benefit and comes with quite a bit of cost.

As Steve Benen notes, the RNC is among those advertising on WND.  And, while I’d love to see them not legitimate the loons by sponsoring their websites, it’s true that loons vote.  And they’re not going to go away just because the RNC doesn’t give them any money.  Indeed, it may well just prove to them that both parties are corrupt.

The more important criticism is that Jerome Corsi, the loon that sparked Jon to say “Enough” is the yahoo who was behind the Swift Boat Veterans slime group that attacked John Kerry so successfully in 2004.  While some of us on the Right denounced them at the time, most sat by and figured the ends justified the means.

At this point, I’d just be happy if the GOP can find leaders who rise above the Birther and Death Panels fray and put forth principled alternatives to the Obama-Reid-Pelosi programs.  Aside from continuing the status quo, what’s the Republican plan for solving the impending financial collapse of our health care system?  What’s the Republican vision of American security policy?  Does it envision continuing nation-building in every country where Islamist terrorists might live?  How do we pay down the national debt and get back on the road to fiscal sanity?

Ultimately, focusing on that might take the spotlight off the crazies.

Bruce Bartlett explains why he’s not a Republican anymore using a time-honored refrain:  He didn’t leave his party; his party left him.  While he now considers himself an “independent,” he’s more than non-partisan; he’s “anti-Republican.”  Why?

I still consider myself to be a Reaganite. But I don’t see any others anywhere in the GOP these days, which is why I consider myself to be an independent. Mindless partisanship has replaced principled conservatism. What passes for principle in the party these days is “what can we do to screw the Democrats today.”

[...]

I think the Republican Party is in the same boat the Democrats were in in the early eighties — dominated by extremists unable to see how badly their party was alienating moderates and independents. The party’s adults formed the Democratic Leadership Council to push the party back to the center and it was very successful. But there is no group like that for Republicans. That has left lunatics like Glenn Beck as the party’s de facto leaders. As long as that remains the case, I want nothing to do with the GOP.

It’s true that moderates have largely been driven from the leadership ranks of the Republican Party.  But they’ve also been driven from the leadership ranks of the Democratic Party. The combination of gerrymandered districts and the permanent campaign have incentivized polarization.

Still, John McCain, the GOP nominee in last November’s election, was from the moderate wing of the party, beating out a slew of more ideologically pure contenders. George W. Bush, the standard-bearer in 2000 and 2004, ran as a “compassionate conservative.”  Mushy moderate Mitt Romney is the most probable nominee for 2012.

The idea that Glenn Beck is somehow the leader of the party is absurd. Given that the United States lacks a shadow government, the out-of-power party has no obvious leader.   Who was the leader of the Democrats after John Kerry lost in 2004?  Certainly, it wasn’t Barack Obama, who was a mere state senator and U.S. Senator-elect.

Also rather silly:

I see no way a Republican can retake the White House for the foreseeable future. Both CBO and OMB are predicting better than 4% real growth in 2011 and 2012. If those numbers are even remotely correct Obama will have it in the bag.

So, the “foreseeable future” is the same as “in the next election”? Yes, barring serious scandal, Obama is likely to be re-elected if the economy is good.  Incumbent presidents always win re-election when the economy is good! Indeed, their party tends to hold power even if the incumbent can’t run again.  At worst, they lose in close and controversial contests as in 1960 and 2000. But that doesn’t tell us anything about the state of the opposition party.  Voters simply prefer to keep the current team on when things are going well and to change horses when they aren’t.

Also, Republicans have to find a way to win some minority votes because it is not viable as a whites-only party in presidential elections. That’s why I wrote my Wrong on Race book, which no one read.

Well, why would anyone bother to read a book whose take-away is a sentence?  And an obvious one at that?

But it’s really a truism, isn’t it?  As non-whites increase their share of the electorate, naturally a successful candidate will need to appeal to non-whites.  But, guess what?  Successful candidates do.  Bush won 46 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004.   McCain did far less well among Hispanics.  Then again, he did far less well among whites.

DrewM. passes on Michelle Malkin’s post and column noting that the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller by a white “Christian” got scads more media commentary and more intense presidential attention than did the murder of Private William Long and maiming and attempted murder of Private Quinton Ezeagwula by a black “Muslim.”

It’s a fair point and very much worth noting that there are craziest on both sides.

At the same time, the first shooting naturally fit into an ongoing storyline whereas the second seemingly comes out of the blue.  Malkin’s done yeoman work over the years in rounding up little-reported incidents by leftist extremists targeting American troops but it remains a tiny, disaggrated fringe movement whereas the anti-abortion movement is massive and even its extreme elements, like Operation Rescue, are rather large and public.

Nutcases aside, there’s been a loud and bitter debate over abortion going on since at least decision in Roe v. Wade some thirty-six years ago. So, naturally, when an abortionist gets murdered, there’s a ready frame into which to plug stories, sidebars, and commentaries.  Columns from 1986 can be dusted off and re-run by changing a few names and throwing in a new quote or three.

By contrast, those who genuinely dislike American soldiers are so far into the lunatic fringe that they’re not part of the public debate.  Just about every liberal male politician over the age of 50 — John Kerry, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, George McGovern, Ted Kennedy, Charlie Rangel — served in the military.  Hell, so did Jeremiah Wright.

To be sure, there are liberals who hate the way our military is used.   Others hate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  But, by and large, those are handled as debates over public policy.  It’s presidents who are the object of that wrath, not American soldiers.  Indeed, when someone dares criticize soldiers — as in the General Betray Us flap — they’re roundly slapped down, even by other liberals.

All that said, I agree with Michelle on the much narrower points.  Yes, President Obama should have said something about the recruiting station incident, especially after his comments on the Tiller murder.  He’s commander-in-chief, after all.  And it would have been good politics, too, earning credit for taking on left-wing crazies without alienating a significant part of his coalition.

And, yes, the press should have used the occasion of the latest shooting to point out that this was not a totally isolated incident.  The press really needs to get beyond its tired story frames and do broader reporting more often.

Photo by Flickr user DRB62 under Creative Commons license.

Hilary Bok is rather bent out of shape at a Washington Whispers poll which asks “If you had a choice of four daycare centers run separately by Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi, which would you choose for your kids?”

She suggests some alternative poll questions:

If you needed some yard work done, would you hire Mel Martinez, Henry Cisneros, Xavier Becerra, or Bill Richardson?

If you needed a rap DJ for a party, would you hire Barack Obama, Charlie Rangel, John Lewis, or Michael Steele?

If you needed an interior decorator, would you choose Jim McGreevey, Barney Frank, Larry Craig, or the disinterred corpse of Harvey Milk?

She believes that “they would probably recognize any of these other appeals to stereotypes as offensive. And yet, oddly enough, asking which one of four prominent women we’d like to have running our children’s day care center is A-OK. ”

Are these really comparable?  None of the men listed have any association aside from ethnicity, race, or sexual orientation with said stereotypes.  Conversely, all four women are, in fact, mothers.

Is it any worse than asking whether you’d rather have a beer with George W. Bush or John Kerry?  Heck, Bush doesn’t even drink! Ditto, “Who would you rather be in a foxhole with” questions.

Further, as it turns out, we do in fact ask “Who would you rather have watch your kids for a couple of hours on a Saturday?” and “Who would you rather have as your dad?” about male presidential contenders.

Beyond that, leaving aside that this was just a fun poll rather than a deep psychological exercise, it is simply true that women are generally the primary caregivers to their children and that we judge women with children on that basis more than we do men.   And while some of that is a function of culturally imposed norms, it’s not entirely a social construct but rather hard-wired into human biology.

My wife’s an educated, successful career woman.  She’s the Chief Operating Officer of a major polling firm.  My jobs give me more flexibility than hers, in that I can often work from home and time shift and she can’t.

We do not have equal roles in raising our daughter.

I’m an active father and try to do my fair share of diaper changes, burping, bouncing, and so forth.  I was there for the ultrasounds, labor, C-section, and have made all the pediatrician visits so far.  But, for example, because of my biological limitations, my wife did one hundred percent of the gestating.  She also endured the lion’s share of the pain associated with labor and delivery.  She’s still recovering from the C-section.  She plays a role in every feeding, whether by actively nursing or having pumped milk that I later bottle feed.   She got two months’ paid maternity leave, whereas I went back to work immediately.  (It helped that Katie was born on New Year’s Eve and our office was closed until January 5th).

My wife will go back to work soon and the division of labor will shift somewhat to a more balanced role.  In a few months, once Katie starts eating solid foods, things will balance even further.  But the reality will almost certainly be that she’ll cry out for mommy more than for daddy for years to come.

Getting back to the poll, then, it strikes me as an interesting way to get at public attitudes about these women.

Two of the women, Clinton and Obama, played second fiddle to their husbands’ careers during their children’s formative years while the other two, Pelosi and Palin, are the public faces of their marriages (although Pelosi’s husband is a multi-millionaire investor, he’s a virtual unknown; nobody outside Alaska and perhaps the “snow machine” racing community had ever heard of Todd Palin until his wife got tapped to be John McCain’s running mate).

They’ve all been pretty good moms, it would seem.  The Pelosis raised five children to adulthood, largely keeping them out of the national spotlight.  So far as I’m aware, they’re all productive members of society. The Clintons raised one daughter to adulthood entirely in the spotlight.  They managed to mostly shield her from the worst of it and she’s doing well for herself.  The Obama girls are living their formative years in the White House.  By all accounts, they’re doing well. The Palins, too, have five kids including, famously, one with Down Syndrome.   Their oldest is serving as an infantryman in Iraq while their middle daughter has had some well publicized issues.

If I had to send Katie to day care with one of them, I’d pick Obama, who’s warmer than Clinton and Pelosi (at least in public persona) and brainier than Palin.

Danielle Allen takes to the editorial pages of WaPo to decry the regional disparity of military service in a piece titled “Red-State Army?”

Veterans Day in Maysville, Ky. Photo Credit: By Terry Prather -- Associated Press

Whereas in 1969 13 percent of Americans were veterans, in 2007 only 8 percent of us were.

Even more important than these general demographic shifts is the change wrought by the end of the draft in 1973. Until then, military service was distributed pretty evenly across regions. But that is no longer true. The residential patterns for current veterans and the patterns of state-level contributions of new recruits to the all-volunteer military have a distinct geographic tilt. And tellingly, the map of military service since 1973 aligns closely with electoral maps distinguishing red from blue states.

In 1969, the 10 states with the highest percentage of veterans were, in order: Wyoming, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, California, Oregon, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, Connecticut and Illinois. In 2007, the 10 states with the highest percentage of post-Vietnam-era veterans were, in order: Alaska, Virginia, Hawaii, Washington, Wyoming, Maine, South Carolina, Montana, Maryland and Georgia.

She gives the usual conjecture as to why the disparity exists and argues that mandatory national service is absolutely essential to save us from our dividedness.

Except that as Streiff, posting at RedState (ironically enough), points out, her premise is wrong. Indeed, it’s rather silly. Virginia, Hawaii, Washington, Maine, and Maryland all voted for Barack Obama! All of those but Virginia voted for John Kerry and Al Gore!

So, maybe we don’t need to fire up the draft just yet.

The big political news this morning is the buzz surrounding speculation that Hillary Clinton could be tabbed as Secretary of State.

Politico’s Mike Allen:

Several Obama transition advisers are strongly advocating Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for secretary of state, a move that would create the ultimate “Team of Rivals” Cabinet, according to officials involved in the discussions.

President-elect Obama has narrowed the possibilities for secretary of state, and Clinton is among those being strongly considered, the officials said. Some even call her the favorite.

It is not known what Obama himself thinks of the idea. But the fact that it is being entertained within his camp shows how much things have changed in the months since he defeated her for the Democratic nomination in a protracted primary marathon.

Al Kamen and Philip Rucker, WaPo:

There’s increasing chatter in political circles that the Obama camp is not overly happy with the usual suspects for secretary of state these days and that the field might be expanding somewhat beyond Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and maybe former Democratic senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.

There’s talk, indeed, that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) may now be under consideration for the post. Her office referred any questions to the Obama transition; Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment.

The pick of the former presidential contender and Senate Armed Services Committee member would go a long way toward healing any remaining divisions within the Democratic Party after the divisive primaries. Also, Clinton has long been known for her work on international women’s issues and human rights. The former first lady could also enhance Obama’s efforts to restore U.S. standing amongst allies worldwide.

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell:

Two Obama advisers have told NBC News that Hillary Clinton is under consideration to be secretary of state. Would she be interested? Those who know Clinton say possibly.  But her office says that any decisions about the transition are up to the president-elect and his team.

Clinton was seen taking a flight to Chicago today, but an adviser says it was on personal business.  It is unknown whether she had any meeting or conversation with Obama while there.

Other Democrats known to want the State Department post are Sen. John Kerry and Gov. Bill Richardson. A possible compromise choice would be former Sen. Tom Daschle.

Clinton is from the Chicago area, so I wouldn’t read much into the trip.

While a “Team of Rivals” concept is a good one, Clinton for State isn’t.  She’s simply not qualified.  Aside from some dog-and-pony show trips as First Lady and Senator, she’s got no foreign policy credentials whatsoever.  Her training, experience, and demonstrated interests are in domestic issues.

Nunn would be the most interesting of the above picks, followed by Richardson and Hagel.  Only Daschle makes less sense than Clinton.

In terms of a fence mending make-nice move, she’s too old for a Supreme Court appointment, which would otherwise be attractive.  I’m not sure there are any other Cabinet jobs that would be particularly attractive, given her stature and presumptive competitiveness for Majority Leader once Harry Reid steps down.

UPDATE: Slate’s Emily Yoffe has a brilliant and amusing observation:

I wonder if the Obama administration would waive the 63-item questionnaire all potential administration officials are required to fill out before naming Hillary secretary of state. There are so many questions that might be troublesome, from No. 6, concerning “whether you or your spouse” ever received money from any foreign entities (See Bill’s amazing Kazakhstan adventure), to No. 8, asking for a description of the “most controversial matters you have ever been involved in,” to No. 12, “Please identify all speeches you have given” to my favorite, No. 13, in which the candidate is asked to describe any electronic communication they have ever sent that might be “a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect.” There isn’t enough bandwith in the world for Hillary to attach all the documents that answer these questions.

Heh.

Larry Bartels examines the voting behavior of white Americans on Election Day and finds that, as he expected, we were very, very racist:

According to the exit polls, Obama outpolled the previous Democratic nominee, John Kerry, among people from small towns and rural areas and among gun owners. He also did better than Kerry among white males, white Protestants, and white evangelicals. In short, the culture clash seems to have fizzled among many of the people supposedly most alienated by the cosmopolitan bent of the contemporary Democratic Party.

[...]

Obama actually recorded some of his biggest gains among white voters in some of the most culturally conservative parts of the country. He outpolled Kerry by 6 to 10 percentage points among white voters in Indiana, North Dakota, Utah, Montana, Nebraska, and—yes—Thomas Frank’s Kansas. In contrast, exit polls recorded smaller gains for Obama among white voters in bastions of elitism like New York, Connecticut, and California.

[...]

The perception that white Americans succeeded in transcending racial antipathy is reinforced by the fact that only 9% of voters in the exit poll said that race was a major factor in their decision, and they mostly voted for Obama.

So, that’s a good thing, right?  At least from the standpoint of race relations?  I mean, here we have a clean, articulate African American with virtually no governing experience outperforming a white war hero with serious foreign policy chops and years in the United States Senate!

Not so fast, says Bartels.

[T]here is a good deal of circumstantial evidence suggesting that racial resentment eroded Obama’s support among white voters. His gains relative to Kerry were significantly smaller in states with large numbers of African-Americans—a pattern disguised in the overall vote totals by his strong support among African-Americans themselves. In the former Confederacy he gained only slightly over Kerry among white voters, despite making big gains in two key swing states, North Carolina and Virginia. The only states in the country in which he lost more than a point or two of white support were Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

Now, waitaminute.  Obama gained among white voters even in nine of the thirteen states in the former Confederacy and this is evidence of white racism?  (Whereas, of course, blacks turning out in record numbers to support the black guy is mere civic pride rather than racism.)  Huh?

Did the exit polls ask any other questions than 1) Who did you vote for?  and 2) What color are you?  Because I’m guessing that there might be all manner of reasons that Obama fared worse than Kerry in those four states.  Maybe there was differential turnout based on downballot issues and candidates?  Maybe the “experience” issue resonated more deeply there?  Maybe the Hillary Factor played more of a role there, especially in Arkansas?  Maybe they perceived Obama as more liberal?  Maybe there are more guys named Joe or more plumbers in those states?

Matt Yglesias adds,

Obama improved on John Kerry’s vote share by 4.2 percentage points. His share of the white vote, by contrast, went up by only two percentage points whereas his share of the African-American vote went up seven points and of the Hispanic vote by 14 points. In other words, there was more rather than less divergence in white and non-white voting behavior.

But “divergence” isn’t a measure of racism.  Presumably, there were myriad factors that went into blacks voting for Obama in record numbers; surely, the historic nature of a serious black candidate for the presidency was at or near the top of the list, though.  As for Hispanics, one presumes the “of color” thing played a role, along with immigration and other issues.

In the discussion on Obama’s apparent 365-173 Electoral College victory, Rodney Dill asks, “How close is this, historically? The popular vote difference seems like it was pretty big by modern standards, but usually that would result in an even more lopsided electoral vote.”

It’s an interesting question. Dave Leip’s Atlas has the results for every election.

• In 1980, the first election I seriously paid attention to, Ronald Reagan’s 50.75% of the vote gave him a 9.25% margin over Jimmy Carter, with 41.01%, with Republican sore loser John Anderson getting 6.61%. That translated into an Electoral College landslide of 489-49.

• In 1984, Reagan beat Walter Mondale 58.77% to 40.56% to get an Electoral College landslide of 525 to 13, with Mondale winning only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia.

• In 1988, George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis 53.37% to 45.65% and won the Electoral vote 426 to 111.

• In 1992, Bill Clinton beat Bush 43.01 to 37.45, with Ross Perot getting 18.91% and finished with an Electoral College margin of 370 to 168.

• In 1996, Clinton beat Bob Dole 49.24 to 40.72, with Perot pulling 8.4% — comparable to Reagan’s margin over Carter — and won 379 to 159.

• In 2000, George W. Bush beat Al Gore in the Electoral College 271 to 266 (one Gore Elector from DC abstained) despite losing the popular vote 47.87% to 48.38%.

• In 2004, Bush beat John Kerry 50.73% to 48.27% and took the Electoral vote 286 to 251.

• In 2008, Obama beat John McCain 52.34% to 46.31% — roughly Bush 41’s margin over Dukakis — to get a much smaller Electoral College margin.

I suppose I should do some sort of sophisticated social science statistical analysis of these data but one presume’s it’s been done already.  Eyeballing it, though, it seems that there’s very little correlation between popular vote margin and Electoral vote margin.

One thing to keep in mind with the foregoing analysis, too, is that it’s very much skewed by California.  In the first three of these elections, it was a reliable Republican state; since then, it’s been reliably Democratic.  (Obama won 2/3 of the vote this year; Reagan won by a 17 point margin in 1980 and 16 points in 1984.)  Presidential candidates don’t bother to campaign there, except for fundraising purposes.   Regardless, its 55 Electoral votes grossly distorts the picture.

Typos fixed.

After George W. Bush won the 2000 election, despite having received substantially fewer votes nationwide than Al Gore, many of us took great comfort in this famous map, showing the election results county-by-county:

2000 Election County-By-County Map

In 2004, Bush won re-election by a majority — but John Kerry nearly took it anyway because of a close call in Ohio — and we saw the reemergence of the map:

2004 Election County-By-County Map

Well, here it is again, for 2008:

2008 Election County-By-County Map

Because of population patterns, you’d guess that the Red team won.  The actual results, which aren’t final, have Obama winning 63.5 million to McCain’s 56.1 million, or 52.4% to 46.3%.

To make Brad Delong happy, here’s the “purple” version of the map, showing it based on the relative percentage of Republicans and Democrats in each county (as opposed to the winner-take-all version, which distorts the perception):

2008 Election County-By-County Map

Purple likely distorts it, too, simply because of the hue values, but it’s closer than Red-Blue in this case.

RELATED:

• 2004 Election County-By-County>

• 2004 Purple America

• 2000 Election County by County

2008 maps courtesy Mark Newman.  Earlier maps from USA Today.

RealClearPolitics summary for 15 OCT 08: Electoral College blowout?

Tonight’s third and final debate between John McCain and Barack Obama is the last scheduled opportunity for the candidates to make an impression on the voters.  Election Day is less than three weeks away and, by the looks of things, McCain needs a miracle.

According to the poll averages at RealClearPolitics, McCain is getting crushed.  A race that had been essentially tied for months — and which McCain was briefly leading after Sarah Palin’s convention speech rallied the base and inspired undecided voters — has turned into an Obama blowout because of the global financial crisis.

Obama is up an average of 8 points in the polls and leading by at least three in every single poll being tracked.  He’s actually up 14 points in the latest CBS News poll, which isn’t included in the average.

Worse yet, the state-by-state polls show the race even further out of reach.  He’s losing in every single battleground state — and several that were supposed to be solid Red states, like North Carolina.

Electoral College Projection Obama 364 McCain 174

And, no, RCP isn’t a Democrat-leaning site; if anything, it skews slightly GOP.   Electoral-Vote.com has it Obama 354, McCain 181.   On this day in 2004, they had George W. Bush up 284 to 228 over John Kerry.  Democratic-leaning stats geek Nate Silver has it at Obama 361.4 to McCain’s 176.6 (totals I can guarantee won’t match the actual results).

Currently, taking the least depressing estimate from above, Obama is currently leading in 10 states that Bush carried in 2004:  Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia.   McCain is currently leading in zero states Kerry won.

Absent some absolutely tremendous scandal, turnaround looks doubtful here.

Let’s presume that McCain will hold on to all the states he’s currently being allocated.  Add in all the states that are merely leaning blue that went red last time:  Florida (27), Virginia (13), Ohio (20), North Dakota (3), and Nevada (5).   That only brings McCain to 249 Electoral votes, 21 shy of victory.   To win, then, he’ll have to keep all the states currently leaning red — on the most generous estimate of those leaning red — pick up all those currently barely leaning blue — and also pick off another 21 votes from states that are now “weak Democrat.”  So, throw in Missouri (11), Colorado (9) and New Mexico (5).  That brings McCain to 274 — a win!

Is this conceivable?  Yes.  At all likely?  No.

I wrote a quick post before bed last night giving my off-the-cuff reaction to Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech, arguing that, despite all the talk of “change,” it was basically a speech that Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry could have given.

The NYT has a six-page transcript of the speech as delivered.  Let’s skip the biography and gotcha attack lines and go through the policy pronouncements.  These are problems for which he’s blamed George W. Bush and has promised to fix if elected president.

[M]ore Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can’t afford to drive, credit cards, bills you can’t afford to pay, and tuition that’s beyond your reach.

Exactly zero of these are within the power of the president to fix. Seriously, what does he propose to do about housing prices reaching equilibrium and people borrowing to live lifestyles they can’t afford?

We’re a better country than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment that he’s worked on for 20 years and watch as it’s shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.

So, we’re going to ban trade with China? Ban American companies from participating in the global marketplace? Radically raise the cost that 300 million Americans pay for consumer goods to keep a relative handful of people employed in sectors where First World nations have lost their comparative advantage?

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty…

So, we’re going to return to locking up drug addicts and people with non-dangerous mental disorders? We’re going to guarantee everyone a minimum income?

We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off and look after a sick kid without losing her job, an economy that honors the dignity of work.

Don’t people start new businesses every day in this country? And isn’t his party the one that wants to erect regulatory barriers making it harder to start new businesses? For that matter, don’t waitresses get days off already? I’m pretty sure they do.

Implicit in this sentence, though, are the inherent contradictions in Democratic domestic policy. The more mandates we put on small businesses, the harder it is for them to succeed. Sure, it would be great if even unskilled labor got terrific benefits, including paid family leave. But somebody’s got to pay for that. If it’s the customer, it makes the product or service less attractive. If it’s coming out of the owner’s pocket, it makes hiring employees less attractive. If it’s the government, it takes money out of everyone’s pocket — including those with dreams of starting their own business. Including the very waitress who we’re trying to help. Whose salary, incidentally, will naturally go down as a result of the policy — if she’s hired to begin with.

Ours — ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.

Now this is terrific line. It starts off appealing to conservatives and moderates and then promises a chicken in every pot. Who can be opposed to these things, after all? Why, mean old out-of-touch people like John McCain, that’s who!

But how does this translate into policy?

Protect us from harm. Keeping foreign enemies from attacking us and domestic criminals from terrorizing the innocent is the fundamental purpose of government, one could argue. But we’ve been trying to do these things since Day 1. One suspects, though, he’s defining “harm” much more broadly.

Decent education for all. I’m for it. But isn’t that a local responsibility? The federal government doesn’t run too many schools, after all, aside from those on military bases and diplomatic outposts. And what does “decent” mean, exactly?

Are we going to have government only do “that which we cannot do for ourselves”? Or is it going to invest in science and technology?

Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Don’t workers and small businesses have lobbyists? And why is government in the business of deciding who “deserves” to keep the money they earned?

I will stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

They’re the same companies!

I will — listen now — I will cut taxes — cut taxes — for 95 percent of all working families, because, in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.

This is another great line. It sounds very New Democrat. But, really, it’s the same old class warfare: We’re going to cut taxes for most people — even though we’ve just listed trillions in new spending programs — while raising them on those already paying the largest burden. But, hey, 19 out of 20 people will like it! Democracy! As Dave Schuler likes to say, “When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul.”

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

We will do this. Washington — Washington has been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years. And, by the way, John McCain has been there for 26 of them.

And Joe Biden 35 of them, by the way.

This is sheer fantasy. Of late, it’s become a bipartisan one, since even President Bush has spouted similar platitudes. It’s simply not going to happen.

And I’ll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy — wind power, and solar power, and the next generation of biofuels — an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced.

Man, if $150 billion would do this Exxon would already be doing it.

I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries, and give them more support. And in exchange, I’ll ask for higher standards and more accountability.

I suppose they’ll work side-by-side with the 100,000 new policemen Bill Clinton put on the beat.

Teachers are hired, trained, and supervised at the state and local level. Even if we federalize them, how is it that we’re going to attract better caliber people to do a job that’s often thankless and repetitive? Simply by paying them more? And what are these “higher standards”? Test scores? Democrats don’t like that measure. No Child Left Behind, Part Deux.

Granted, Clinton and others have made this promise and it’s almost certainly rhetoric that won’t translate into policy. If it did, though, we’re likely to see the repeat of federalizing airport security screeners: The same people doing the job as before but making more money and even harder to fire for poor performance.

And we will keep our promise to every young American: If you commit to serving your community or our country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

What does this mean, exactly? If, say, you work in a soup kitchen a couple hours a week, we’ll send you to Harvard?

If you have health care — if you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves.

So, if I don’t have a job, I get the same coverage we provide for 535 elites making executive salaries? Groovy. No scaling problems there.

I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

I think we have different definitions of “insurance.”

Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their job and caring for a sick child or an ailing parent.

See our earlier discussion on this. Look, I’m for this. That’s a situation I’ve never been in and would dearly hate to be in. But who’s going to pay for it? A small business owner with, say, five employees almost certainly can’t afford to pay one of them for an extended period while not reaping the benefits of their work. Nor, realistically, can he afford to pay a temp to come in and do that work while paying the person he’s replacing. Large companies can probably absorb this sort of thing more easily — and many in fact do so — but, then again, large companies have more employees and therefore a greater likelihood of having to pay this out.

Or is this going to be some sort of government insurance program? If so, are we going to pay everyone on a capped basis, as with unemployment insurance? Or are we going to pay, say, an executive with a sick kid $20,000 a month while she’s out? What if her company sends good American jobs to China?

And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day’s work, because I want my daughters to have the exact same opportunities as your sons.

Dude, the 1970s are over.

Obama’s a bright guy. He anticipated these objections and dealt with them squarely:

Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I’ve laid out how I’ll pay for every dime: by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don’t help America grow.

But I will also go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less, because we cannot meet 21st-century challenges with a 20th-century bureaucracy.

Clearly, the man has seen “Dave.”

I mean, seriously, we’re going to pay for all this by closing loopholes?! We quite literally couldn’t pay for it if we closed the entire federal government excepting the Defense Department and the Social Security Administration.

Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient.

The cameras didn’t show Jimmy Carter but I’m sure he was smiling. And wearing a sweater. While turning his thermostat down to 72.

[W]e must also admit that programs alone can’t replace parents, that government can’t turn off the television and make a child do her homework, that fathers must take more responsibility to provide love and guidance to their children.

Agreed. One small problem: They ain’t gonna.

Turning to foreign policy, the speech was actually much stronger there. I actually agreed with much of it, including some of the contrasts he drew with Bush and McCain. Two exceptions:

You know, John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but he won’t even follow him to the cave where he lives.

We have no clue as to which cave bin Laden lives. Or if he lives in a cave. Or he’s still alive.

Do we seriously believe that, if he could, Bush wouldn’t be killing or capturing bin Laden? His approval ratings would jump 25 points.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don’t tell me that Democrats won’t defend this country. Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t keep us safe.

I agree with the underlying premise here: Of course Democrats want to keep the country safe and, goodness knows, Democrats aren’t any more reluctant to send troops into harm’s way than Republicans. One probably doesn’t want to invoke JFK here, though. Bay of Pigs. Taking us much closer to the brink of nuclear holocaust than we’ve ever been. Vietnam.

Look, I realize that I’m not the target audience here and that convention speeches are often full of platitudes and sops to the base.  My guess is that John McCain’s will be, too — and we’ll criticize that, too.   But don’t base your entire campaign on “CHANGE” and give me warmed over ideas from the Carter administration.

Obama Photo: Linda Davidson/The Washington Post. Magic pony  via Adam Stein.

I just haven’t been able to muster the enthusiasm to watch much of the Democratic Convention coverage. It’s a shame, too, as I understand John Kerry, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden all gave the best speeches of their lives last night. Really, though, what were the odds?

I’ll watch Obama’s performance at Mile High Stadium tonight, though.  I understand it’s the halftime show at a Broncos preseason game, yes?  Not to mention, of course, historic.

Adam Serwer laments the fact that Barack and, particularly, Michelle Obama have to humanize themselves to the electorate and fight back against an elitist caricature.

[T]he Obamas are still fighting Jackie Robinson Syndrome, the reflexive double standards and often small, sometimes large, but always public humiliations that come from being the first black person to do something.

Ezra Klein thinks this “beautifully put” but thinks there’s more to this than race.

Rather, the campaign against Obama has metastasized into a variant of class warfare. It’s the resentment of the meritocracy. What the GOP realized was that Obama did come across different than the average American, but not so much because he was black as because he was effortless. The very set of supercharged talents and qualities that allowed Obama to levitate past the boundaries of race and class make him different than those who haven’t rocketed upward on the strength of their intelligence and charisma and charm. After all, if you’re a fumbling, struggling individual out in suburban Ohio, how can you believe that this guy who doesn’t look to have struggled a day in his life cares about your pathetic problems? Obama, in other words, is elite. As in “A group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status.” Obama isn’t an economic elite, but he is a social and intellectual elite. And it’s that creeping sense that he’s different, that he’s better and knows it, that McCain is trying to exploit.

But that’s a time-honored tactic.  Witness the campaign against Michael Dukakis in 1988, George H.W. Bush in 1992, Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004.  Or any seriously contested presidential primary, of either party, in my memory.  Being “out of touch” with “regular Americans” is a political liability.   Caring about “people like me” is good.  Being elite is fine.  Being elitist, not so much.

Getting back to Serwer’s quote, it marks the second time in recent days I’ve seen the Jackie Robinson comparison trotted out.  A National Journal poll over the weekend, the results of which were released today, asked, “Who is Obama most like — John F. Kennedy, Jackie Robinson, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter or Colin Powell?”

My response:

It’s an insult to great achievers like Robinson, Powell, and Kennedy to mention Obama in the same breath.  Obama’s got the youthful charisma and inexperience JFK brought to the White House, minus the war hero credit.  That leaves, by default, Jimmy Carter, who was a decent, smart guy in way over his head.

Jackie Robinson was a demonstrably talented baseball player, denied access to the Major Leagues by dint of the skin color he was born with, who instantly became a top player once given a chance.  Barack Obama has faced no such barriers, getting admitted to the finest schools in the country by virtue of his qualifications and then put on the fast track in academe, politics, publishing, and other pursuits through combination of extraordinary gifts, hard word, and, ironically, the color of his skin.  While there’s no doubt that being “the first black” poses challenges, it comes with perks.

Regardless, he’s very young to be on the verge of a major party presidential nomination and has none of the usual resume entries one expects to see in one who got there so quickly.  Bill Clinton was about the same age but had been governor of Arkansas for a dozen years.  Kennedy was a war hero and Pulitzer Prize winner.  Obama gives good speeches.

That said, comparisons only go so far.  As I’ve written on numerous posts in recent months, we’ve had great presidents who seemed barely qualified for the job and lousy ones who had extraordinary preparation.   It’s quite reasonable to look at Obama’s and McCain’s pasts as clues to their futures — they’re really the only clues we have, after all, aside from gut feelings about their personalities — but the presidency is sui generis and people surprise you.

James Kirchich, recent nominee for an Yglesias Award for fairness, says that, while the Obama campaign is setting itself up to believe that “The only obstacle between Barack Obama and the presidency is the mountain of smears that will no doubt come his way,” the truth of the matter is that most of the smears are coming from his side.

Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain’s campaign has resorted to the alleged “scare” tactics in which Republicans — and, apparently, only Republicans — have been perfecting since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it’s that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears.

There have been only two incidents in which people officially associated with McCain have done anything approaching what Thomas and Wolfe predicted those dastardly, conniving Republicans would inevitably do. In February, a conservative talk radio host speaking at a McCain rally made reference to “Barack Hussein Obama.” McCain immediately condemned the statement, leading the embittered and embarrassed professional yacker to complain that McCain “threw me under the bus.” The only other smear-worthy episode occurred in March, when the McCain campaign suspended a low-level aide who provided a link on his Twitter account to a video featuring the rants of Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Heavy stuff, to be sure.

Contrast the absence of smears from the McCain camp with some of the outlandish remarks made by high-ranking Obama supporters. In April, West Virginia Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV said that because McCain “was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet,” and “was long gone when they hit,” the Arizona senator who spent five and a half years in a Vietcong tiger cage having his arms repeatedly broken didn’t really understand the carnage of war. “What happened when [the missiles] get to the ground?” Rockefeller asked a crowd at an Obama rally. “He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.” That the great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller would impugn the wartime experience of John McCain is especially rich, given that the only “battle” Rockefeller has seen is when he hunts wild game at his 80-acre ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyo. g in crude smears.

He gives other examples, many of which detailed yesterday in “Democrats Attacking McCain’s Military Record: Is A Pattern Emerging?”

Greg Sargent, meanwhile, asserts that,

The truth is that there’s zero evidence that there’s any coordination going on or that the Obama campaign wants this conversation to be taking place. Not that this matters: The McCain campaign is very determinedly pointing to anything it can — Webb’s comments included — to drive the message that Obama is demeaning McCain’s military service.

Not to resort to the undergraduate paper standby of “they both have good points and bad points,” the argument seems rather silly.  Professionally run campaigns make a concerted effort to maintain plausible deniability, ensuring that the candidate and senior campaign staff can disavow any negative attacks that get judged as beyond the pale while nonetheless benefitting from their effects.

Do I think there’s a concerted effort on the part of Democrats to call into question the degree to which John McCain’s military service makes him more qualified than Barack Obama to step in as commander-in-chief?  Of course.  Are some of the attacks over-the-top?  Yup.  Have they reached the worst levels of the Swift Boat attacks against John Kerry in 2004?  Not yet.

Is there a smear campaign to undermine public confidence in Barack Obama’s patriotism and that of his wife?  To say that he’s a Muslim and might be terrorist-friendly?  Yup.  Were they promulgated by Republicans?  No, by Hillary Clinton supporters, actually.  Will Republicans pick up the ball?  Probably.

The “Who’s smearing more?” game is silly at this point since McCain has been the presumptive Republican nominee for months and has thus been the object of Democratic attacks for much longer.  By contrast, there hasn’t been much need for the GOP to smear Obama, since Clintonistas like  Larry Johnson were more than happy to do it.   I’m pretty sure McCain won’t touch any of that nonsense.  Pro-Republican or Pro-McCain or Anti-Obama 527s, though, are another story.

John McCain’s Truth Squad, formed a few months ago in order to respond to charges by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth clone Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain, is prominently featuring an actual member of the Swifties as a spokesman, CNN’s Rebecca Sinderbrand reports.

One of the members of John McCain’s new Truth Squad — which his campaign says was launched to respond to unfair attacks on his record of military service –- was a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and appeared in an attack ad for the group in 2004. The group was created to attack 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry’s military service record.

“How can you expect our sons and daughters to follow you when you condemned their fathers and grandfathers?” asked former Air Force Col. Bud Day, who was a prisoner of war with McCain in Vietnam, in a 2004 Swift Boat Vets spot.

McCain has said that he opposed the group’s efforts.

Politico’s Ben Smith asked Day about the seeming inconsistency.

“The Swift Boat ‘attacks’ were simply revelation of the truth,” said Day, a former prisoner of war and Medal of Honor recipient who served I the Air Force. “The similarity does not exist here.”

“What the Swift Boat campaign was about was to lay out John Kerry’s record. John Kerry has never produced any evidence to deny that,” he said. In contrast, he said, he and others on the call had produced “evidence pointing out that [Clark's] remarks were completely inaccurate.” “One was about laying out the truth. This one is about attempting to cast a new shadow on John McCain,” he said of the salvos at the two military men.

To the extent that Day’s attacks were limited to criticism of Kerry’s postwar accusations against his fellow veterans, rather than the business about whether Kerry truly “earned” his Vietnam medals, I’d agree that the equivalence is dubious. And, certainly Bud Day has earned quite a bit of latitude.

The truth/not truth argument, however, is an amusing one.